Dr. Hogg and the Rediscovery of ‘Striped Beefing’

Welcome to part three of chapter two of the story of the ‘Beefing’ group of apples. In this section I’ll be looking at the role played by Dr. Robert Hogg in the re-discovery and re-popularisation of ‘Striped Beefing’ in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Please note: this is one part of one chapter of a much longer series of articles exploring the story of Norfolk Biffins and ‘Beefing’ Apples. Please see the main Table of Contents page for links to the other chapters in this story.

In This Part of Chapter Two:

– The Return of a Forgotten ‘Beefing’
– Hogg’s Plan for ‘Striped Beefing’?
— Mr. Hogg and Mr. Rivers
– Was Hogg’s ‘Striped Beefing’ Plan a Success?
— ‘Striped Beefing’ Added to the Chiswick Garden
— ‘Striped Beefing’ in Print at Home
— ‘Striped Beefing’ in Print Overseas
— ‘Striped Beefing’ at the R.H.S. Exhibitions
– Chapter Two, Part Three, Summary and Conclusions

‘Striped Beefing’ – image via and © the National Fruit Collection Database.

The Return of a Forgotten ‘Beefing‘

Robert Hogg’s involvement in the story of the ‘Striped Beefing’ apparently began in 1847, when Mr. Hogg – twenty seven years old; still early in his career and not yet Dr. Hogg; a budding pomologist, building his reputation – encountered a fine old apple called ‘Striped Beefing’, which in his published opinion was an excellent variety and worthy of much wider attention. He seems therefore to have set out to use his horticultural connections – possibly his partnership in the Brompton Park Nursery, and more than likely his friendship with another well-known nurseryman of the day – and his own involvement with various publications, to promote ‘Striped Beefing’ to as wide an audience as he possibly could.

Illustration of ‘Striped Beefing’ cross-section from Robert Hogg, British Pomology (1851)

The story can be pieced together from various bits of evidence, beginning with Hogg’s first solo publication, British Pomology (1851), in which he has nothing but good things to say about ‘Striped Beefing’, as we can see from his description of the variety:

“Fruit, of the largest size; beautiful and handsome, roundish, and somewhat depressed. Skin, bright lively green, almost entirely covered with broken streaks, and patches of fine deep red, and thickly strewed with russety dots; in some specimens the color extends almost entirely round the fruit … Flesh, yellowish, firm, crisp, juicy and pleasantly acid.

One of the handsomest and best culinary apples in cultivation; for baking it is unrivalled. It is in use from October till May.

The tree is very hardy, and an excellent bearer.

This noble apple was introduced by Mr George Lindley, who found it growing in 1794, in the garden of William Crowe, Esq. at Lakenham near Norwich. He measured a specimen of the fruit, and found it twelve inches and a half in circumference, and weighing twelve ounces and a half, avoirdupois. It does not seem to have been in general cultivation, as it is not mentioned in any of the nursery catalogues; nor is it enumerated in that of the London Horticultural Society. Through the kindness of George Jefferies, Esq., of Marlborough Terrace, Kensington, who procured it from his residence in Norfolk, I had the good fortune in 1847, to obtain grafts, which when propagated, I distributed through several of the principal nurseries of the country, and by this means I trust, it will become more generally known, and universally cultivated.”

Let’s see: “of the largest size, beautiful and handsome”, “one of the handsomest and best culinary apples in cultivation; for baking it is unrivalled”, “very hardy, and an excellent bearer”. That’s quite the write-up for this “noble apple”; Hogg was clearly impressed. But was this amazing apple really as obscure Hogg claimed?

Indeed, ‘Striped Beefing’ is almost completely unmentioned in those commercial nursery catalogues for the years 1800 to 1849¹ that I have so far been able to access. There is one notable exception: ‘Striped Beefin’ (no ‘g’) does appear in the 1812 and 1825 fruit catalogues of the firm of Mackie’s of Norwich, and there will be more on Mackie’s in later chapters, but I have been unable to find a mention in any of the other catalogues of the era that are currently available online in digitised form.²

Neither, as Hogg also said, was ‘Striped Beefing’ listed in the first three editions of the Catalogue of the Horticultural Society of London’s Chiswick Garden, which were published in 1826, 1831 and 1842. As discussed in an earlier part of this chapter, Hogg wasn’t a proponent of the ‘Striped Beaufin’ name-variant, which he relegates to a synonym in British Pomology, although that was the canonical name used by the superintendents of the Chiswick Garden at the time.

