Dearest readers, I am back! I have longed to write you with news of my exploits. I have had the pleasure of having Dinner with Mr. Darcy! No, not actually, but I have come across a most wonderful book: Dinner with Mr. Darcy by Pen Vogler. I must tell you, reader, it is a beautiful book! The recipes are very easy to follow and even include historical receipts. The pictures of the entrees are simply stunning and transport you to another time of breeches and waistcoats and cravats. I must stop, tis too much! Each section of the book includes a wonderful introduction to the history of the various meals (breakfast, tea, dinner, etc) along with various passages from Miss Austen’s novels. Mind you the recipes are U.K. standards and so may take some conversions, but I have found that very little is required in that the author did a thorough job at ensuring all could enjoy the recipes. Overall, this book is an excellent addition to anyone’s Austen bookshelf.
It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton was growing impatient to name the day [for Box Hill], and settle with Mr. Weston as to pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing into sad uncertainty. . . .
“Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?” she cried.—”And such weather for exploring!” . . .
“You had better explore to Donwell,” replied Mr. Knightley. “That may be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening fast.”
If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so, for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the “Oh! I should like it of all things,” was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation: but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere.”
Jane Austen, Emma, Vol III, Chap 6, 398-399
Mr. Knightley hosts the strawberry picking party at Donwell Abbey “at almost Midsummer” (E III, 6, 404; June 24 in the English quarter system). After the strawberries are picked and to escape Mrs. Elton, Jane Fairfax asks Mr. Knightley to show them “all the gardens . . . the whole extent.” (III, 6, 408). Contemporary Austen readers would have a sense of what the gardens would look like, both the kitchen garden (where the strawberry beds would be) and orchards and the “pleasure grounds”, which at Donwell terminate in the “broad short avenue of limes” (III, 6, 408; “lime trees” are lindens in the United States). The pleasure grounds include flower gardens, shrubbery, and wooded areas and will be discussed in the next blog. This blog will explore how a kitchen garden and orchards would be set up in the early 1800s, what plants would be growing there, and what work would be going on in them in the busy month of June.
The Estate Library
If Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Austen Knight, is any indication, owners of estates like Mr. Knightley would have a collection of books about gardening and farming in their library for reference. The 1818 catalogue of the Knight library, which is now searchable at https://www.readingwithausten.com/catalogue.html, lists several gardening and botany books from the eighteenth and early nineteenth century that were popular and went through many editions. Some of the Knight gardening books are organized by type of plant, such as John Evelyn’s Sylva or John Abercrombie’s The Universal Gardener and Botanist (UGB, 1778 first edition)[i]; others are organized by months of the year to describe what work needs to be done in each part of the garden, such as Philip Miller’s Gardeners Kalendar (GK, 1732 first edition); and others focus on methods for propagating and growing plants, such as William Marshall Planting and Ornamental Gardening (1785 first edition) and Abercrombie’s The Propagation and Botanical Arrangements of Plants and Trees (1784 first edition). Other popular gardening books I consulted that are not in the Knight collection are Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary (GD, 1754 edition at MASC), Abercrombie’s Every Man His Own Gardener (EMOG, 1813 edition), which is another gardener’s calendar, and John Loudon’s An Encyclopaedia of Gardening (1822 edition online and 1826 edition at WSU MASC; 1835 reprint edition), which summarizes the knowledge of over 100 gardening books from the 1700s and early 1800s. All these books are available online through Google books, and I studied original versions (although usually a different edition) of several of the books at the Washington State University Manuscript, Archives & Special Collections library (see photographs of the MASC books in Illustration Section 1 and the Works Cited list for links to the online versions). These 18th and 19th century books can give us a sense of what was involved in raising fruits and vegetables in Austen’s time.
Illustration Section 1: English Gardening Books from Early 1800s and 1700s
Pictures taken at Washington State University Manuscripts, Archives & Special Collections (MASC) by Michele Larrow
Philip Miller The Gardeners Dictionary, 3 vols, 1754 from WSU MASCJohn EvelynSylva 1679 edition from WSU MASCEvery Man His Own Gardener by John Abercrombie (pictured), 1813 edition (Thomas Mawe is listed as first author but he did not contribute). WSU MASCPhilip Miller The Gardeners Kalendar, 1765 edition which originally belonged to Lord Craven, at WSU MASCLord Craven’s name plate in The Gardeners Kalendar. He is the father of the Lord Craven Austen mentions in her letters.John C. Loudon Encyclopaedia of Gardening, 1826 edition which once belonged to Leonard and Virginia Woolf, at WSU MASC
Fruits and Vegetables Mentioned in Austen’s Letters and Works[ii]
Before I describe the kitchen garden and orchard, I will review some of the ways fruits and vegetables are mentioned in Austen’s letters and works. Fruits or vegetables, along with other foods, are sometimes used in the story’s context to show the moral failings of a character (see Lane 90-100). Dr. Grant and Mrs. Norris’s argument about the apricot tree, with Dr. Grant’s insult that “these potatoes have as much flavor of a moor park apricot, as the fruit of that tree” (MP I, 6, 94) and Mrs. Norris’s angry defense that the cost to Sir Thomas was “seven shillings, and [it] was charged as a moor park” apricot tree (I, 6, 93),show his selfish gourmand neglect of other people’s feelings and her money-focus and seeking power through Sir Thomas. In Northanger Abbey, when General Tilney’s asks Catherine about Mr. Allen’s “succession-houses” and feels “self-satisfaction” when told Mr. Allen did not care about the garden, along with General Tilney’s complaint-brag that his “pinery had yielded only one hundred in the last year” of very-expensive-to-grow pineapples, are all signs of his greed and relentless focus on social comparison (II, 7, 256, see Wolfson’s note 18; also, Lane 95). While waiting to pick up Lizzy and Jane at an inn, Lydia Bennet’s extravagance and thoughtlessness is shown when she orders “cucumber and sallad” (sallad would mean just lettuce, Lane 65) without having the money to pay for it—cucumbers were quite expensive because they were grown in hot frames, especially for May (PP II, 16, 258, see Spacks note 5). Austen also notes in a letter from Bath that a cucumber will be a “very acceptable present” because it cost 1 shilling (5-6 May 1801). In Sanditon, Mr. Parker’s willingness to leave his ancestral estate and his complaints about the “Eyesore of [the Kitchen Garden’s] formalities; or the yearly nuisance of its decaying vegetation.–Who can endure a Cabbage Bed in October?” in spite of his wife’s obvious “fondness of regret” (MW 380) for the old home show his lack of attention to other’s feelings as an “Enthusiast” seeking to develop Sanditon (371). Of these examples, General Tilney and Dr. Grant are the most morally deficient because they “render the atmosphere in their homes unpleasant” (Lane 93).
