A very excellent apple; of first-rate quality as a culinary fruit, and suitable also for the dessert. It is in use from October to February.
The tree is quite hardy, and an excellent bearer.
92. DEVONSHIRE QUARRENDEN.—Hort.
- Identification.—[Fors. Treat.] 122. [Hort. Soc. Cat.] ed. 3, n. 603. [Down. Fr. Amer.] 71.
- Synonymes.—Quarrington, [Raii. Hist.] ii. 1448. Devonshire Quarrington, [Mort-Art.] ii. 290. Red Quarentine, Miller and Sweet, Cat. 1790. Red Quarenden, [Hook. Pom. Lond.] t. 13, [Lind. Guide], 6. Sack Apple, [Hort. Soc. Cat.] ed. 1, n. 1012. Quarentine, in Devonshire.
- Figures.—[Hook. Pom. Lond.] t. 13. [Pom. Mag.] t. 94. [Ron. Pyr. Mal.] pl. i. f. 7.
Fruit, rather below medium size; oblate, and sometimes a little angular in its outline. Skin, smooth and shining, entirely covered with deep purplish red, except where it is shaded by a leaf or twig, and then it is of a delicate pale green, presenting a clear and well-defined outline of the object which shades it. Eye, quite closed, with very long tomentose segments, and placed in an undulating and shallow basin, which is sometimes knobbed, and generally lined with thick tomentum. Stalk, about three quarters of an inch long, fleshy at the insertion, deeply set in a round and funnel-shaped cavity. Flesh, white tinged with green, crisp, brisk, and very juicy, with a rich vinous, and refreshing flavor.
A very valuable and first-rate dessert apple. It ripens on the tree the first week in August, and lasts till the end of September. It is one of the earliest summer dessert apples, and at that season, is particularly relished, for its fine, cooling, and refreshing, vinous juice.
The tree attains a considerable size, it is particularly hardy, and a most prolific bearer. It succeeds well in almost every soil and situation, and is admirably adapted for orchard planting. In almost every latitude of Great Britain, from Devonshire to the Moray Frith, I have observed it in perfect health and luxuriance, producing an abundance of well ripened fruit, which, though not so large, nor so early in the northern parts, still possessing the same richness of flavor as in the south.
This is supposed to be a very old variety, but there is no record of it previous to 1693, when it is mentioned by Ray; and except by Mortimer, it is not noticed by any subsequent writer till within a very recent period. It seems to have been unknown to Switzer, Langley, and Miller; nor do I find that it was grown in any of the London nurseries before the beginning of the present century. The only early catalogue in which I find it is that of Miller and Sweet, of Bristol, in 1790.