There are a few mystery ‘Beaufin’ apples in the first three Chiswick Garden catalogues – ‘White Beaufin’, ‘Millmount Beaufin’³, and ‘Beaufinette’⁴ for instance – any of which might have been ‘Striped Beefing’ with an alternative name. But no definite equivalents have been established, as far as I know⁵.

There are also very few inclusions of ‘Striped Beefing / Beaufin’ in published books of the 1801 – 1849 period. There will be a lot more discussion of the pomological works of the first half of the nineteenth century in the next chapter, so for now I’ll just mention the one fully detailed write-up of ‘Striped Beefing’ that I have found: the one in George Lindley’s A Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden (1831). This is the source that Hogg references in the variety’s entry in British Pomology but, once again, as I’m going to come back to this volume, and to George Lindley’s “introduction” – according to Hogg – of ‘Striped Beefing’, in much more detail in a future chapter, I’ll say no more on it at this point.

For now, it’s sufficient to conclude that, as Hogg suggested, ‘Striped Beefing’ really doesn’t seem to have been a well-known or commonly-grown variety in 1851; and that this seems to have been a state of affairs that Hogg was determined to rectify.

Hogg’s Plan for ‘Striped Beefing’?

Hogg said in British Pomology that he first encountered ‘Striped Beefing’ in 1847, when he sourced scions – “grafts” – of the variety from the “Norfolk residence” of one George Jefferies⁶, and in the Acknowledgements section of the book Hogg thanks Mr. Jefferies for supplying him with “some of the valuable fruits of Norfolk”, suggesting that Hogg may have received a few other apple varieties from Jefferies at the same time.

This would have occurred during Hogg’s tenure as a partner in the firm of Gray, Adams and Hogg, at the the Brompton Park Nursery, so Mr. Jefferies could have been one of the nursery’s customers, or just a fellow pomologist with whom Hogg struck up a correspondence. ‘Striped Beefing’ isn’t listed in the 1847 Manual of Fruits catalogue published by the nursery, which confirms that it was a new variety to Hogg, rather than one that the Brompton Park Nursery was already carrying.

‘Striped Beefing’ would therefore have been a new addition to the firm’s stocklist, had Hogg decided to propagate the variety on behalf of the firm, but for some reason it seems he decided not to. Instead, Hogg’s stated aim became the re-introduction and distribution of the overlooked ‘Striped Beefing’ to orchardists and fruit growers throughout the land; in his own words, again from British Pomology (1851):

“…when propagated, I distributed [it] through several of the principal nurseries of the country, and by this means I trust, it will become more generally known”.

Considering Hogg was a partner in the Brompton Park Nursery in 1847, this course of action might seem a little odd; surely he would want to retain the profits within the firm in which he had a vested interest? Unless of course his other partners in the firm weren’t as enthusiastic about this apple – or in apples in general; the nursery sold a very wide range of plants and forest trees and perhaps this was a much more profitable arm of the business – as he was?

In my earlier potted biography of Hogg’s career I mentioned that the end-point of his involvement in the Brompton Park Nursery is hard to pin down, with published estimates of Hogg leaving’s the firm ranging from 1849 to the closure of the firm in either 18551 or 1854. Further research shows that Gray left the firm in 1847, the nursery business was advertised for sale in The Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette in May 1849, shortly after the remaining partners in the firm – Adams and Hogg – may actually have been declared bankrupt; the remaining nursery stock and the greenhouses were sold at various auctions between November 26th and December 10th 1849, and the land on which the nursery stood was purchased by a Royal Commission as the proposed site of a new National Gallery in 1853.

In which case, by 1847 might Hogg already have been feeling the need to cast the net wider, or have been looking to establish a new, freelance career for himself? Was he already building up his network of connections, via the vehicle of this remarkable apple variety? Could we therefore infer that Hogg had a vested – possibly quite lucrative – interest in promoting the apple, possibly some sort of agreement with the nurseries that he distributed the scions to, one in which he received some sort of finder’s fee, or a gratuity for helping to promote sales of the rediscovered variety? Perhaps so, perhaps not. Instead, there’s every chance that in promoting ‘Striped Beefing’ Hogg had the purest and noblest of intentions: simply wishing to re-introduce this excellent variety to fellow fruit-growers and enthusiasts across the land.