Emma is all about eating and growing food and has several characters who reveal themselves through their discussion of food. Mr. Elton’s excessively detailed description of dinner at the Coles to Harriet, with “the Stilton cheese, the north Wiltshire, the butter, the cellery, the beet-root and all the dessert” shows his self-absorption (and lack of romantic interest in Harriet; I, 10, 122; also Lane 91). Mrs. Elton “monopolizing the conversation” (LeFaye 96) while strawberry picking at Donwell shows her desire to dominate and be seen as knowing everything:
‘The best fruit in England . . .–These the finest beds and finest sorts. . . .–Hautboy infinitely superior . . .– Chili preferred—white wood finest flavour of all—price of strawberries in London—abundance about Bristol—Maple Grove—cultivation—beds when to be renewed—gardeners thinking exactly different—no general rule—gardeners never to be put out of their way—delicious fruit—only too rich to be eaten much of—inferior to cherries—currants more refreshing—only objection to gathering strawberries the stooping—glaring sun—tired to death—could bear it no longer—must go and sit in the shade.’”
Emma (II, 6, 406)
Mr. Woodhouse is in his own class in seeking to control what others eat: his “gentle selfishness and being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself” (I, 1, 33) leads to his depriving poor Mrs. Bates of “asparagus and sweetbreads” (as reported by Miss Bates; III, 2, 372), or offering guests “a little bit of tart, a very little bit. Ours are all apple tarts” (I, 3, 54). He wants the Bates’s to cook their apples “three times” (II, 9, 277) and hopes that the ham that was gifted from Hartfield will be “eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip and a little carrot or parsnip” (II, 3, 208). Although there is humor in his portrayal, Mr. Woodhouse is a poor host who intellectually is unable to consider other people’s true needs and desires. In these examples from Emma, Austen uses the characters’ interactions around food to show that they are inherently self-centered and contrasts with the true charity of other characters.
Fruits and vegetables can be special gifts of generosity and hospitality that reflect the giver’s moral worth and bring joy to the recipients. In Emma, Miss Bates learns from William Larkins (Mr. Knightley’s steward) that Mr. Knightley gave them “all the apples of that sort his master had; he had brought them all” (II, 9, 278), so that Mr. Knightley deprives himself of apples for the rest of the spring. Generous Miss Bates invites all her guests (Emma, Harriet, Frank, and Mrs. Weston) to share in the baked apples in that same chapter. In her letters, Austen tells Cassandra with delight about receiving “two hampers of apples” from the Fowle family at Kintbury (24-25 October 1808) and asks her nephew to thank his father (James) “with love” for the “Pickled cucumbers” he sent (16-17 December 1816). Mr. Darcy and Geogianna serve “beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches” (PP III, 3, 309) to Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner, an elegant and welcoming treat for their guests. Sometimes, however, the gift of food fails to comfort, as when young Fanny Price misses home so much that she is not able to eat “two mouthfuls” of the “gooseberry tart” (MP I, 2, 53) without crying and good-natured Mrs. Jennings attempts to soothe Marianne’s broken heart with “dried cherries” (SS II, 8, 237) and “Constantia wine” are rejected, although Elinor drinks the wine instead, reflecting that “its healing powers on a disappointed heart might be as reasonably tried on herself as on her sister” (II, 8, 242; Spacks note 13 says Constantia is a sweet dessert wine made with Muscat grapes).
In Austen’s letters, and occasionally in the novels, fruits or vegetables are mentioned in more everyday ways as items grown in the garden or near the house, parts of housekeeping, or food eaten. One of the rare mentions of a pear occurs in Persuasion: “the compact, tight parsonage, enclosed in its own neat garden, with a vine and a pear-tree trained round its casements” (I, 5, 74; “vine” by itself refers to grape vines in that period, see Abercrombie, EMOG 173). In letters to Cassandra, she mentions plans for the garden or the state of the plants: at Steventon “apples, pears, and cherries” are planned (20-21 November 1800) and “Grapes . . . must be gathered as soon as possible” (27-28 October 1798); at Southampton “currant and gooseberry bushes, and . . . raspberries” are planted (8-9 February 1807); while at Chawton, she discusses the number of “Orleans plumbs [and] . . . greengages” (29 May 1811) and “pease,” “strawberries,” “gooseberries,” and “currants” (6 June 1811). Gardens do not always go as planned, producing one of Austen’s funniest lines in a letter: “I will not say that your Mulberry trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive.” (31 May 1811). The growth of the garden and its produce is enjoyed by Austen in Chawton, probably especially after living in Bath.
Many of Austen’s letters to Cassandra mention food that was served or eaten. Austen was the deputy housekeeper when Cassandra was away and her mother indisposed so she reports to Cassandra about serving “pease soup” (1-2 December 1798) and “haricot mutton” (17-18 November 1798; Lane shared a 1782 haricot mutton recipe for a stew containing mutton, carrots, turnips, celery, asparagus, cabbage, and cayenne but no beans, 60). Sometimes the housekeeping duties are too much–Austen complains after guests have left Southampton about “the torments of rice pudding and apple dumplings” (7-8 January 1807). While at Godmersham, Austen asks Cassandra if their Chawton garden has the fruit that she is enjoying such as “Tomatas . . . [which] Fanny & I regale on” daily (11-12 October 1813); and when living in Southampton, she writes “I want to hear of your gathering strawberries, we have had them three times here” (20-22 June 1808). Endearingly, when Austen enjoyed “Asparagus & a lobster” at an inn on the way the Bath with her brother Edward’s family, she “wished for” Cassandra to be there too (17 May 1799). While Mrs. Jennings description of eating mulberries from the tree on Colonel Brandon’s estate is seen as somewhat vulgar “Lord! how Charlotte and I did stuff . . .” (SS II, 8, 240) and in the topsy-turvy world of “The Visit”, there is humor in the refined guests feasting on common foods such as “fried Cowheel and Onions,” “Elder wine,” and “Gooseberry Wine” (J 66-67; Sabor notes on 413 that cowheel and onions is “a coarse dish consumed by labourers”; also Lane 80), Austen clearly enjoys everyday foods, especially fruit: “Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness” (17-18 October 1815).
The Kitchen Garden
Kitchen Gardens were quite large on estates since they had the land, and it was much cheaper to grow your own food. When the Austen family lived at Steventon, they were largely self-sufficient for food between their kitchen garden and orchards, poultry and dairy, and farm crops (LeFaye 48; Wilson 1). The famous eighteenth century horticulturalist and botanist, Philip Miller (GD Vol. II, “Kitchen Garden”) recommended 1 acre (about 3/4s of a football field) for a small family (which includes servants, see Lane 144) and 3-4 acres (about 3 football fields; see Video 2 of Hillsborough Castle for a 4-acre walled garden) for a large family, built on one side of the house, near the stables (for dung) and near water. Abercrombie writes that a kitchen garden of about an acre can be cared for by one gardener and larger gardens would need more help (UGB “Kitchen Garden”). The kitchen garden would have square or rectangular beds divided by walkways. Miller suggested surrounding the garden with a 12-foot wall for training fruit trees and to keep out animals that would eat the food. The area within the wall would have a wide dirt border (about 12 feet) to support the wall-trained trees. There was also space for glass-topped frames for growing melons and cucumbers that need protection from the cold. Nursery beds are sheltered beds where seedlings and cuttings could grow, often spaced more closely together than how they will grow when transplanted in their permanent spot. Loudon (1826 edition) gives an example of a kitchen garden design and diagrams the parts, as seen in illustrations 4.1 and 4.2 below. In Video 1 of Walmer Castle and Video 2 of Hillsborough Castle, there are several aerial shots over the kitchen gardens so you can see the scope of them (see the end of the blog text for the video links).
