This beautiful American fruit is one of the most delicious, fragrant and
sprightly of all late dessert apples. It ripens in January, keeps until
June, and always commands the highest market price. The tree is of
rapid, upright growth, and bears moderate crops. It originated on the
farm of Herman Chapin, of East Bloomfield, near Rochester, N. Y. The
trees require high culture, and open heads to let in the sun; otherwise
the fruit is wanting in flavor, and apt to be imperfect and knotty.
Young shoots dark, reddish brown. The tree blooms late, often escaping
vernal frosts. Fruit large, roundish, oblate, conical. Skin thin,
smooth, in the shade greenish or pale yellow, in the sun covered with
light and dark stripes of purplish red, marked with a few pale dots, and
a thin white bloom. Stalk three-fourths of an inch long, rather slender,
planted in a very wide, deep cavity, sometimes marked with russet. Calyx
small, closed. Basin narrow, abrupt, furrowed. Flesh white, fine
grained, tender, slightly subacid, with a peculiarly fresh and delicious
flavor. Core large and open. Very good to best. December to June.