Whatever Hogg’s motivations – with or without his involvement in purely hypothetical deals for the apple’s distribution – his efforts on behalf of ‘Striped Beefing’ do seem to have met with some success, I think in large part thanks to his already well-established friendship with another prominent nurseryman of the day.

Mr. Hogg and Mr. Rivers

One of the “principal nurseries” that stocked ‘Striped Beefing’, and I suspect was an absolutely essential part of Hogg’s distribution plan, was Rivers of Sawbridgeworth, which in the 1850s was one of the most important and influential nursery companies in the United Kingdom.

In 1851 the company was run by Thomas Rivers, and Robert Hogg considered the gentleman in question to be both a key pomological colleague and a very dear friend. The great depth of their friendship was made clear in Hogg’s heartfelt and rather moving dedication to Thomas Rivers of the fifth edition of The Fruit Manual (1884):

The text reads:

“To the memory of the late Mr. Thomas Rivers, of Sawbridgeworth, I dedicate this fifth edition of The Fruit Manual; not that he requires a memorial other than than which he himself has raised; but for forty years we were knit together by the closest friendship, working together and stimulating one another in the study of pomology: and now that he has passed away I thus cherish my memory of a sincere friend and good man. He died October 17th 1877, Aged 80 years.”

Not long after the publication of Hogg’s British Pomology (1851), we find ‘Striped Beefing’ listed in Thomas Rivers’ 1853 Descriptive Catalogue of Fruits⁷. The 1855, 1857 and 1860 Rivers catalogues all listed “Striped Beaufin or Beefing”, which I think is a case of Rivers hedging his bets, trying to avoid alienating either his good friend Hogg or any members of the Chiswick school amongst his customer base. The variety disappears from the 1861 catalogue, but then reappears in 1863, as ‘Striped Beefing’, sans ‘Beaufin’⁸.

Rivers also recommended ‘Striped Beefing’ in his book on pyramidal and bush-form fruit growing, The Miniature Fruit Garden, from the eighth edition in 1859 through to the twentieth, which I believe was the last and was published fourteen years after the author’s death, in 1891. Thomas Rivers was clearly a loyal supporter of ‘Striped Beefing’.

Incidentally, it might have been the Rivers Nursery that introduced another potential ‘Beefing’ group apple: ‘Norfolk Bearer’, which was later re-identified, in Barron’s British Apples (1883), as a synonym of ‘Norfolk Beefing’⁹. This variety appeared in the firm’s 1853, 1855, 1860, 1861 and 1863 catalogues, although it may well have been available from them at an even earlier date¹⁰. Rivers also listed ‘Norfolk Bearer’ as a recommend kitchen apple in the seventh edition of The Miniature Fruit Garden (1856), but as earlier editions aren’t available online at the moment, I can’t say whether Rivers recommended it prior to that first catalogue mention in 1853.

I do wonder: could this have been an attempt by Rivers, or possibly the Lawsons, to re-brand ‘Norfolk Beefing’ with a more genteel-sounding name? Possibly so, but I’m not so sure. Hogg included ‘Norfolk Bearer’ as a separate variety, alongside ‘Norfolk Beefing’, in the first edition of The Fruit Manual (1861), which suggests to me that both Hogg and Rivers must have believed it to be a distinct variety, rather than a re-named ‘Beefing’. Unless of course Hogg was supporting his good friend’s push to sell a “new” apple variety, in return for said good friend supporting his own push to re-invigorate the popularity of ‘Striped Beefing’?

However, the earliest mentions of ‘Norfolk Bearer’ that I’ve found to-date appear in 1851. The first is a list of fruit trees available from Peter Lawson and Son of Edinburgh and London¹¹. The second is in The Southern Rural Almanack, published in the United States, which contains a “Catalogue of Apples under cultivation at the Southern Nurseries, Washington, Adams county Mississippi” that includes ‘Norfolk Bearer’ and ‘Norfolk ‘Beau-fin’ as well. This might suggest that ‘Norfolk Bearer’ was available in both Scotland and the U.S. before it reached the Rivers catalogue, except as I’ve mentioned it could have featured in a pre-1853 Rivers catalogue that hasn’t survived in digitised form, so I don’t think we can credit Lawson or the Southern Nursery as the definite originator as things stand.

That same fruit tree list from Peter Lawson and Son also included ‘Beaufin, Striped’, in which it was described as being:

“1st size, 1st quality, oblate, dark red. This variety is of Norfolk origin, fruit very large, sometimes twelve inches in circumference, a good sort. October to May. Culinary.”

