Ralph Austen

[5] According to Anthony Wood, Austen died at home in the parish of St Peter-le-Bailey, Oxford, and was buried in its church, in the aisle adjoining the south side of the chancel, on 26 October 1676.

[1] In 1653 Austen published A Treatise on Fruit-trees, showing the manner of grafting, setting, pruning, and ordering of them in all respects, and along with it a long pamphlet on the Spiritual Use of an Orchard.

[1] Austen made researches in the Bodleian Library, and wrote fuller accounts of pruning and grafting than had been in print.

[1] In 1658 Austen published Observations on some parts of Sir Francis Bacon's Naturall History as it concerns Fruit-trees, Fruits, and Flowers.

Possibly through some misreading of the title-page, this work has been attributed by some to a Francis Austen, and there is apparently no foundation for the statement that it was published originally in 1631 and again in 1657.

According to Wood, Austen was the author of A Dialogue or Familiar Discourse and Conference between the Husbandman and Fruiterer in his Nurseries, Orchards, and Gardens, published in 1676 and 1679, and containing much of the substance of his earlier treatise.