470 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



restricted distribution is, in truth, their strongest claim to recogni- 

 tion, and it is because of this that they are suggested to growers as 

 worthy of testing in other and larger fields. 



STAYMAN WINESAP APPLE. 



(SYNONYMS: Stayman 's Winesap; Stayman.) 

 [PLATE LVII]. 



The Winesap apple has from a very early day been one of the most 

 popular winter varieties, for both home use and market, in that great 

 belt of country which extends from New Jersey, Virginia, and North 

 Carolina to Arkansas, Kansas, and Nebraska. In more recent years 

 it has assumed commercial importance at many points in the Rocky 

 Mountain region and on the Pacific slope. Even before apples were 

 grown for sale as fruit to any extent in the region in question it was 

 prized as a cider variety. Thus, its standing as a cider fruit was rec- 

 ognized by Dr. James Mease in the first American edition of Willich's 

 Domestick Encyclopedia, which was published at Philadelphia in 1804. 

 In this work Dr. Mease, in his list of "Cyder apples," describes the 

 Winesap as follows : 



WiNE-Sop. An autumn fruit, of deep red colour, and sweet, sprightly taste; 

 makes excellent cyder, which is preferred by some to that of Red Streak; culti- 

 vated by Samuel Coles, of Moore's-town, New Jersey. 



Dr. Mease's account is worthy of special notice from the fact that it 

 was, in the language of the author, ' ' the first attempt ever made to 

 collect into one view a list of the finest kinds of apples growing in the 

 United States." This antedated by thirteen years Coxe's " View of 

 the cultivation of fruit trees," published also in Philadelphia, in 1817, 

 which has usually been considered the beginning of systematic pomol- 

 ogy in America. Dr. Mease's observations appear to have been chiefly 

 limited to eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but fortunately 

 included the collection of William Coxe at Burlington, then about ten 

 years established, as well as several others of that region; so that his 

 list includes the earliest known descriptions of about forty varieties 

 of apples that are still grown, in addition to a number that are probably 

 not now in existence. 



Coxe in 1817 described and illustrated the Winesap in his work 

 above noted, and characterized it as then "becoming the most favor- 

 ite cider fruit in West Jersey." He commended it highly on the score 

 of its productiveness, but noted its unsatisfactory habit of growth, 

 which still remains its chief defect as an orchard tree. Nothing- 

 appears to be known regarding its time and place of origin. Neither 

 Mease nor Coxe refers to these points. It has been assumed by 



Red Streak was one of the famous English cider apples grown in this country 

 at that time. 



