Note 31 — Chapter XIII · OCCUPATIONS OUT OF DOORS.—THE PLEASURE-GARDEN.—THE LOVE OF FLOWERS, AND THE FASHION OF MAKING GARLANDS.—FORMALITIES OF THE PROMENADE.—GARDENING IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
Reading edition
Our word chestnut is derived from the Anglo-Saxon cyste-hnutu, the nut of the cyste-tree. I may remark, on these names of fruits, that Loudon imagined that the peach was “introduced into England about the middle of the sixteenth century” (“Encyclopædia of Gardening,” p. 912); and that of the fig, the “first trees were brought over from Italy by Cardinal Pole, in 1525.” He seems to think that quinces and mulberries came into this country also in the course of the sixteenth century.