Colonel Brandon’s estate Delaford is described by Mrs. Jennings as “quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered with the best fruit trees in the country” (SS II, 8, 240) and Donwell Abbey’s kitchen garden was probably very similar. Fruit trees that are trained against the south-facing garden wall have a more protected and warmer growing environment for earlier blooming or more cold-sensitive fruit. Trees grown on the north-facing walls would be somewhat later blooming and bear fruit later, to prolong the fruit’s season (Miller, GD Vol. 2“Kitchen Garden”). Almost every fruit tree mentioned in Austen’s works or letters could be trained against garden walls (at least in the southern English counties) include apples, pears, plums, cherries, apricot, peaches, nectarines, and grapes (the last three fruits are in Pride and Prejudice, where they would have been grown in forcing houses since Derbyshire is so far north—see my prior blog https://jasnaewanid.org/2022/07/30/mr-darcys-fruit/ ). Fruit trees such as apples and pears trained onto garden walls or espalier (trained on fences as Robert Martin’s apple trees are in Emma II, 5, 224)[iii] would be pruned into a single flat layer of branches growing horizontally from the trunk of the tree, about 4-6 inches apart and allowed to grow to full length (Abercrombie, EMOG; Miller, GD Vol. 3 “Training”) and stone fruits would be trained into a fan pattern (Loudon 1835 668-671; see below for illustration 4.3 for pruning shears, 4.6 for an iron espalier rail, and 4.7 for training patterns from the 1826 edition). Figs are also wall-trained although they can grow as standards (Loudon, 1835 959). Gooseberries and currants grow on bushes, often trained as “standards” with a single stem topped by several branches with fruit and might line walkways in the kitchen garden about 6-10 feet apart (Loudon, 1835 743; Miller, GD Vol. II “Kitchen Garden”). Raspberries, a native of Britain, usually are grown as shrubs best planted in a shadier spot of the garden, although they are also used to line walkways (Loudon 1835 935-937). Mulberries were sometimes trained against kitchen garden walls but more often would be a stand-alone tree, as it appears to have been at Delaford since Mrs. Jennings described it as “such a mulberry tree in one corner!” (SS II, 8, 240), either placed in the kitchen garden (especially in the 1700s), in the pleasure grounds, or in the orchard. Mulberries take several years to produce fruit and can live to an old age still producing (Loudon, 1835 927). Strawberries would be grown in beds in the kitchen garden, planted in rows a foot apart with plants spaced from 8-24 inches apart depending on the size of the strawberry variety (Miller, GD Vol. 1, “Fragaria”). George Brookshaw’s Pomona Britannica (1812) has beautiful illustrations of many fruits, showing the many varieties especially of strawberries, gooseberries, cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, nectarines, grapes, pears, and apples, as well as the currants and raspberries, which just have two or three varieties (see Section 2 for a selection of the plates).
Illustration Section 2: Fruits from George Brookshaw’s Pomona Britannica
Illustration Credits list the exact fruit pictured and give a link for the digital copy
2.1 Strawberries2.2 Raspberries2.3 Currants2.4 Gooseberries2.5 Cherries2.6 Plums2.7 Apricots2.8 Moor Park Apricot2.9 Peaches2.10 Nectarines2.11 Grapes2.12 Mulberry2.13 Pears2.14 Keeping Apples2.15 Apples
There would also be a large variety of vegetables grown in the kitchen garden. Austen’s family grew peas, tomatoes, and potatoes at Steventon and Chawton (Wilson 4, 46 and LeFaye 21, 248). Other vegetables mentioned in Austen’s works and letters that would be in the kitchen garden include celery, cucumber, beets, cabbage, carrots, turnips, onion, parsnip, and asparagus. Also grown in the kitchen gardens at the time, though not mentioned by Austen, are broccoli, cauliflower, artichokes, leeks, radish, beans, hot peppers, and many herbs (see Miller, GD and Abercrombie, EMOG). Most of the vegetables would be grown from seed and planted annually; Miller recommends changing where the plants are grown in the garden each year (GD Vol II “Kitchen Garden”). Loudon discusses the rotation of vegetable and some fruit crops in more depth: recommending annual rotation of the “brassica tribe [cabbage family], the leguminous family, the tuberous and carrot-rooted kinds, the bulbous or onion kinds; and the lighter crops, as salads and herbs” (Loudon, 1835 749). Strawberry beds should be renewed every 4-5 years. Artichokes, asparagus, currants, gooseberries, and raspberries should be renewed every 7-8 years (Loudon, 1835 748-749). To maximize the length of time that specific vegetables were available fresh, the vegetables grown from seed would be sown at regular intervals many times through the growing season, such as lettuce, celery, peas, beans, carrots, radishes, etc. (Abercrombie, EMOG) starting as early as January and lasting through December (Loudon, 1835 1245-1260). Asparagus is started as a seed, but the roots do not produce stalks until after 3 years; the stalks come up annually after that and are best when harvested in May and June (Abercrombie, UGB “Asparagus”). Vegetables such as celery, asparagus, and endive would be grown using a process called “earthing” where the stalks are covered with earth to keep the vegetable “white, tender, and palatable” (UGB “Apium”). Other vegetables like potatoes would be planted in March or April from chunks of potato with one or two eyes and then harvested in the fall (Abercrombie, EMOG 37, 159). Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal, originally published in 1737-39, has illustrations of several vegetables grown in the kitchen garden (see Illustration Section 3).
Illustration Section 3: Vegetables from from Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal
Illustration Credits list the vegetable pictured and give a link for the digital copy
3.1 Artichoke3.2 Asparagus3.3 Beans3.4 Red Beet3.5 Carrot3.6 Cucumber3.7 Leek3.8 Lettuce3.9 Peas3.10 Hot Pepper3.11 Radish3.12 Tomato (“Love Apple”)3.13 Turnip
Orchard
Mr. Wentworth, Mrs. Croft and Captain Wentworth’s clergyman brother, is described thus by Sir Walter’s lawyer, Mr. Shepard: “came to consult me once, I remember, about a trespass of one of his neighbours; farmer’s man breaking into his orchard—wall torn down—apple stolen—caught in the fact; and afterwards, contrary to my judgment, submitted to an amicable compromise.”
Persuasion I, 3, 59
Since orchards have large trees, they can produce a great deal of fruit that is valuable for both home baking and dessert eating and for sale (and potentially pilfered, as Mr. Wentworth found in Persuasion). We know in Emma that Mr. Knightley sells most of his apples when he tells Miss Bates, as reported by her, that “William Larkins let me keep a larger quantity than usual this year” telling her a white lie to convince her to accept his gift of apples (II, 9, 278). At the strawberry picking party, the “orchard in blossom” that Emma sees looking down to Abbey-Mill Farm, Robert Martin’s prosperous farm that he rents from Mr. Knightley, is seen as one of Austen’s few mistakes in facts, since orchards usually bloom in May (III, 6, 409). Austen enjoyed orchards for both their beauty and utility; in a letter to Cassandra from Chawton, she tells her “You cannot imagine, it is not in Human Nature to imagine what a nice walk we have round the Orchard” (31 May 1811).
