English
A masterpiece of pomology
Excerpt from the book 'Pomona Britannica' by George Brookshaw.
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The Pomona Britannica was designed to offer, particularly to noble estate owners and their gardeners, professional aid in distinguishing between the individual types of fruits through "perfect delineation" of the best varieties of the various fruits "with particular descriptions of their characters" by which they distinguish themselves. For, "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 flavored fruit, and from the earliest to the latest period possible". Whoever studied this work would soon have "a garden well planted", of which there were, according to Brookshaw, not many. The author found fault even with some of the most famous gardens in the environs of London. Another purpose of the Pomona Britannica was to sort out the "confusion" among the native fruit varieties, to discover their diversity and establish hitherto unknown but excellent varieties.
The way that the Pomona Britannica presented the fruits is convincing in every respect. To maintain some overview of the 256 fruit varieties, a practical ordering system had to be found. Fifteen selected species of fruits were presented one after another, each with their own varieties. Under the species heading the respective varieties were first described and then shown in illustrations. Each numbered illustration was also featured in the text, so the reader was easily able to seek out the explanatory text to a specific illustration and vice versa. Starting with strawberries, the berries or aggregate fruits were introduced: raspberries, currants and gooseberries. There followed a palette of stone fruits: cherries, plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines. Then pineapples, grapes and melons took the stage. After treating nuts and figs, the work closed with a presentation of pears and apples, the pomaceous fruit.
In this sequence, the Pomona Britannica also reads like a harvester's guide: opening with the early ripeners in June, strawberries, the work closes with the latecomers, apples, some varieties of which were picked at the very end of the harvesting season. Brookshaw designed the 90 plates in the Pomona Britannica with care. He could have consigned a plate to each variety, as numerous other contemporary work about fruits had done. But then, in order to accommodate the same number of varieties, printing costs would have risen so drastically that not even the most liberal of patrons would have obliged. To remain within the given financial constraints, Brookshaw might also have reduced the number of illustrated fruit varieties. But since his main purpose was to publish the largest-possible selection of varieties, displaying several fruits on each plate ultimately offered him the most effective use of the available pictorial space.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The Pomona Britannica was designed to offer, particularly to noble estate owners and their gardeners, professional aid in distinguishing between the individual types of fruits through "perfect delineation" of the best varieties of the various fruits "with particular descriptions of their characters" by which they distinguish themselves. For, "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 flavored fruit, and from the earliest to the latest period possible". Whoever studied this work would soon have "a garden well planted", of which there were, according to Brookshaw, not many. The author found fault even with some of the most famous gardens in the environs of London. Another purpose of the Pomona Britannica was to sort out the "confusion" among the native fruit varieties, to discover their diversity and establish hitherto unknown but excellent varieties.
The way that the Pomona Britannica presented the fruits is convincing in every respect. To maintain some overview of the 256 fruit varieties, a practical ordering system had to be found. Fifteen selected species of fruits were presented one after another, each with their own varieties. Under the species heading the respective varieties were first described and then shown in illustrations. Each numbered illustration was also featured in the text, so the reader was easily able to seek out the explanatory text to a specific illustration and vice versa. Starting with strawberries, the berries or aggregate fruits were introduced: raspberries, currants and gooseberries. There followed a palette of stone fruits: cherries, plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines. Then pineapples, grapes and melons took the stage. After treating nuts and figs, the work closed with a presentation of pears and apples, the pomaceous fruit.
In this sequence, the Pomona Britannica also reads like a harvester's guide: opening with the early ripeners in June, strawberries, the work closes with the latecomers, apples, some varieties of which were picked at the very end of the harvesting season. Brookshaw designed the 90 plates in the Pomona Britannica with care. He could have consigned a plate to each variety, as numerous other contemporary work about fruits had done. But then, in order to accommodate the same number of varieties, printing costs would have risen so drastically that not even the most liberal of patrons would have obliged. To remain within the given financial constraints, Brookshaw might also have reduced the number of illustrated fruit varieties. But since his main purpose was to publish the largest-possible selection of varieties, displaying several fruits on each plate ultimately offered him the most effective use of the available pictorial space.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Pomona Britannica, Plate LXXXIX. Phoenix Apple, Norman's Beauty