This could very well be another example of a nursery firm to whom Hogg sent scions of ‘Striped Beefing’.

Was Hogg’s ‘Striped Beefing’ Plan a Success?

To get a sense of the degree of success, or otherwise, of Robert Hogg’s promotional push behind ‘Striped Beefing’, we can look for its inclusion in the pomological literature and other nursery catalogues of the second half of the nineteenth century. This would surely suggest that the previously neglected variety had been successfully returned to a state of pomological popularity, after being all-but forgotten, at least outside its native Norfolk, in the years prior to Hogg’s encounter with it in 1847.

‘Striped Beefing’ Added to the Chiswick Garden

The superintendent of the Horticultural Society of London’s Chiswick Garden must have added a ‘Striped Beaufin’ tree to the collection sometime before 1853, because that was when “Beaufin, Striped” appeared in the Supplement to the Third Edition of the Chiswick catalogue, which was published in the Journal of the Horticultural Society of London volume eight (1853).

In fact, I think the variety was likely to have been present in the Chiswick Garden some time prior to 1850, because that’s when Jane Loudon included ‘Striped Beefing’ as a recommended orchard apple, in a new and revised edition of her late husband John’s Encyclopedia of Gardening. Mrs Loudon included it in a list of those apples recommended to her by Robert Thompson, who was then the Superintendent of the Chiswick Garden. This surely suggests that Thompson was familiar with ‘Striped Beefing’, either because he was growing it at Chiswick, or because Hogg had recommended it to him, perhaps in 1847-1848 when Hogg began distributing scions or grafted trees.

We also know that the variety was still going strong in Chiswick a decade or so after its introduction. Published in 1862, the second volume of the Proceedings of the Royal Horticultural Society contained a “list of Fruits in the Society’s Garden at Chiswick” (pages 491-492 and 513-540) which was compiled by Robert Hogg and included ‘Beefing, Striped’ alongside ‘Beefing, Norfolk’. The same volume of the Proceedings also included the first part of the full, 4th edition of the Catalogue of Fruits Cultivated in the Garden of the Royal Horticultural Society at Chiswick, which was compiled by Robert Thompson, who had edited the second (1831) and third (1842) plus supplement (1853) editions. This particular instalment only covered varieties A-D, so the relevant entry wasn’t to appear until the fourth volume of the Proceedings was published in 1864. Here we find ‘Striped Beaufin’ rather than ‘Striped Beefing’; Robert Thompson was clearly sticking to his guns rather than acceding to Hogg’s spelling preferences.

‘Striped Beefing’ in Print at Home

An increased number of mentions of, and recommendations for, ‘Striped Beefing’ can be found in pomological works published in the U.K. between 1850 and 1899. (If you’d rather not read through the detailed examples below, please feel free to skip ahead to the section on ‘Striped Beefing at the R.H.S. Exhibitions‘.)

The earliest I’ve found to-date it the first edition of the English translation, by nurseryman William Wardle, of Alphonse Du Breuil’s The Science and Practice of Grafting, Pruning, and Training Fruit Trees (1852). It contains a list of recommended winter apples – more than likely added by Wardle rather than included in the De Breuil original – which includes both ‘Norfolk Beefing’ and ‘Striped Beefing’. The second edition of the book underwent a change of title, to The Scientific and Profitable Culture of Fruit Trees … Adapted for English Cultivators by W. Wardle (1872). The recommended list was edited as well, to include ‘Norfolk Biffin’ and ‘Striped Biffin’ instead, and those name-changes remained for the third edition of 1874. I suspect this was the result of the increase in popularity of Norfolk Biffins in the wake of the publication of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in 1855 and the ensuing confusion of the apple sweetmeat and the apple variety.

In 1854, the October 13th issue of The Cottage Gardener included a reply to a correspondent who had asked which fruits were recommended for exhibition and ‘Striped Beefing’, grown on an espalier, was one of the suggested apples. In the same year, a miscellany entitled The Flower, Fruit and Kitchen Garden, which seems to have been compiled from various articles and letters to various horticultural journals, also includes ‘Striped Beaufin’ in a list of recommended winter apples, possibly referencing that previous article.

