This apple was introduced to this country by Mr. Lee, nurseryman of Hammersmith, in 1817, and was exhibited by him at the London Horticultural Society; the specimen produced being five inches and a half in diameter, four inches deep, sixteen inches in circumference, and weighed nineteen ounces. It is generally supposed that this was its first appearance in England; but there can be little doubt that it is the Phœnix Apple figured by Brookshaw, whose account of it in 1808, is as follows:—“It was much grown fifty years back in the neighbourhood of Twickenham, but was rather lost. The late Mr. Ash, nurseryman at Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham, preserved it from his father, who had an old tree of it. This specimen came from that tree. This apple was seen in Russia by an English nobleman, who thought it so excellent an apple, that he was induced to send some trees of it to England, and what will appear extraordinary to English gardeners, they were taken up in the summer with their leaves on, when they could not be less than twelve years old by their appearance, and when they arrived, after being six months before they came to hand, they were planted and produced fruit, and are now fine trees. The apple has a bloom on it like a red plum when on the tree, and is a very excellent beautiful apple, ripens in October, and will keep through December. It is to be had at the late Mr. Ash’s nursery, at Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham, under the name of Phœnix Apple, from its being lost and revived.”

112. ENGLISH CODLIN.—Hort.

Fruit, above medium size; conical, irregular in its shape. Skin, pale yellow with a faint blush on the side exposed to the sun. Eye, closed, set in a moderately deep basin. Stalk, short, stout, and rather deeply inserted. Flesh, white, tender, and agreeably acid.

A culinary apple of first-rate quality; ripe in August and continues in use till October.

The trees are excellent bearers, but in most orchards they are generally found unhealthy, cankered, and full of the woolly aphis, a state produced, according to Mr. Lindley, by their being raised from suckers, and truncheons stuck into the ground. In the “Guide to the Orchard,” he says, “Healthy, robust, and substantial trees are only to be obtained by grafting on stocks of the real Sour Hedge Crab; they then grow freely, erect, and form very handsome heads, yielding fruit as superior to those of our old orchards, as the old, and at present deteriorated Codlin is to the Crab itself.” This circumstance was noticed by Worlidge nearly two hundred years ago—“You may graft them on stocks as you do other fruit, which will accelerate and augment their bearing; but you may save that labor and trouble, if you plant the Cions, Slips, or Cuttings of them in the spring-time, a little before their budding; by which means they will prosper very well, and soon become Trees; but these are more subject to the canker than those that are grafted.”

This is one of our oldest English apples, and still deserving of more general cultivation than is at present given to it. Formerly it constituted one of the principal dishes in English cookery, in the shape of “Codlings and Cream.” Ray says, “Crudum vix editur ob duritiem et aciditatem, sed coctum vel cum cremore lactis, vel cum aqua rosacea et saccharo comestum inter laudatissima fercula habetur.” The name is derived from coddle, to parboil.

113. ESOPUS SPITZENBURGH.—Coxe.