Ben Davis.
NEW YORK PIPPIN, &C.
Fig. 209.—BEN DAVIS.
This handsome Southern apple has attained a wonderful notoriety within a few years, and its culture has been greatly extended, not on account of its superlative excellence, but because of its many good qualities as an orchard tree or market fruit. It was long cultivated by Verry Aldrich, in Bureau County, Illinois, and exhibited as New York Pippin, which name gave an idea of its eastern origin, but in other localities its relations point clearly to its source in the South. To Mr. J.S. Downer we are indebted for a knowledge of its present name, and for confirmation of its identity under its several synonyms. This apple may be said to have succeeded as well in the northern parts of Indiana and Illinois as in their southern borders, where it has long been planted; though the northern orchards are still young, they are very promising. The fruit is modified somewhat by a cooler climate, and will keep later than that grown in the South.
Tree remarkably healthy and vigorous, an upright, rapid grower in the nursery, and has numerous short spur-branches along the stem. In the orchard the limbs are set very strongly, and the stems are marked by little mammillar projections or knobs, that are very characteristic. Tree large, spreading, productive, bears early; Shoots long, reddish brown, smooth; Foliage large, dark green.
Fruit large, variable in form, round, often apparently oblong, tapering to the eye, truncated, regular, sometimes inclined, generally very true, as though turned in a lathe; Surface smooth, often polished, yellow covered with mixed red, splashed bright red; Dots minute, scattered.
Basin generally shallow, in large developed specimens deep, abrupt, always regular; Eye large, open; Segments reflexed.
Cavity deep, acute, wavy, brown; Stem medium to long.