Robert Hogg

“ In his Treatise on Cider he frequently notices it as a cider apple; but never in any place that I can recollect of as a dessert fruit. In the Pomona, he says, “About London and the southern tracts, the Pippin, and especially the Golden, is esteemed for making the most delicious cider, most wholesome, and most restorative.” Worlidge merely notices it as “smaller than the Orange Apple, else much like it in color, taste, and long keeping.” ”

“ There is no fruit, in temperate climates, so universally esteemed, and so extensively cultivated, nor is there any which is so closely identified with the social habits of the human species as the apple. Apart from the many domestic purposes to which it is applicable, the facility of its cultivation, and its adaptation to almost every latitude, have rendered it, in all ages, an object of special attention and regard. There is no part of our island where one or other of its numerous varieties is not cultivated, and few localities where the finest cannot be brought to perfection. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the Brompton Park Nursery, where the same Golden Pippin has been cultivated for nearly two centuries, and continued from year to year by grafts taken from young trees in the nursery quarters, I never saw the least disposition to disease, canker, or decay of any kind; but, on the contrary, a free, vigorous, and healthy growth. ”

“ The fruit is remarkably fair, and the tree is very productive. It is rather large, oblong, narrowing to the eye. Skin, clear, glossy, bright yellow, and when exposed, with a dull blush next the sun. Flesh, fine-grained, and abounding with juice, of a sprightly agreeable flavor. Ripens in September, and deserves general cultivation.—Down. ”

“ In its natural or wild state the apple tree is of a small size, attaining generally about twenty feet in height, of a crooked habit of growth, with small, harsh, and austere fruit, and small thin leaves. But when improved by cultivation, it loses much of its original form, assumes a more free and luxuriant growth, with larger, thicker, and more downy leaves, and produces fruit distinguished for its size, color, and richness of flavor. ”

“ 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. ”