Fruit, large, three inches and a quarter wide, and three inches high; ovate, and regularly formed. Skin, almost entirely covered with clear bright red, and marked with fawn-colored russety dots, except on a portion of the shaded side, where it is yellow tinged and streaked with red. Eye, small and closed, set in a moderately deep and undulating basin. Stalk, slender, about an inch long, inserted in a wide, round, and deep cavity. Flesh, yellow, crisp, juicy, richly, and briskly flavored.
A most excellent dessert apple; in use from November to February.
This is a native of the United States, and is there considered one of the best dessert apples. Along with the Newtown Pippin it ranks as one of the most productive and profitable orchard fruits, but like many, and indeed almost all the best American varieties, it does not attain to that degree of perfection in this country that it does in its native soil. The tree is tender and subject to canker, and the fruit lacks that high flavor, and peculiar richness which characterizes the imported specimens. It was raised at Esopus, on the Hudson, where it is still grown to a large extent.
114. ESSEX PIPPIN.—Hort.
- Identification.—[Hort. Soc. Cat.] ed. 3, n. 239.
Fruit, small; round and flattened, somewhat oblate. Skin, smooth, green at first, but becoming of a yellowish-green as it ripens, and with a faint tinge of thin red where exposed to the sun. Eye, open, with long, reflexed, acuminate segments, placed in a shallow basin. Stalk, three quarters of an inch long, slender, inserted in a round and even cavity. Flesh, yellowish, firm, and crisp, with a brisk, sugary, and rich flavor.
A dessert apple of first-rate quality, nearly allied to the Golden Pippin; it is in use from October to February.
115. FAIR MAID OF TAUNTON.—Hort.
- Identification.—[Hort. Soc. Cat.] ed. 3, p. 15
Fruit, small, two inches and a quarter wide, and an inch and three quarters high; ovato-oblate, and rather irregularly formed. Skin, smooth and shining, thick and membranous, of a pale straw color, and with a faint of red on the side exposed to the sun; thickly strewed all over with small russety dots. Eye, somewhat closed, with broad, flat segments, which are reflexed at the tips, and set in a shallow and plaited basin. Stalk, very short, inserted in a wide cavity, which is lined with rough brown russet. Flesh, yellowish-white, tender, very juicy, sweet, and though not richly yet pleasantly flavored.