Philip Miller recommended that orchards be situated on gently rising ground (not a hill) open to the southeast so that trees are exposed to the right amount of “the Sun and Air” (GD Vol. II, “Orchard”). He also prefers that the trees be defended from winds from the west, north, and east and that a screen of timber trees be planted around the orchard if it is not naturally protected by hills. Trees should be planted “fourscore [80] feet asunder not in regular rows.” Wheat and other crops can be planted between the trees in order to plow and till the soil, which makes the trees “more vigorous and healthy”. Miller focuses on stone fruit, apples, pears, and cherries in the orchard. Trees should be planted in the spot they will stay in when young and been previously raised in similar soil to the orchard in the nursery bed. Once the trees are established, they should only be pruned to take off dead branches.
In The Gardener’s Encyclopaedia, John Loudon summarizes several different gardeners’ writings on orchards, saying that they can be between 1 and 20 acres, depending on land and demand for the fruit (1835 744-746). Alternatively, large fruit trees can be distributed among the ornamental plantings on an estate. Hardy fruits such as apples, pears, cherries, plums, medlar, mulberry, quince, walnut, chestnut, filbert, berberry make for a complete orchard. If fruit is grown for sale, “apples are first in utility” and pears, cherries, and plums “are acceptable” for cooking with (1835 744). Orchards are best planted in the autumn and Loudon recommends that trees be spaced about 30-40 feet apart.
We wrote in a previous blog https://jasnaewanid.org/2022/06/04/pomona-britannica-and-emma/ that apples and pears had hundreds of varieties in the 1700 and 1800s, some varieties would ripen in mid-summer and others in late fall/early winter and then would finish ripening off the tree in storage, to ensure almost a year-round supply of the fruit (especially of apples). Miss Bates says of Mr. Knightley’s apples “there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his trees—I believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was always famous in her younger days” (E II, 9, 278). Orchard tree fruit should be picked by hand (using ladders or using a fruit gatherer, like illustration 4.4) to keep it as unblemished as possible—windfalls and those shaken down are liable to bruise and spoil easily. According to Miller (GD Vol II “Malus”), late ripening apples should be left on the tree as long as possible (until frost) and then picked in dry weather, sweated in piles for 3-4 weeks, wiped dry, and stored in large oil jars. Jane Austen stored her “two hamper of apples” from Kintbury on the floor of the “garret” when living in Southampton to keep them cold (24-25 October 1808). Larger estates would have fruit rooms with regulated temperature where fruit was kept on shelves of open lattice for air circulation, which also allows easy access to take out the fruit for consumption throughout the winter (Loudon, 1835 760 and illustration 4.5). Apples and pears for keeping would be stored in jars or barrels in the temperature controlled (32℉ to 40℉) fruit cellar and not opened until needed in the spring, lasting into May or June (Loudon, 1835 759-761). With careful management, apples and pears could be eaten year-round.
Illustration Section 4: Illustrations from An Encyclopaedia of Gardening by John C. Loudon, 1826 edition
Pictures taken at Washington State University Manuscripts, Archives & Special Collections (MASC) by Michele Larrow. The book was propped to preserve the spine so the pictures are not flat. For 4.2 Diagram of a Kitchen Garden a=slips, b=walls c=walks, d=quarters (beds), e, h, k=rooms, f=compost & hot-beds, g=gardener’s house, m=fountain/water, p=open railing, q=irregular borders
4.1 Plan of Kitchen Garden4.2 Diagram of Kitchen Garden parts4.3 Pruning and Hedge Shears4.4 Fruit Shelves4.5 Fruit Gatherer4.6 Espalier Rail4.7 Patterns for Wall-training Trees
June in the Kitchen Garden and Orchard
In the 1700 and 1800s, there were several calendars for gardeners that helped them to keep track of what needed to happen when in the gardens. Philip Miller’s Gardeners Kalendar was owned by Austen’s brother Edward. John Abercrombie’s Every Man his Own Gardener gives even more details about the work that needs doing than Miller’s Kalendar. Miller offers us a list of the fruits that would be ripe in June, such as strawberries, currants, gooseberries, cherries (trained on walls) and in forcing houses peaches, nectarines, and grapes. He also notes that “carefully preserved” keeping apples such as Golden Russet and Stone Pippin, would still be good (GK 187). The vegetables available in the kitchen garden would be cauliflower, cabbage, young carrots, beans, peas, artichokes, asparagus, turnips, cucumbers, salad herbs, some celery, and melons (GK 183). Because of the protection of the kitchen garden walls, much produce would be available as early as June.
In the June Kitchen Garden, Abercrombie recommends constant weeding and watering when plants are dry. Beets, onions, carrots, and parsnips are to be thinned. Lettuce, peas, turnips, and cabbage can be first planted or sown again for use later in the summer (lettuce and peas) and in the fall and winter (turnips and cabbage). Celery would be planted at different times for a continuous supply over the summer and earthing (packing dirt around the base) takes place in June. Asparagus stalks should not be cut after June 24th to keep the roots strong. Cucumbers would be grown in frames and were sown in January and February for summer consumption. On June days, the frames would be opened to allow air and they would be shaded from the sun during the hottest parts of the day (EMOG 1787 283-300).
For the fruits in the Kitchen Garden, in May and June wall-fruits such as apricots, peaches, nectarines, apples, pears, cherries, and plums should be thinned, taking off many of the fruits and only leaving those that are the best shape and the biggest (and only as many as the size of the branch can support). The young fruit that is taken off can be used for tarts. Additionally, the fruit trees need to be pruned of shoots that are not productive to fruit either this year or next. Grapes vines should be pruned in May and June of all shoots that are weak or non-productive. The strawberry beds produce runners in June that can be planted for next year (or even for the winter if planted in frames; Abercrombie, EMOG 1787 252-253, 301-307).
Conclusion
An incredible amount of labor went into producing food in Jane Austen’s time. Mr. Knightley would undoubtedly have at least one gardener to work in his garden, separate from William Larkins, who functions as his steward, managing the estate, including going over the books with him. The gardens involve numerous tasks in every month of the year, whether it is pruning hardy fruit trees in January, planting seeds and bulbs in March, destroying insects in May, sowing autumn vegetables in July, planting cuttings of shrub-fruits in September, or storing late fruit in November (see Loudon, 1835 1243-1260 for a short Kalendarial Index). The goal in the kitchen gardens was to have fresh fruit and vegetables as early as possible and lasting as long as possible through the year.
In our next blog, I will cover the pleasure grounds, including flower beds, shrubbery, ornamental woods, as well as the growth of trees for sale as timber. I will also discuss the use of greenhouses and hot-houses for growing cold sensitive plants in that blog.
Videos
These videos all show examples of walled kitchen gardens on large estates in the British Isles. Thanks to region member Sara Thompson for video suggestions.
Video 1: https://youtu.be/WE2kkFMTFIYWalmer Castle Kitchen Garden (about 4 minutes)Spring in the walled kitchen garden with espalier trees, beans, asparagus, strawberries, cold frames.
Video 2:https://youtu.be/aLu_P69ZkuI Hillsborough Castle Walled Garden Autumn Harvest (about 4 minutes; Northern Ireland British Royal Palace) 4-Acre Walled Garden with espalier pear trees; shows lots of vegetables also.
