Fruit, large; ovate, handsomely and regularly formed. Skin, clear yellow, tinged with greenish patches, and strewed with dark dots; on the side next the sun it is marked with a few faint streaks of crimson. Eye, large and open, like that of the Blenheim Pippin, and set in a wide and plaited basin. Stalk, short, deeply inserted in a round cavity, which is lined with rough russet, and with an incipient protuberance on one side of it. Flesh, yellowish, tender, crisp, sugary and juicy, with a rich and excellent flavor.
A very valuable apple either for the dessert or culinary purposes; it is in use from November to March.
This variety has all the properties of the Blenheim Pippin, and is much superior to it, keeps longer, and has the great advantage of being an early and abundant bearer.
This excellent apple is as yet but little known. I met with it in the neighbourhood of Sittingbourne, in Kent, where it is greatly esteemed and now extensively cultivated for the supply of the London markets. The account I received of it was, that the original tree grew in the garden of a cottager of the name of Pope, at Cellar Hill, in the parish of Linstead, near Sittingbourne. It was highly prized by its owner, to whom the crop afforded a little income, and many were the unsuccessful applications of his neighbours for grafts of what became generally known as Pope’s Apple. The proprietor of this cottage built a row of other dwellings adjoining it, in the gardens of which there were no fruit trees; for the sake of uniformity, and in spite of Pope’s importunities and the offer of twenty shillings annual increase in the rental, the tree was condemned, and cut down in 1846, at which period it was between 50 and 60 years old. A few days after it was destroyed, Mr. Fairbeard, a nurseryman at Green Street, procured a number of the grafts which he was successful in propagating, and it is to him I am indebted for this variety.
278. POWELL’S RUSSET.—Hort.
- Identification.—[Hort. Soc. Cat.] ed. 3, n. 748. [Lind. Guide], 95. [Rog. Fr. Cult.] 74,
- Figure—[Ron. Pyr. Mal.] pl. xiii. f. 9.
Fruit, small, two inches wide, and an inch and three quarters high; roundish, and regularly formed, broad and flattened at the base, and narrowing a little towards the eye. Skin, almost entirely covered with pale brown russet; but where any portion of the ground color is visible, it is greenish-yellow on the shaded side, and tinged with brown where exposed to the sun. Eye, open, placed in a round, even, and shallow basin. Stalk, about half-an-inch long, inserted in a rather wide, and shallow cavity. Flesh, yellow, firm, very juicy and sugary, with a rich and highly aromatic flavor.
A dessert apple of the very first quality; it is in use from November to February.
279. PROLIFEROUS REINETTE.—H.
Fruit, medium sized, two inches and three quarters wide, and the same in height; oval, with ten obscure ribs, extending from the base to the apex, where they form five small crowns. Skin, of a dull yellow ground color, marked with small broken stripes or streaks of crimson, and thickly covered with small russety specks. Eye, closed, placed in a shallow, plaited, and knobbed basin. Stalk, from half-an-inch to three quarters long, deeply inserted the whole of its length in a round and smooth cavity. Flesh, yellowish-white, very juicy and sugary, with a rich and brisk flavor.