THE APPLE. 13- 



same family, and however individuals may have perished, 

 the race survives, fine and flourishing as ever. 



But perhaps the best known of all our apples at the 

 present day is the much esteemed Bibstone Pippin, so 

 easily recognized in its suit of dull green and red patched 

 with russet, and the genealogy of which has been a sub- 

 ject of much discussion. In an interesting statement 

 furnished to the Horticultural Society by Sir H. G-ood- 

 riche, on whose estate at Bibstone in Yorkshire the 

 original tree was discovered growing, he states that tra- 

 ditionary accounts are all we have to guide us in the 

 history of this tree. It is said that some apple-pips were 

 brought from. Rouen in Normandy, towards the close of 

 the 17th century ; that they were sown at Bibstone ; that 

 five of the pips grew, two of them producing crabs and 

 the other three apples, one of these latter being the now 

 famous Bibstone Pippin. It had been suspected that 

 the fruits might after all have been produced by grafting 

 (though the name would then have been a misnomer, the 

 word " pippin " implying that the tree has grown from a 

 seed or pip) ; and to determine this, some suckers were 

 taken from the old root and planted in the gardens at 

 Chiswick, when all doubts were dissipated by their grow- 

 ing and producing fruits exactly similar to that of the 

 parent tree. That nothing like it has ever been disco- 

 vered among all the foreign specimens of apples received 

 by the society, also tends to prove that the variety is of 

 native growth. The original tree, supposed to have been 

 planted in 1688, stood till 1810, when it was blown down 

 by a violent gale of wind, but being supported by stakes 

 in a horizontal position, continued to produce fruits until 

 1835, when it lingered and died. But " e'en in its ashes 

 lives its wonted fire," for " since then," says Mr. Hogg, 

 writing in 1851, " a young shoot has been produced about 

 four inches below the surface of the ground, which with 

 proper care may became a tree, and thereby preserve the 

 original of this favourite dessert apple." 

 ~>-^The Bibstone Pippin," says an American writer, 

 " stands as high in Great Britain as the Bank of Eng- 

 land, and to say that an apple has a Bibstone flavour is 