Video 3: https://youtu.be/vop2ZpK7fbYAudley End House Kitchen Garden in Spring (about 14 minutes) Walled kitchen garden that includes espalier apples in bloom, potting tomatoes, a peach house and a vinery.
Video 4: https://youtu.be/ssAoqhrVT28Audley End House Kitchen Garden: Picking Apples in Fall (about 11 minutes) Picking apples growing in the walled garden on espalier wires and walls. Although this video is described as gardening practices in the Victorian era, the advice about how to pick the apples is the same as what was written in the 1700s and early 1800s.
NOTES
[i] The title page of several of Abercrombie’s works lists Thomas Mawe as the first author, but in fact he did not contribute to the works (see introduction to the EMOG book and the title listing of the 11th edition in WORKS CITED), so I am listing Abercrombie as the sole author for EMOB and UGB.
[ii] The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press editions of the six novels were used for reference (NA=Northanger Abbey, SS=Sense and Sensibility, PP=Pride and Prejudice, MP=Mansfield Park, E=Emma, and P=Persuasion). These editions have excellent annotations often with illustrations about gardening, food, and landscaping, as well as other topics. For ease of comparison to other editions, I have included the Volume and Chapter of each quotation, as well as the page number in the edition used. See the Works Cited section for the specific editions used of the Minor Works (MW) and Juvenilia (J). For Jane Austen’s Letters (L), I used the Diedre Le Faye 3rd Edition, 1995 and am indebted to the wonderful searchable index of subjects for that edition created by Del Cain in 2002 and available at: https://www.mollands.net/etexts/ltrindex/index.html.
[iii] The term “espalier” was used in the 1700s and early 1800s only to refer to fruit trees that are trained against rails or fences into a flat pattern. Fruit grown against walls would be called “wall trees”, see for example Loudon, 1835, 1252. In current usage, espalier refers to 1. a tree that is trained to grow into a flat pattern against a wall or other supports or 2. the supports itself (as a noun) and 3. the process of training the tree to grow in a flat pattern (as a verb; see dictionary.com).
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Illustration Set 2: Fruits
Most of the fruit illustrations are from George Brookshaw’s Pomona Britannica (1812). Digital copies were color-enhanced to correspond to the prints available in George Brookshaw Pomona Britannica: The Complete Plates, Koln, Germany: Taschen, 2002.
2.7 Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library. “Royal Dauphin, Wine sour, Prune, Myrabolan and Carnation plums.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1812. [Note: These are apricots and are labeled incorrectly as “plums”] https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-88b6-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
2.12 Blackwell, Elizabeth. A Curious Herbal… Engraved… by Elizabeth Blackwell…. United Kingdom, John Nourse, 1739/1751. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. “The mulberry tree” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1751. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/19cfebd0-fcde-0136-5175-0d7952ce55cb
Most of the vegetable illustrations are from A Curious Herbal, illustrated by Elizabeth Blackwell. This edition was published in 1751, it was originally published in 1737-39.
Abercrombie, John Every Man His Own Gardener Being a New, and Much More Complete Gardener’s Kalendar … By Thomas Mawe … John Abercrombie … and Other Gardeners [or Rather, by John Abercrombie Alone]. The Eleventh Edition, Corrected and Greatly Enlarged London: various publishers, 1787. https://books.google.com/books?id=R8NgAAAAcAAJ; 1813 edition used at WSU MASC.
Abercrombie, John. (Also lists Mawe, T. as an author but he did not contribute). The Universal Gardener and Botanist London: G. Robinson, Pub., 1778. This is the same edition that Edward Austen Knight owned. https://books.google.com/books?id=eMtCAQAAMAAJ
____. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Patricia Meyer Spacks. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard UP, 2010.
____. Sense and Sensibility. Ed. Patricia Meyer Spacks. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard UP, 2013.
Brookshaw, George Pomona Britannica:The Complete Plates, Koln, Germany: Taschen, 2002.
Lane, Maggie. Jane Austen and food. London: Hambledon Press, 1995.
Le Faye, Deirdre. Jane Austen’s Country Life. London: Frances Lincoln, 2014.
Loudon, John Claudius. An Encyclopaedia of Gardening, comprehending the theory and practice of horticulture, floriculture, arboriculture and landscape gardening. London: Longman, 1822. https://books.google.com/books?id=6vqUeGAey64C (1826 edition available at WSU MASC; a 1835 second edition was also consulted in print from the 1982 reprint by Garland Publishing in the English Landscape Garden series, 2 volumes).
Miller, Philip. Gardeners Kalendar, Fourth Ed. London: C. Rivington, Pub,1737. https://books.google.com/books?id=dSFWAAAAYAAJ 1732, first edition in Knight collection and Fourteenth Edition, 1765 available at WSU MASC.
Wilson, Kim. In the Garden withJane Austen. London: Frances Lincoln, 2008.
In Letter 6 of Love and Freindship, a teenage Jane Austen writes a short proposal scene between Edward and Laura, who have just met:
. . . ‘and now, my Adorable Laura (continued he, taking my Hand) when may I hope to receive that reward of all the painfull sufferings I have undergone during the course of my Attachment to you, to which I have ever aspired? Oh! when will you reward me with Yourself?’
‘This instant, Dear and Amiable Edward.’ (replied I.). We were immediately united by my Father, who tho’ he had never taken orders had been bred to the Church.”
Love and Freindship, 1790 p. 109
This might be the only example Jane Austen wrote of a proposal scene with the dialogue of both the hero and the heroine portrayed. Jane Austen’s novels have many marriage proposals, but when it comes to the proposal between the hero and the heroine at the end of story, the reader is not privy to the complete dialogue.
Sarah Franz (2002) argues that rather than demonstrating the love of the couple, the real business of the proposal scene is to show that the hero is “worthy of the heroine’s love because he is aware of and acting upon his capacity to change for the better” (169). In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy’s short second proposal to Elizabeth and the couple’s later discussion about pride and impact of the first proposal prove that he has changed and now fully appreciates Elizabeth (169-173). In Persuasion, Wentworth’s letter is an “indirect, because written, but serious declaration of love” and he and Anne have discussions where he admits to his mistakes about how he treated Louisa and his awareness that his feelings prevented an earlier reconciliation (174). Although Franz sees Mr. Knightley as generally morally correct, “his love for Emma is exactly the moral realization that he has to make during the course of the novel” and then be able to correct his unfair evaluation of Frank Churchill’s character, which she sees as Mr. Knightley’s main moral flaw (180-2). I think that Mr. Knightley’s moral change involves recognizing that he has sought to direct Emma’s behavior, that she is her own moral agent, and that he needs to treat her with sympathetic understanding and kindness (Larrow). Mr. Knightley is shown pouring forth his love for Emma in the proposal scene to demonstrate how much he has changed.
If we use Franz’s focus on the hero’s moral growth rather than love in the proposal, it might be easier to understand why we don’t have much representation of the final proposal scene in Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park. In both Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility, the hero’s moral growth is shown in his ability to stand-up to his tyrannical parent to marry a woman each man feels honor-bound to. In Mansfield Park, Edmund has always been kind and appreciative of Fanny and his moral growth centers around realizing his misperceptions of the Crawfords. Although we don’t see the proposal in these novels, we do see the hero and heroine discuss the change the hero made to act morally.
