One of the finest dessert apples, a rival of the Ribston Pippin, excelling it in juiciness, and being of a better size for the dessert; it is in use from November to February.
The tree is quite hardy, and generally an abundant bearer, except in seasons when the bloom is injured by frosts, to which it is liable. It is of a small, and slender habit of growth, and is well adapted for growing as dwarfs, or espaliers, when grafted on the paradise stock.
There seems to be no record of this variety before the publication of the Pomona Londonensis, although it was known for many years previously. Rogers says, he saw a tree of it growing as an espalier in the garden at Sheen, which was planted by Sir William Temple. I find it was cultivated to a considerable extent in the Brompton Park nursery, so early as 1750; it must therefore have been well known at that period; but I cannot discover any trace of its origin. It may have been introduced from the continent by George London who was for some years in the gardens at Versailles under De Quintinye, and afterwards in partnership with Henry Wise as proprietor of the Brompton Park nursery, as the name seems to indicate more of French than English origin.
223. MARMALADE PIPPIN.—Hort.
- Identification.—[Hort. Soc. Cat.] ed. 3, n. 429. [Diel Kernobst.] i. B. 23.
- Synonymes.—Althorp Pippin, [Hort. Soc. Cat.] ed. 1, 8. Welsh Pippin, acc. [Ron. Pyr. Mal.]
- Figure.—[Ron. Pyr. Mal.] pl. xxviii. f. 3.
Fruit, medium sized, two inches and a half wide, and two inches and three quarters high; oblong, with a prominent rib on one side, and flattened at the apex, where it terminates in several prominences. Skin, very thick, hard, and membranous; deep yellow, with a brownish tinge next the sun, and strewed with numerous imbedded pearly specks. Eye, small and open, with long acuminate and reflexed segments, set in a deep, and angular basin. Stalk, half-an-inch long, inserted in a deep, and smooth cavity. Flesh, yellowish-white, firm and tender, sweet, juicy, and pleasantly flavored.
A culinary apple, but only of second-rate quality; it is in use from October to January.
The tree is hardy and an abundant bearer.
This variety was introduced in 1818—the year in which the original tree first produced fruit—by a Mr. Stevens of Stanton Grange, in Derbyshire, by whom it was raised from a seed of the Keswick Codling. The Marmalade Pippin of Diel which is described in the 22 vol. and which he says is an English apple, is not the same as the above, for he describes it as “a true streaked apple, and ripe in August”.