THE FAMEU8E APPLE. 



Fameuse. Forsyth's Fruit Trees, 3d Edition. 



De Neige, X 



PoMME DE Fameuse, iLon. Hort. Soc. Cat. 



Sanguineus, ) 



PoMME DE Neige, Fruits and IVuit Trees of America. 



Snow Apple, ) ^ » • n ^• 



> or some Amencan collections. 

 Chimney Apple, ) 



It is somewhat remarkable that such an old apple 

 as the Fameuse, famihar to European writers on 

 fruits, should not have been more generally known 

 among our American pomologists. Neither Cox nor 

 Thatcher, two of the earliest writers, mention it; 

 and Mr. Kenrick, in his Orchardist, appears to have 

 been the first to call the attention of cultivators to 

 it. His description and account of the Fameuse 

 brought it into notice, and latterly it has become 

 much better known and more highly appreciated, so 

 that at the present time a collection cannot be con- 

 sidered complete without it. 



That a variety of so much merit should not have been more gen- 

 erally disseminated is somewhat surprising, for, as an autumn apple, 

 both on the score of beauty and excellence, it has few superiors. Of 

 only medium size, it is still large enough for a dessert fruit, and its 

 brilliant purplish crimson skin, which brings its snow-white flesh in 

 still greater contrast, renders it one of the most attractive apples. In 

 its peculiarly tender, almost melting flesh, and its slightly musky aroma, 

 it gi'eatly resembles some of the fine pears. 



The Fameuse has always been supposed by our pomologists to be an 

 American apple ; and one of our authors speaks of it as a " celebrated 

 Canadian fruit." But the early notice of it by Forsyth, as well as its 

 histoiy, so far as it has been traced, afibrd no proof of this. On the 

 contrai'y the evidence is, that it is a foreign apple, and in all probabiHty 

 originated in Fi'ance. It is known to have been planted by the French 

 settlers on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, at Ogdensburgh and 

 Detroit, one hundred and fifty years ago ; and it is scarcely possible 

 that at that time a native variety should have been so well known, as to 

 have been disseminated over such a large tract of countiy. 



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