ise as hath
beene declared for the gathering of your Peares, without respecting the
state of the Moone, or any such like obseruation, but when you come to
gather your Winter-fruit, which is the Pippin, Peare-maine, Russetting,
Blacke-annat, and such like, you shall in any wise gather them in the
wane of the Moone, and, as before I said, in the dryest season that may
be, and if it be so that your store be so great that you cannot gather
all in that season, yet you shall get so much of your principall fruit,
the youngest and fairest, as is possible to be gotten, and preserue it
for the last which you intend either to spend, or vtter. Now for the
manner of gathering your Apples I doe not thinke you can amend or
approue a better way then that which hath beene discribed for the
gathering of Peares, yet some of our late practitioners (who thinke
themselues not cunning if they be not curious) dislike that way, and
will onely haue a gathering apron, into which hauing gathered their
fruit, they doe empty it into larger vessells: this gathering apron is a
strong peece of Canuas at least an ell euery way, which hauing the vpper
end made fast about a mans necke, & the neather end with three loopes,
that is, one at each corner, & one in the midst, through which you shall
put a string, and binde it about your waste, in so much that both the
sides of your apron being open you may put your fruit therein with which
hand you please: this manner of gathering Apples is not amisse, yet in
my conceit the apron is so small a defence for the Apples, that if it
doe but knocke against the boughes as you doe moue your selfe, it cannot
chuse but bruise the fruit very much, which ought euer to be auoyded:
therefore still I am of this opinion, there is no better way, safer, nor
more easie, then gathering them into a small basket, with a long line
thereat, as hath beene before declared in the gathering of Peares. Now
you shall carefully obserue in empting one basket into another, that you
doe it so gently as may be, least in powring them out too rudely the
stalkes of the fruit doe pricke one another, which although it doe
appeare little or nothing at the first, yet it is the first ground,
cause, and beginning of rottennesse, and therefore you shall to your
vttermost power gather your Apples with as small stalkes as may be, so
they haue any at all, which they must needes haue, because that as too
bigge stalkes doth pricke and bruise the fruit, so to hau