Our region will be discussing the proposals in the novels at two events: 1. Spokane In-Person Discussion Saturday, February 4, 2023 2. Virtual Meeting Sunday, February 19, 2023. Full details and registration forms are on our events page https://jasnaewanid.org/events/. We have some discussion questions below to get you ready for the meetings.
WORKS CITED
Austen, Jane. Juvenilia. Ed. Peter Sabor. Cambridge: CUP, 2006.
Frantz, Sarah S. G. “‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more’: Direct Dialogue and Education in the Proposal Scenes.” The Talk in Jane Austen. Eds. Bruce Stovel and Lynn Weinlos Gregg. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 2002. 167-182.
In Pride and Prejudice, do you see any parallels between Mr. Collins’s proposal to Elizabeth and Darcy’s first proposal? Does Elizabeth make similar claims for herself in each proposal? Do you think after the second proposal Darcy is shown as changed to the degree he needed to change?
In Mansfield Park, Henry Crawford’s proposal to Fanny is fragmentary, reflecting her confusion about what is going on. Could Henry ever have won Fanny? How would he have to change? Although we don’t get Edmund’s proposal to Fanny, has he changed enough for them to be happy?
In Emma, Mr. Knightley’s proposal to Emma shows both his language and some non-verbal aspects and behaviors that show his emotion. How does that contrast with Emma’s prior interpretation of Mr. Elton’s proposal? We know Emma has realized her love for Mr. Knightley, so do we need to hear her say it to him?
Are you a fan of Captain Wentworth’s letter in Persuasion? Do you think there is anything missing from the letter? There are hints from Austen that Captain Wentworth and Anne know each other better and are better people when they get engaged the second time. What are your thoughts?
In Sense and Sensibility, the narrator tells us of Elinor’s strong emotion on hearing that Edward is not married to Lucy and then doesn’t show the proposal scene. Does that choice make sense? Do you feel disappointed that Colonel Brandon and Marianne wait two years to marry and there is no proposal scene?
In Northanger Abbey, what are your thoughts about John Thorpe’s awkward semi-proposal and Catherine’s response to it? Are you disappointed that we don’t hear Henry Tilney say he loves Catherine?
Do you have a favorite proposal scene from one of the movie/tv adaptations of the novels?
The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of the servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruits in season; but this did not take place till after many a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been given, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole party; for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches, soon collected them round the table. . . . Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth talked of all that had occurred, during their visit, as they returned, except what had particularly interested them both. The looks and behaviour of every body they had seen were discussed, except the person who had mostly engaged their attention. They talked of his sister, his friends, his house, his fruit, of everything but himself; yet Elizabeth was longing to know what Mrs. Gardiner thought of him, and Mrs. Gardiner would have been highly gratified by her niece’s beginning the subject.”
Pride and Prejudice, 309, 312
In Pride and Prejudice, late July and early August are the time of year when the Gardiners and Elizabeth Bennet traveled to Derbyshire and visit Pemberley. Using textual cues and working backward from Mrs. Gardiner’s letter to Elizabeth dated September 6, Chapman (400-405) convincingly argues that the first trip to Pemberley takes place on August 4 and that Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner go back to visit Geogiana on August 6. During that visit, they are served “beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches,” (P&P Spacks Ed. 309) in “generous hospitality” (Spacks, note 6, 309). The purpose of this article is to explore the cultivation of these fruits during the Regency and what the fruit tells us about Pemberley. For illustrations of the fruit, we will turn to George Brookshaw’s amazing prints in Pomona Britannica (1812).[i] As always in Austen, the minor details reveal much, especially when we understand the context that a contemporary reader would know.
When Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth tour Pemberley outside, they are shown the park by the gardener. They see the river, the woods, hills, and walks. They are not shown any gardens. Nor are gardens mentioned when Elizabeth looks out of the windows in various rooms in Pemberley. The focus is all on the woods, hills, and “the disposition of the ground” (285). As Spacks notes, all the views of Pemberley correspond to the picturesque (note 4, 283 and note 11, 285). Austen would have counted on her contemporary readers to know what would have gone into the gardens of Pemberley and there is no need to tell them. However, the fruit that is served at Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner’s visit gives us a clue of the wealth behind the gardens.
Grapes, Nectarines, and Peaches in the Regency Garden
The grapes, nectarines, and peaches at Pemberley are described as “the finest fruits in season”. Spacks in her annotations to Pride and Prejudice note that these fruits must be grown in hothouses (note 8, 309). If we consult Thomas Mawe and John Abercrombie’s The Universal Gardener and Botanist, a 1778 gardening book that we know was in Jane Austen’s brother Edward Austen Knight’s Godmersham library in the 1818 catalogue (https://www.readingwithausten.com/catalogue.html), peaches and nectarines are described as growing best on south-facing garden walls because they need extra heat, with some maturing in late July and August. James McPhail in a Gardener’s Remembrancer (1807) argues that peaches can only be grown against walls in the southern counties of England and that northern counties need to use glassed houses with extra heat (123-5). McPhails gardens have forcing-houses devoted to peaches and nectarines, called Peach Houses. Mawe and Abercrombie note that grapes can sometimes be grown against walls but often need heat and protection of glass and usually are in season in September through November. McPhail wrote that in England grapes need glass to do well above 50degrees latitude. Thus, since Pemberley is in Derbyshire, the peaches and nectarines would have to be grown in forcing-houses yet are in season in August, and grapes are early for the season in August and certainly grown either in a forcing-house or hot-house.
James McPhail, the head gardener to the Earl of Liverpool at Addiscombe Place in Surrey, details the types of structures that would have been used for growing a variety of fruits and vegetables on a large estate like Pemberley. Hot-houses were large buildings (80’ long X 16’ wide X 12’ high in back) built to use the heat from the sun, heat from stoves, and heat from pits with fermenting dung and/or tan bark to keep plants at the best temperatures for ripening tropical fruit. Hot-houses would be kept at high temperatures (often 90s during the day) and were used for plants such as pineapples, some grapes, and French beans, as well as other exotics. Forcing-houses would produce fruit about two months earlier than fruit grown outdoors, for tree fruits that have a natural year growth cycle. They were kept at cooler temperatures than hot-houses, but still needed fires to get temperatures into the 70s, for example in March to get peaches ripe for May. Forcing-houses were used for fruit such as peaches, nectarines, some kinds of grapes, cherries, strawberries, figs, apricots, and flowers such as roses. According to McPhail, the forcing-houses produce the best fruit when they are dedicated to a specific plant, such as a peach house, a grape house, and a cherry house. He describes his peach house as measuring 64’ long X 10’ wide X 8’ high in the back for 8 trees. Forcing-frames were smaller structures for low-growing plants such as melons, asparagus, herbs, potatoes, and cucumbers and often had heat by fermentation of dung and leaves to produce the fruits and vegetables (187-189). Green-houses usually did not have fires unless the weather was very cold (180) and would be used to grow plants such as lemon, oranges, myrtles, succulents, and many flowers. Green-houses could be used to grow seeds and cuttings also. Because hot-houses, forcing-houses, and green-houses use a lot of glass, they are expensive to build. The cost of fuel to maintain them is another expense, so having hot-houses and forcing-houses is one sign of Mr. Darcy’s wealth.
