PLATE XXXV. 
4. HEREFORDSHIRE BEEFING. 
Nothing is known of the origin of this Apple. Dr. Hogg first saw it at the Apple Show of 
the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, held at Hereford in 1876. It was then named simply 
“ Beefing ,” to distinguish it from the Norfolk Beefing. Dr. Hogg called it the Herefordshire 
Beefing , a name which was adopted by the pomological committee of the Club. Some months 
afterwards, when referring to some pomological MSS. which belonged to Forsyth, the author of a 
Treatise on Fruit Trees , Dr. Hogg found amongst them a record of a collection of fruits that had 
been sent to him in the year 1801 by a Mr. Stroud from Dorsetshire, and of these one was “ The 
Hereford Beefin , a flat apple of a brownish red with some yellow on the side from the sun. This 
is very different from the Norfolk Beefing —keeps till the end of April.” Dr. Hogg’s nomenclature 
was thus long anticipated, and this opportunity of mentioning the circumstance is taken, because 
there is no record of the Hereford Beefin to be found in the Treatise on Fruit Trees ; nor indeed is 
any mention to be found of it elsewhere. It is now therefore described and figured for the first 
time. 
Description. —Fruit: roundish oblate, even in its outline. Skin : almost entirely of a dark 
chestnut colour, veined and dotted all over with cinnamon coloured russet, but especially over the 
crown and round the stalk, where it spreads over the base in ramifications ; on the shaded side it is 
orange with a greenish tinge. Eye : rather large, set in a rather deep round plaited basin, with 
convergent segments which are also sometimes erect; tube, funnel shaped ; stamens, basal. Stalk : 
stout and straight set in a round cavity. Flesh : yellowish, very firm and solid, crisp, very juicy, 
and with a brisk but not harsh acidity. Cells of the core closed. 
This is an excellent culinary apple, and in season from December to April or May. It has 
also the very valuable property of drying well in the oven, like the Norfolk Beefing , for which 
purpose it would well repay extensive cultivation. 
The tree grows to a medium size and is very hardy. It is so prolific that in the miserable 
seasons of 1879 and 1880 the Herefordshire Beefing trees were conspicuous for their crops of fruit, 
whilst all the surrounding trees in the orchard were barren. The spray of fruit represented (grown 
in 1880) represents the apples small, owing to the large crop on the tree, and it also shows a peculiarity 
its apples frequently have, of growing back to back. 