The author of The Kitchen Garden (1855), one Eugene Sebastien Delamer, also recommended growing both the ‘Norfolk Biffin’ and ‘Striped Biffin’, and in the following year the same volume was re-published as The Kitchen Garden and Flower Garden, this time under the authorship of E. S. Dixon¹², and with the same ‘Biffin’ recommendations. Again it seems likely to me that the use of ‘Biffin’ in these volumes is due to the Dickens-inspired growth in popularity of the dried biffin sweetmeat.

Also in 1855, in The Book of the Garden, Charles McIntosh recommended ‘Striped Beaufin’ as “very hardy, a great bearer” and said that it had been “latterly brought into notice by Mr Hogg”. Always nice see credit being given where credit was due.

In 1856 the second edition of a pamphlet entitled Gardening for the Many, by the contributors of the Cottage Gardener magazine, included ‘Striped Beefing’ in a list of recommended apple, again possibly referencing that 1855 article. By 1861 the 6th edition of the pamphlet had been re-named The Garden Manual, and it still included ‘Striped Beefing’, as well as ‘Norfolk Beefing’, as did the 7th edition of 1863. Robert Hogg was eventually to take over the editorship of the Cottage Gardener, combining it with The Journal of Horticulture; Perhaps he had already forged links with the previous editors, as they do seem to have been very early supporters of ‘Striped Beefing’; perhaps that was a result of Hogg’s influence.

1859 and 1878 saw two editions of The Gardener’s Assistant Practical and Scientific by Robert Thompson – the same superintendent of the Chiswick Garden who had recommended ‘Striped Beaufin’ to Jane Loudon in 1850 – and in both editions he recommended ‘Striped Beaufin’, with ‘Striped Beefing’ given as a synonym, as “a valuable kitchen apple”. Thompson added:

“The variety was first brought into notice by Mr. George Lindley, who, in 1794, found it growing in a garden at Lakenham, near Norwich ; but its extensive distribution is due to Mr. Hogg.”

Fair credit given again, and “extensive distribution” certainly makes it sound as though Hogg’s reinvigoration plan was bearing fruit.

‘Striped Beefing’ had definitely reached Glasnevin, Dublin, by 1861, when the nursery firm of Alexander Campbell and Sons included it in their catalogue.

In 1865, the May issue of the Florist and Pomologist magazine printed a letter from A. Cramb of Tortworth Court in south Gloucestershire¹³, who had sent in a “list of culinary apples which we still retain” – in other words, long-keepers from the previous season that were sill in good condition – in which he said:

“Striped Beefing, one of our best late Apples, is now as firm and crisp in the flesh as when first gathered.”

Cramb also mentioned ‘Norfolk Beefing’, which he said was still “sound and good”, although obviously not as impressive as ‘Striped Beefing’. An editorial note followed the letter:

“From what we have seen of the superior treatment, and the correctness of the nomenclature of the collection of fruits at Tortworth Court, such notes as these are highly valuable.”

The editor of the Florist and Pomologist at the time was, of course, one Robert Hogg. Small wonder then that he was impressed by the “correctness” of Mr. Cramb’s nomenclature.

Also in 1865, the December 18th edition of the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette printed a report on the Royal Horticultural Society’s International Show of Fruits and Vegetables, at which Messrs. Webber and Co. of Covent Garden were commended for their “beautiful examples” of “Striped Beefing, a showy and excellent kitchen fruit”.

In 1871, William Robinson’s “edited and revised” edition of J. C. Loudon’s The Horticulturist, Or, The Culture and Management of the Kitchen, Fruit, & Forcing Garden includes ‘Green Beefing’ and ‘Red or Striped Beefing’ in a list of “Kitchen apples for spring or summer use, from January to June”. It’s unclear whether Robinson intended to convey that ‘Red Beefing’ houl;d be considered a synonym for ‘Striped’, or an alternate to ‘Striped Beefing’, presumably therefore a synonym of ‘Norfolk Beefing’ instead.

There was another glowing review of ‘Striped Beefing’ in the April 1877 issue of the Florist and Pomologist magazine, now under the editorial guidance of Thomas Moore, rather than Robert Hogg, in which a Mr. J. Wighton, of Cossey Park, a.k.a. Costessey Park or Cotesby Hall, in Norfolk¹⁴ said:

“This may be considered a Norfolk apple, the original seedling tree being first noticed in the neighbourhood of Norwich. It is a large kitchen apple, and keeps nearly as long as the Norfolk Beefing, but is more juicy and better suited for cooking purposes; besides it is much larger … I have grown the Striped Beefing for many years, and seldom found it fail in fruitfulness … The fruit on the sunny side is of a mahogany-colour, while the shaded side is striped with tinges of red and greenish yellow.”