In addition to the structures described above, the gardens would include outdoor spaces for plants, sometimes protected by walls. The fruit-garden consisted of those fruits that could be grown outside against walls (for warmth) or in orchards, such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, gooseberries, currants, strawberries, and raspberries (193-197). The kitchen garden would be planted with vegetables and herbs that could grow within the season, often staggering the planting times to produce the food over the longest space of time. The pleasure or flower garden contains walks with lawn, flowering shrubs, evergreen shrubs, and many kinds of flowers in borders. We can imagine Elizabeth enjoying these spaces once she becomes mistress of Pemeberley.
McPhail’s book goes through each month of the year and details all the work that must be done in each of the garden sections and growing houses. Pemberley must have employed many people in the garden to accomplish the production of food year-round. By choosing fruits such as peaches, nectarines, and grapes, which require so much effort and cost to raise, Austen highlights the great garden at work, hidden behind Pemberley.
[i] See the previous blog https://jasnaewanid.org/2022/06/04/pomona-britannica-and-emma/ for a discussion of the original 1812 George Brookshaw book, the reissue of the plates by Taschen in 2002, and the fruits in Emma. The New York Public Library has digital copies of every plate available for free download. Several of the plates were downloaded for use here (see illustration list). The color of the digital copies of the plates was edited and enhanced to come closer to the color of the plates in the 2002 Taschen version.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Patricia Meyer Spacks. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard U P.
Chapman, R.W. “The chronology of Pride and Prejudice.” In Austen, J. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. R. W. Chapman, Third Edition. Oxford: Oxford U Press.
Mawe, Thomas, and Abercrombie, John. The Universal Gardener and Botanist: Or, A General Dictionary of Gardening and Botany. Exhibiting in Botanical Arrangement, According to the Linnæan System, Every Tree, Shrub, and Herbaceous Plant, that Merit Culture, Either for Use, Ornament, Or Curiosity in Every Department of Gardening … Describing the Proper Situations, Exposures, Soils, Manures, and Every Material and Utensil Requisite in the Different Garden Departments; Together with Practical Directions for Performing the Various Mechanical Operations of Gardening in General. United Kingdom, G. Robinson, 1778. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Universal_Gardener_and_Botanist/eMtCAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 (version from The Ohio State University)
McPhail, James. The Gardener’s Remembrancer Throughout the Year: Exhibiting the Newest and Most Improved Methods … Best Adapted for the Culture of Plants, and Production of Fruits, Flowers, and Esculent Vegetables … to which is Prefixed a View of Mr. Forsyth’s Treatise on Trees. United Kingdom, T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1807. (version from Oxford University) https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Gardener_s_Remembrancer_Throughout_t/ggoAAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
In planting a new garden, the first grand object is, to consider what are the proper varieties with which the table may be supplied, and the dessert set out with the highest flavoured fruit, and from the earliest to the latest period possible.”
George Brookshaw, quoted in Pellgrü-Gagel (2002, p. 20)
While looking for a botany book in the Washington State University library, I found George Brookshaw Pomona Britannica: The Complete Plates, a 2002 book published by Taschen that reproduces the color plates in Brookshaw’s book, originally published in 1812. Many of the fruit mentioned by Jane Austen in her novels and letters are featured in this book in beautiful detail. The original Pomona Britannica (1812) took almost 10 years to create through a process of copperplate engraving, aquatint, and hand-painting the 90 plates. It was dedicated to the Prince Regent[i] and is based on fruit grown in the Royal Garden at Hampton Court and other gardens around London. Brookshaw’s purpose was to help those who have estate gardens distinguish between the many varieties of fruits and increase the cultivation of the best fruits. The high cost of the book (almost 60 pounds) and the complexity of the printing process, which would have limited the number of copies, meant that probably only the very wealthy would have been able to purchase copies. The copy used to make the 2002 book belonged to Prince George’s sister, Princess Elizabeth, and followed her to Germany when she married; its current location is in the Staatliche Bücher und KupferstichsammlungGreiz, Thüringen (State Collection of Books and Engravings, Greiz, Thuringia) in Germany. Only 6 other complete copies are known (including three in the U.S. at the New York Public Library[ii], the Library of Congress, and Oak Spring Garden Library, Virginia.)[iii] It is highly unlikely that Jane Austen knew of this publication, yet the color plates give a vibrant representation of the fruits that would have been in estate gardens during the Regency era.
Title Page of Pomona Britannica, downloaded from the New York Public LibraryThe cover of Taschen’s 2002 book, photograph by Michele LarrowDedication of Pomona Britannica, downloaded from the New York Public LibraryEmma, First Edition Title Page, WSU Manuscripts and Special Collections (MASC), photo by Michele LarrowEmma, First Edition Dedication Page, WSU MASC, photo by Michele LarrowEmma, First Edition Opening Page, WSU MASC, photo by Michele Larrow
Pomona Britannica and Strawberry Picking at Donwell Abbey
Mrs. Elton, in all her apparatus of happiness, her large bonnet and her basket, was very ready to lead the way in gathering, accepting, or talking—strawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or spoken of.—”The best fruit in England—every body’s favourite—always wholesome.—These the finest beds and finest sorts.—Delightful to gather for one’s self—the only way of really enjoying them.—Morning decidedly the best time—never tired—every sort good—hautboy infinitely superior—no comparison—the others hardly eatable—hautboys very scarce—Chili preferred—white wood finest flavour of all—price of strawberries in London—abundance about Bristol—Maple Grove—cultivation—beds when to be renewed—gardeners thinking exactly different—no general rule—gardeners never to be put out of their way—delicious fruit—only too rich to be eaten much of—inferior to cherries—currants more refreshing—only objection to gathering strawberries the stooping—glaring sun—tired to death—could bear it no longer—must go and sit in the shade.”
Jane Austen, Emma, Vol III, Chap. 6, pp. 389-390
Mrs. Elton’s monologue when she is picking strawberries at Donwell Abbey is unique in the novels in that it names specific varieties of a fruit: Chili, hautboy, and white wood strawberries. The Chili and hautboy strawberries are pictured in Pomona Britannica (see the fourth picture below, hautboy is top left and Chili is top right). The white wood strawberry is not pictured precisely. There is a wood strawberry (lower left in the fifth picture below) and a white alpine strawberry (lower right in the fifth picture); the white wood strawberry would looks like a combination of the two pictures. Unfortunately the text of the original Pomona Britannica is not available online, so I consulted Thomas Mawe and John Abercrombie’s The Universal Gardener and Botanist, a 1778 gardening book that we know was in Jane Austen’s brother Edward Austen Knight’s Godmersham library in the 1818 catalogue (https://www.readingwithausten.com/catalogue.html) for information about the plants mentioned in Emma. According to Mawe and Abercrombie, all of the strawberries mentioned by Mrs. Elton are varieties of the species FRAGARIAVesca, cultivated strawberry, known for “beautiful fruit with admirable fragrance”. Hautboy (from hautbois or Musky strawberry) and Chili strawberries (named after the country Chile, where they originated) have larger fruit (Chili is the largest,) and wood strawberry has smaller fruit. It is only the alpine berry that bears throughout summer. All the other varieties produce fruit once in “June, July, or August”, perfect timing for Mr. Knightley’s strawberry picking party almost at midsummer!
