This is one of the largest and best culinary apples. It comes into use in the beginning of November and continues till April.
The tree is a strong and vigorous grower, very hardy, and an abundant bearer.
This variety is supposed to have been raised by a person of the name of Shepherd, at Uckfield, in Sussex, and has for many years been extensively cultivated in that county, under the names of Shepherd’s Seedling, and Shepherd’s Pippin, two names by which it is there most generally known. Some years ago a Mr. Brooker, of Alfriston, near Hailsham, in Sussex, sent specimens of the fruit to the London Horticultural Society, by whom, being unknown, it was called the Alfriston, a name by which it is now generally known, except in its native county. By some it is erroneously called the Baltimore and Newtown Pippin.
4. AMERICAN FALL PIPIN.—H.
- Synonyme.—Fall Pippin, [Coxe. View], 109, [Down. Fr. Amer.] 84.
Fruit, large, three inches and a quarter wide, and two inches and three quarters high; roundish, ribbed on the sides, and almost the same width at the apex as the base. Skin, yellow tinged with green, and strewed with brown dots on the shaded side; but with a tinge of brown, and numerous embedded pearly specks on the side next the sun. Eye, large and open, with broad, flat segments, set in a wide, deep, and rather angular basin. Stalk, three quarters of an inch long, inserted in a rather shallow cavity, which is slightly marked with russet. Flesh, yellowish, slightly tinged with green at the margin, tender, juicy, sugary, slightly perfumed, and pleasantly flavoured.
Unlike the majority of American Apples, this comes to great perfection in this country, and is a valuable and first-rate culinary apple. It is ripe in October and will last till Christmas.