The Garden History Blog

Detail of a 17thc raised work panel, Bonhams

Nowadays we think nothing of eating exotic fruit shipped in from round the world regardless of season and sold in supermarkets, and few of us grow much of our fruit supply. Apparently we prefer bananas to apples, perhaps not surprisingly since most apples on sale are bland in taste and stored for months on end in inert gases.  But this is a relatively recent, largely post-1945 change and until storage and transport improved to allow the mass importation of exotic fruit most people had to reply on the home-grown crop often grown in their own gardens.

detail of a pear tree from a 17thc raised work panel, Bonhams

I used to wonder why there were so many different varieties of basic fruits such as apples and pears until I realised their importance to the pre-globalised domestic economy not just for eating, but preserves, cordials, liqueures, cider and physic so varieties which stored for long periods, or fruited at different times were crucial.

This importance of fruit  is reflected in early gardening books,  with probably the most famous of all being Ralph Austen’s   A Treatise of Fruit Trees which was published in June 1653, together with his tract on  The Spiritual Use of an Orchard.  It describes the propagation and care of fruit trees,  and the benefits which will accrue to the Commonwealth from keeping them. Its experimental and horticultural discussions are accompanied by extensive spiritual meditations, which may be drawn from trees and from orchards to improve the soul of the husbandman. In other words it was also a deeply political text reflecting Austen’s Parliamentary and religious adherence.

But that’s not what I want to concentrate on this week, although it is the starting point. Instead I was to talk about how and why an orchard was put in a box… Continue reading →