12 OTJB COMMON FETJITS. 



" The Catshead's ponderous orb, 

 Enormous in its growth," 



but which is really a distinct variety, always highly es- 

 teemed on account of its great size, in which, however, 

 it is rivalled by the " Beauty of Kent," a kitchen apple, 

 which has only become common since 1820, but which is 

 so excellent in every respect, that Hogg describes it as 

 being " perhaps the most magnificent apple in cultivation." 

 The Norfolk Beau-fin has a local celebrity from its being 

 specially fitted for making the well-known "biffins," 

 which are prepared by baking the fruit in a very slow 

 oven, pressing them from time to time with the hand 

 to reduce them to flatness ; but dearest of all culinary 

 apples to the housewife is the old Eusset or "Leathercote," 

 known since 1597, and in use throughout the winter, from 

 November to May, for every purpose of cooking. One 

 of the oldest and most highly esteemed of our dessert 

 fruits is the little yellow G-olden Pippin, which all agree 

 is undoubtedly English, though the date of its origin is 

 not known ; for the diminutive auriferous pippin of to-day 

 is evidently not the same which bore that name in the 

 time of Parkinson, since that is described by him as being 

 " the greatest and best of all pippins." It was first noted 

 as a cyder apple, a use to which it is still applied, but in 

 later days has become very popular for dessert purposes. 

 Mr. Knight, who had formed an idea that no variety of 

 apple could last longer than two centuries, mourned 

 specially over the approaching extinction of this little 

 golden favourite, believing that he could trace already 

 unmistakeable symptoms of its decline ; but this view 

 was strongly opposed by his contemporary, Greorge Lind- 

 ley ; and that eminent authority, Professor De Candolle, 

 gave it as his opinion that "varieties will endure and 

 remain permanent so long as man chooses to take care 

 of them." Experience, that best authority of all, has 

 happily disproved Mr. Knight's theory ; and though the 

 old diseased trees he had seen in Herefordshire, and from 

 the observation of which he deduced his melancholy fore- 

 bodings, are probably by this time all dead, they have but 

 yielded their place to younger and healthier plants of the 



