THE APPLES OF NEW YORK. 313 



Fruit uniform in size, symmetrical and attractive in appearance 

 when well colored ; but too often its color lacks character, being 

 neither distinctly yellow nor distinctly red. It is a very pleasant 

 flavored dessert apple but hardly acid enough for most culinary uses. 

 The tree is a good, vigorous grower, healthy, hardy and usually a 

 reliable cropper, alternating good with moderate crops. It comes 

 into bearing moderately young. The fruit hangs well to the tree. 

 It is somewhat subject to apple scab and requires thorough pre- 

 ventive treatment to insure clean fruit. The tree tends to form a 

 rather dense head and requires frequent pruning to keep the top 

 sufficiently open to develop fruit of good color and good quality. 

 Some fruit growers regard it with favor as a commercial variety 

 on account of its being reliably productive and yielding a very good 

 grade of smooth fruit; but it is not grown extensively in any part 

 of the state, and, so far as we can learn, its cultivation is not being 

 extended. 



Historical. Originated with William Gibbons, Lampeter township, Lan- 

 caster county, Pa. (2, 12). It took its name from the fact that the original 

 tree grew near his smokehouse. It was brought to notice about 1837 by Ash- 

 bridge though it had long before been propagated in a nursery near the 

 locality of its origin. It is supposed to be a seedling of the old Vanclevere 

 of Delaware and Pennsylvania as it much resembles that variety; in fact 

 Elliott fell into the error of calling it identical with Vandevere. 1 It has been 

 grown more extensively in New Jersey and Pennsylvania than it has in this 

 state. It is cultivated to a limited extent in many portions of New York 

 but is not generally known among New York fruit growers. 



TREE. 



Tree medium to large, vigorous. Form roundish to wide-spreading, dense; 

 lateral branches willowy, slender. Twigs moderately long, straight, slender; 

 internodes long. Bark reddish-brown mingled with olive-green, lightly 

 streaked with scarf-skin, slightly pubescent. Lenticels very scattering, oblong, 

 not raised. Buds set deeply in bark, medium in size, broad, flat, obtuse, ap- 

 pressed, pubescent. 



FRUIT. 



Fruit above medium to large, uniform in size and shape. Form roundish 

 oblate or approaching oblate conic, rather regular, symmetrical or nearly so. 

 Stem medium to long, slender. Cavity acute to acuminate, medium to rather 

 deep, moderately narrow to rather wide, sometimes gently furrowed, often 

 thinly russeted. Calyx large, open or nearly so ; lobes often flat, convergent, 

 separated at the base. Basin moderately shallow to rather deep, rather wide, 

 sometimes compressed, somewhat abrupt, slightly wrinkled. 



1 Elliott, 1854: 1 13. 



