The British Newspaper Archive is potentially a great resource for research into agricultural biodiversity in the past.
We have scanned millions of pages of historical newspapers and made them available online for the first time ever.
Search millions of articles by keyword, name, location, date or title and watch your results appear in an instant.
I did a search on the apple variety Pearmain and got 44 hits from 1753 to 1944.
So, for example, the Caledonian Mercury has a classified on Monday 1 January 1753 which says:
…glifh Apples, fuch as Nonpareis, Holland Pippens, Royal Rennets, Kentilh Pippens, Pearmains, and Rulfets, inno IcfsQuantity than a Box containing two bufhels; alfo very Hne and large Chcfhire Cheefe, from a 200 Pound-weight and do^tovard, the beft Gl…
Alas, if you want any more than that, you have to pay, and rather steeply too. Pity.
LATER: All the more so as Google seems to have discontinued its Timeline feature in News Archive search. Which I hadn’t noticed and I’m quite sad about now.