6n the Virginia Crab Apple. S93 



Cjualities for cider. The sort on his land is but faintly 

 striped with red ; but produces cider, he thinks, of the 

 best quality, and resembling, mere than any other, 

 Champagne wine. The Hughes's crab apple that I 

 have met with, has been nearly covered with dull red 

 stripes. In their sizes, the apples of the different va- 

 rieties pretty well agree, all being very small, with long 

 stems, and growing on slender twigs : from all which 

 circumstances it was to be presumed, that the fruit 

 would hang on well ; and such is the fact. He says 

 the wood of Hughes's crab apple tree is exceedingly- 

 close and hard. 



I observed to colonel Roan, that the leaf of my young 

 Hughes's grafted crab differed from the leaf of all other 

 apple trees ; resembling, in its shining and smooth sur- 

 face, the pear leaf much more than the apple leaf. This 

 he said, was characteristic of Hughes's crab. 



But colonel Roan prefers his own crab to Hughes's : 

 and this is its history. — In the year 1790, going with 

 his father, in the month of October, to view a patch of 

 tobacco; as they were passing an apple tree (situated 

 among briars,) from which the apples had fallen, and 

 covered the ground ; his father told him to pick up one 

 for him to taste. He answered, that they could not be 

 good for any thing, or the negro children would have 

 eaten them up. His father persisted, and on tasting 

 the apple, pronounced it excellent ; and directed his 

 son to have them collected the next day. It was done. 

 They were made into cider, producing about nine gal- 

 lons ; which proved to be of an admirable quality. In 

 consequence, in the year 1792, an entire orchard was 

 planted and grafted with this fruit, to which has been 



VOL. III. D S 