Note Mr Wighton’s assumption that the tree found by Lindley – back in 1794, as we know – was a “seedling”, which was of course shared by Hogg. It’s unclear whether Wighton was sourcing this opinion from Hogg, or was voicing local knowledge about the variety, but as I’ll discuss in the next chapter, it’s something of a misapprehension.

The 1881 edition of the Proceedings of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science included a paper, delivered to a meeting of the society by one Dr. Robertson, on “fruit culture and some of the hindrances to its more general cultivation”. Dr. Robertson mentions a vote by nineteen fruit growers and head gardeners based in the Carse of Gowrie area, in which ‘Norfolk Beaufin’ and ‘Striped Beaufin’ are both mentioned as recommended varieties for “either garden or orchard”, albeit with only one vote each.

The August 8th 1885 issue of The Gardener’s Magazine includes a section of reports on fruit crops from gardeners around the country. Two such reports, from Salisbury in Wiltshire and Hindlip Hall in Worcestershire, show that ‘Striped Beefing’ was being grown in both locations, and were having a good year.

In Scotland, Malcolm Dunn’s report on the 1885 Royal Caledonian Apple and Pear Congress, published in 1887, contains several mentions of ‘Norfolk Beefing’ and ‘Striped Beefing’ and, confusingly, ‘Norfolk Beaufin’ and ‘Striped Beaufin’ as well. ‘Striped Beefing / Beaufin’ is included in lists of fruit exhibited by private growers from Dalkeith and St Boswells, in Scotland; Chirk in Wales; Courtown and Newry in Ireland; Withington, and Tenbury in England, and from nursery firms Dickson’s and Co. of Edinburgh, and James Veitch & Sons of Chelsea, the latter’s apples being described as “extra fine”.

Mr. W. Coleman of Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire, who we’ll hear from again in the next chapter, also talked about ‘Striped Beefing’ in positive terms. In a letter to The Garden Magazine vol 29, Sat March 20th 1886, he described it as:

“… a Norfolk apple … not the fashionable representative of its class amongst exhibitors. It is a large, fine and remarkably handsome apple, with a short stalk and large open eye like that of the Blenheim Orange. The skin is of a bright, lively green, often covered with patches and streaks of deep red, which render the fruit very handsome after it has been gathered for a time.”

Just how handsome an apple ‘Striped Beefing’ was in its Victorian heyday can be seen in this beautifully illustrated frontispiece to volume one of The Fruit Grower’s Guide (1891) by John C. Wright, which was painted by the hugely talented horticultural artist Miss May Rivers, the daughter of Thomas Rivers.

‘Newton Wonder’ and ‘Striped Beefing’. Artwork by May Rivers, from *The Fruit Grower’s Guide*, volume one (1891) by John Wright

Wright also included ‘Striped Beefing’ in a list of recommended culinary apples, in volume two of his six-part Guide, describing it as:

“Fruit roundish, flattened, green, patched and streaked with red, russety ; flesh yellowish, firm, crisp, juicy, brisk, with a pleasing acidity. A Norfolk apple, very handsome, and a great bearer, with a remarkable season for baking, viz., October to May.”

‘Striped Beefing’ in Print Overseas

When it comes to achieving a wider distribution, it doesn’t get much more extensively far-flung than the Antipodes. By 1863 the ‘Striped Beefing’ had reached Australia, according to the Catalogue of Fruit Trees, Experimental Garden, Survey Paddock, Richmond, published in Melbourne that year, which confirms that the variety was being grown there, along with ‘Norfolk Beefing’, ‘Norfolk Bearer’ and ‘Winter Colman’, the latter two of which were both identified as likely synonyms of the ‘Norfolk Beefing’ at a later date.

The 1870 Catalogue of Plants Cultivated for Sale by T. Lang & Co. of Ballarat, Melbourne, Australia, also lists the ‘Norfolk Bearer’, ‘Norfolk Beaufin’ and ‘Striped Beaufin’. In 1870 the Papers and Proceedings and Report of the Royal Society of Tasmania for 1869 includes ‘Striped Beaufin’ in a list of plants introduced to the Society’s gardens that year¹⁵. And in 1884, William Adamson listed ‘Striped Beefing’, along with ‘Norfolk Bearer’ in a list of recommended culinary apples in Adamson’s Australian Gardener. And we also find ‘Striped Beaufin’ listed, in A Handbook of the Destructive Insects of Victoria (1896) by Charles French, amongst those varieties that the author believed were “proof against attack of woolly aphis”.