Fragaria (Strawberries) in Mawe and Abercrombie, downloaded from The Ohio State University through Google BooksEmma, First Edition Vol III, p. 94, WSU MASC, photo by Michele LarrowEmma, First Edition Vol. III, p. 95 WSU MASC, photo by Michele LarrowHautboy, Chili, Alpine Red, and Scarlet Flesh Strawberries (top left to bottom right), downloaded from the New York Public LibraryEarly Prolific (Scarlet), Wood, and White Alpine Strawberries (top and bottom, left to right), downloaded from the New York Public Library
As we know, Mrs. Elton becomes bored with strawberries and turns her attention to cherries and currants. Cherries are another fruit with many varieties in the late 1700s and early 1800s (there are 21 varieties shown in Pomona Britannica). Currants are related to gooseberries (both Ribes genus) but only have three main varieties: black, white, and red. The plates for currants and one of the pages for cherries are shown below, along with Mawe and Abercrombie’s discussion of the fruits. Cultivated cherries (Prunus Cerasus) are in the same genus as plums, apricots, and laurels. Note how many varieties of cherries are listed in Mawe and Abercrombie, including the May Duke, White Heart, and Black Heart, all pictured below in Pomona Britannica.
Black, white and red currants, downloaded from the New York Public LibraryRibes (Currants and Gooseberries) in Mawe and Abercrombie, downloaded from The Ohio State University through Google BooksPrunus Cerasus (Cherries) in Mawe and Abercrombie, downloaded from The Ohio State University through Google BooksMay Duke, White-Heart, and Black-Heart Cherries, downloaded from the New York Public Library
Pomona Britannica and the Wide Variety of Apples
And when I brought out the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very obliging as to take some. . . . The apples themselves are the very finest sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell—some of Mr. Knightley’s most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year; and certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his trees—I believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite shocked the other day—for Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating these apples, and we talked about them and said how much she enjoyed them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. ‘I am sure you must be,’ said he, ‘and I will send you another supply; for I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more, before they get good for nothing.’ . . . ‘However, the very same evening William Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, the same sort of apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged. . . . I found afterwards from Patty, that William said it was all the apples of that sort his master had; he had brought them all—and now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had sold so many; for William, you know, thinks more of his master’s profit than any thing; but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be able to have another apple-tart this spring.”
Jane Austen, Emma, Vol II, Chap. 9, pp. 256-258
Apples figure prominently in Emma, and, as we can see from Miss Bates narrative above, are mainly connected to Mr. Knightley and his generous gifts of “keeping” apples during winter to the Bates family. At the end of the 18th century there is a great range of apple varieties (there are 39 apples pictured in Pomona Britannica). In 1826, there were over 1200 varieties in England (Pellgrü-Gagel), many having more than one name. In the 1700s, botany was still an evolving science and apples were listed by Mawe and Abercrombie (following the Linnæan system of the time) in as a species of the pear genus (Pyrus malus). Now apples are given their own genus, Malus. Mawe and Abercrombie describe apples as “the most valuable fruit in the world for its various economical uses”. They organize their listing of 36 preferred apple varieties (see pictures below) according to when the fruit ripens and then name another 27 varieties of lesser quality that appear in catalogues or for sale through nursery men. It is likely that Brookshaw organized his plates similarly in order of ripening in Pomona Britannica as the late-ripening Pippins (including aromatic, embroidered, and lemon mentioned by Mawe and Abercrombie) and the Colvilles (both white and red are pictured below) come toward the end of the apple plates. Many of these specific varieties are listed in Abercrombie and Mawe as ripening in October and keeping over the winter. Since there are so many varieties of apples that ripen in fall and keep over the winter, it makes sense that Jane Austen would be vague about what specific apple is gifted to the Bates family by Mr. Knightley.
Mawe and Abercrombie on Pyrus Malus (Apples), downloaded from The Ohio State University through Google BooksMawe and Abercrombie on Pyrus Malus (Apples), cont’d, downloaded from The Ohio State University through Google BooksEmma, First Edition, Vol II, p. 187 , WSU MASC, photo by Michele LarrowEmma, First Edition, Vol II, p. 188 , WSU MASC, photo by Michele LarrowLate ripening Pippins (see reference 8 for specific varieties, downloaded from the New York Public Library)Colville and Norfolk Apples (see reference 9 below for specific varieties, downloaded from the New York Public Library)
Jane Austen enjoyed eating fruits and mentions gardens, plants, and fruits frequently in her letters. She says she had strawberries three times while at her brother Edward’s estate, Godmersham, and hopes that Cassandra is gathering them at home in Southampton (20 June – 22 June, 1808). When she still lived in Steventon, she wrote about the possibility of their planting apple, pear, and cherry trees (20-21 November 1800). It is amazing to see these detailed pictures of fruits that would have been known to Jane Austen. We will continue to present more Austen-connected plates from Pomona Britannica in future blogs. I appreciate that we can read digital copies of historical botany and gardening books and I highly recommend finding a copy of the Taschen edition of Pomona Britannica if you enjoy Regency-era gardening books.
Notes
[i] See the pictures for the Brookshaw dedication compared to Jane Austen’s dedication of Emma to the Prince Regent. Note that she is not a “devoted” servant.
[ii] The New York Public Library has digital copies of every plate available for free download. Several of the plates were downloaded for use here (see works cited at the end). The color of the digital copies of the plates was edited and enhanced to come closer to the color of the plates in the 2002 Taschen version. Because the Taschen book is printed on high quality paper, there is considerable reflection and it is hard to get a good photograph of the pages. The header image is a detail from the Taschen book.
[iii] Information in this paragraph is drawn from Uta Pellgrü-Gagel, “Pomona Britannica: A Masterpiece of Pomology”, translated by Ann Hentschel (2002). In George Brookshaw Pomona Britannica: The Complete Plates, Koln, Germany:Taschen.
Works Cited
1. Austen, Jane Emma Eds. Richard Cronin and Dorothy McMillan. Cambridge: CUP, 2005.
2. Mawe, Thomas, and Abercrombie, John. The Universal Gardener and Botanist: Or, A General Dictionary of Gardening and Botany. Exhibiting in Botanical Arrangement, According to the Linnæan System, Every Tree, Shrub, and Herbaceous Plant, that Merit Culture, Either for Use, Ornament, Or Curiosity in Every Department of Gardening … Together with Practical Directions for Performing the Various Mechanical Operations of Gardening in General. United Kingdom, G. Robinson, 1778. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Universal_Gardener_and_Botanist/eMtCAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 (version from The Ohio State University)
3. Pellgrü-Gagel, Uta. “Pomona Britannica: A Masterpiece of Pomology”, translated by Ann Hentschel (2002). In George Brookshaw Pomona Britannica: The Complete Plates, Koln, Germany: Taschen.
JASNA Eastern Washington/Northern Idaho 