APPLES. 135 



SHEEP'S NOSE. — Fruit, large, about three inches and a half long, 

 and about three inches wide; conical, narrowing gradually to the 

 crown, which is considerably higher on one side than the other ; gene- 

 rally with ten ribs on the sides. Skin, smooth, yellow, and strewed 

 with a few russety dots. Eye, small, set in a deep, plaited basin. 

 Stalk, short, inserted in a deep, round, and russety cavity. Flesh, 

 yellowish white, tender, very juicy, and sweet. 



A very good variety for culinary purposes, but chiefly used as a 

 cider apple in Somersetshire, where it is much grown for that purpose. 



SHEPHERD'S FAME.— Fruit, large, three inches and a quarter 

 wide, and two inches and a half high ; obtuse-ovate, broad and flat- 

 tened at the base, narrowing towards the eye, with five prominent ribs 

 on the sides, and in every respect very much resembling a small speci- 

 men of Emperor Alexander. Skin, smooth, pal6 straw-yellow, marked 

 with faint broken patches of crimson, on the shaded side, but streaked 

 with yellow and bright crimson on the side next the sun. Eye, open, 

 with short, stunted segments, placed in a deep, angular, and plaited 

 basin. Stalk, short, imbedded in a roimd funnel-shaped cavity. Flesh, 

 yellowish, soft, and tender, transparent, sweet, and briskly flavoured, , 

 but rather dry. 



An apple of very ordinary quality ; in use from October to March. 



Shepherd's Seedling. See Alfriston. 

 Shippen's Russet. See Boston Russet. 



SIBERIAN BITTER SWEET.— Fruit, small, and nearly globular. 

 Eye, small, with short connivent segments of the calyx. Stalk, short. 

 Skin, of a bright gold colour, tinged with faint and deeper red on the 

 sunny side. The fruit grows a good deal in clusters, on slender wing 

 branches. 



Specific gravity of the juice, 1091. 



This remarkable apple was raised by Mr. Knight from the seed of the Yellow 

 Siberian Crab, impregnated with the pollen of the Golden Harvey. I cannot do 

 better than transcribe from the Transactions of the London Horticultural Society 

 Mr. Knight's own account of this apple. " The fruit contains much saccharine 

 matter, with scarcely any perceptible acid, and it in consequence affords a cider 

 which is perfectly free from the harshness which in that liquor offends the palate 

 of many and the constitution of more ; and I believe that there is not any county 

 in England in which it might not be made to afford, at a moderate price, a very 

 wholesome and very palatable cider. This fruit differs from all others of its 

 species with which I am acquainted in being always sweet and without acidity, 

 even when it is more than half grown." 



When the juice is pressed from ripe and somewhat mellow fruit it contains a 

 very large portion of saccharine matter ; and if a part of the water it contains be 

 made to evaporate in a moderately low temperature, it affords a large quantity of 

 a jelly of intense sweetness, which, to my palace, is extremely agreeable, and which 

 may be employed for purposes similar to those to which the inspissated juice of 

 the grape is applied in France. The jelly of the apple, prepared in the manntr 

 above described, is, I believe, capable of being kept unchanged during a very long 

 period in any climate ; the mucilage being preserved by the antiseptic powers of 