Somewhat closer to its Norfolk home, in 1865 the German magazine Monatsschrift für Pomologie und Praktischen Obstbau – the Monthly Magazine for Pomology and Practical Fruit Growing – featured the ‘Gestreifter Beaufin’ – a direct translation of ‘Striped Beaufin’ – with the following rather glorious illustration¹⁶:

‘Gestreifter Beaufin’ via *Monatsschrift für Pomologie und Praktischen Obstbau* (1865)

The article’s author, the renowned German pomologist Eduard Lucas, said he received one of these apples from General Consul Ladé in Geisenheim, and that it was labelled with “a completely heretical and incorrect English name.”¹⁷ He goes on to say:

“…it is probably better to keep the English name Beaufin than to use Gestreifter feiner Stutzerapfel.”

The German name there translates to: “Striped Fine Stutzer Apple”, and according to Google Translate, Stuzer means dandy, fop or coxcomb; so that would make it something like a “Striped Fine Dandy Apple”. Which does seem rather fitting, if you ask me.

Lucas then mentions Lindley and Hogg’s descriptions of the apples, along with Hogg’s version of the variety’s origin story, and adds:

“Here it was very good in December and in any case one of the better Ramboure … I must declare [this apple] to be one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.”

By ‘Ramboure’ Lucas is surely referring to the broad class of apples known in France as ‘Rambour’ or ‘Rambourg’ types, an interesting observation that I’ll be coming back to in a later chapter. Lucas finishes by saying:

“Norfolk Beaufin, schöner von Norfolk, [translates to: the more (or most?) beautiful apple from Norfolk] is a similar but very different one and barely half the size. We don’t think we can recommend this magnificent … apple enough.”

It’s perhaps worth noting at this point that Lucas is also offering scions of this “magnificent apple” for sale by mail order, so perhaps his opinion isn’t entirely without bias.

At least one French pomologist also mentioned ‘Striped Beefing’: the Guide Pratique de l’Amateur de Fruits (1876) by Octave Thomas lists ‘Beaufin Strié’, which is of course another direct translation of ‘Striped Beaufin’.

We know that ‘Striped Beefing’ crossed the Atlantic, too, because in 1896, in the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin #116: Dwarf Apples, ‘Striped Beaufin’ is recommended as a suitable culinary variety for growing on a dwarfing rootstock, by way of a reference to Practical Fruit Culture (1892) by Joseph Cheal, in which the author suggests growing them in a trained, pyramid form. And In 1898, the catalogue of fruit trees growing at the Canadian Department of Agriculture’s Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa included ‘Striped Beaufin’, or at least, they had a tree in their nursery.

‘Striped Beefing’ at the R.H.S. Exhibitions

Another measure of the growing popularity of ‘Striped Beefing’ – in comparison to the other ‘Beefing’ apples at least – is its showing at the R.H.S. fruit exhibitions of the 1880s and 1890s.

The first of these were the National Apple Congress of 1883, and the National Apple and Pear Conference of 1888, two major pomological events organised by the Royal Horticultural Society to showcase the finest examples of British fruit growing to the nation, both of which I discussed in more detail in part one of this chapter.

Mr. A. F. Barron organised the 1883 Congress, which turned into a truly massive exhibition of apple varieties, with 236 exhibitors – nursery companies and individual orchardists alike, from across the British Isles – sending a total of 10,150 plates of apples¹⁸ to Chiswick for display and assessment. Barron wrote the official report of the event, which was published in a stand-alone volume entitled British Apples (1884). In the ‘Descriptive Catalogue’ section of the report, from page 165 onwards, Barron provided a list of all the apples that were exhibited, which included:

834 Norfolk Beefing (183), C. Medium, round, dull bronze, very firm, acid, late ; an excellent late Apple ; fifty-seven.

1330 Striped Beefing (183), C. Large, flat, open eye, green streaked red, late, first quality ; very handsome ; a prolific bearer ; twenty-eight.

