The Pomona Herefordiensis. A browse through this sumptuous classic of English pomology will transport you back hundreds of years, to a time when English orchards abounded in a dazzling diversity of fruit. And when intrepid naturalists of the day found powerful partnership with some of the world’s most talented illustrators, both to help them with their science, and to inspire the sustained interest of a wider (ideally deep-pocketed) populace in the project of exploring the teeming universe of life–whether in the exotic lands of far afield or close to home, in the orchard next door.

Not to be confused with the Herefordshire Pomona, another important work published several decades later in the West Midlands region of England (which is still known as the historic heartland of English cider production) the Pomona Herefordiensis was written by Thomas Andrew Knight (1759-1838). Knight was a trained horticulturalist and leading figure in the London Horticultural Society (later known as the Royal Horticultural Society), who put a large inheritance of land and wealth to use for breeding improved fruit and vegetable crops. Faulted by his contemporaries and later scholars for failure to more rigorously test and advance wider scientific theory with his breeding efforts, he was nonetheless well respected for his contributions to practical horticulture.

The Pomona Herefordiensis may be over 200 years old, but it is enjoying an important revival as a tool of science in support of new growth in the craft cider industry in today’s rural landscape. Here at Cornell’s School of Integrative Plant Science, horticulture professor Gregory Peck is currently engaged in assessing large numbers of apple genotypes–sometimes drawn from forgotten old orchards of the past–for their potential use in hard cider production. When genetic and chemical analyses of a tested cultivar raises question about its proper identification, historic literature of past centuries can help home in on the needed answer.