In these passages, the first number is the catalogue i.d. of the variety. The number in parentheses is an exhibitor number; according to the exhibitors’ list from p.9, (183) refers to “Royal Horticultural Society, Chiswick”. The written number at the end of the entry refers to “the number of dishes exhibited”. I’m interpreting this to mean that ‘Norfolk Beefing’ was shown by a total of fifty-seven exhibitors, and ‘Striped Beefing’ by twenty-eight. The full list of exhibitor codes would clearly have been too long to print for every variety, which is presumably why only the principal exhibitor was indicated.

A few years later, the Journal of the R.H.S., Vol X (1888), carried an extensive and exhaustive ‘Report of the Apple and Pear Conference, October 1888’. This report included a reprinting of the statistical information that A. F. Barron provided in 1884, and updated the ‘Descriptive Catalogue’ of fruit exhibited to indicate those varieties that appeared for the first time at the 1888 event. A separate data table, from p. 133, lists the number of dishes of every variety exhibited in 1888. From this we learn that nine dishes of both ‘Norfolk Beefing’ and ‘Striped Beefing’ were shown, along with four dishes of the recently-introduced ‘Herefordshire Beefing’¹⁹. We also learn, via the list on p. 181-182, that one H. G. Oclee received a Certificate of Merit for their ‘Striped Beefing’ apples, and J. Veitch and Sons likewise, for their ‘Herefordshire Beefing’ entry.

The exhibitor numbers might suggest that ‘Striped Beefing’ was around half as popular as ‘Norfolk Beefing’ in 1883 and equally as popular in 1888. However, on p. 159 of British Apples, there’s a table of culinary “varieties selected by the Exhibitors as best suited for Cultivation”; in effect a national popularity poll of 130 apple-growing exhibitors to find the best kitchen apples. ‘Norfolk Beefing’ makes a respectable showing, with 10 votes, and ‘Norfolk Bearer’ gets 4²⁰, but there is no sign of either ‘Striped Beefing’ or ‘Herefordshire Beefing’, indicating that they must have received fewer than three votes apiece. Perhaps by 1888 ‘Striped Beefing’ was yet to gain widespread favour amongst growers, and was exhibited more as a curiosity, rather than an example of an excellent culinary variety?

A report on the 1894 Great Exhibition and Conference on British Fruit – which was once again organised by A.F. Barron, in partnership with Mr Head, Chief of the Horticultural Department of the Crystal Palace, the host venue – was published in Vol. 18 of the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society the following year. 1,027 dishes of 172 varieties were entered for prizes²¹. Only two of those dishes were of ‘Striped Beefing’, along with one of ‘Herefordshire Beefing’ and none of ‘Norfolk Beefing’.

Another Great Exhibition and Conference on British Fruit followed a year later and was reported on in Vol. 19 of the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society. The prize exhibition was even bigger than in 1894, with a total of 1,938 dishes of apples across 201 varieties²². The number of ‘Striped Beefing’ entries increased to six, ‘Norfolk Beefing’ reappeared with just one, but this time no-one thought to bring any ‘Herefordshire Beefing’ to the party.

The next Great Exhibition and Conference on British Fruit, in 1896, perhaps wasn’t so great after all. The report’s opening remarks tell a story that just goes to show that the phenomenon of a harsh autumn on the heels of a poor summer and following a cold wet, spring isn’t a recent development:

“Rarely, if ever, have we experienced an autumn so unfavourable for a Great Show of British-grown Fruit. The frosts of spring in many places reduced the Apple and Plum crops severely, and the abundance of caterpillars and lack of rain during the early summer added to the misfortune, which was completed by the altogether phenomenal winds and rains of the ripening months, August and September. It is calculated that the winds of September alone must have practically destroyed half the crops of all the standard and bush trees throughout the United Kingdom.”

The net result was a drastic reduction in exhibited apples, down to 1,083 dishes of 168 varieties. Still, ‘Striped Beefing’ accounted for five of those dishes, with one of ‘Norfolk Beefing’. Again, it seems nobody thought to tell ‘Herefordshire Beefing’ that the Crystal Palace was the place to be.

The figures above suggest that, by the end of the century, Hogg’s promotional push had met with some success, as ‘Striped Beefing’ – or, yes, ‘Striped Beaufin’ – had gone from almost complete obscurity pre-1950 to a much greater level of acceptance and inclusion in exhibitions and recommendation lists in the second half of the nineteenth century.

However, whilst the evidence shows that ‘Striped Beefing’ had indeed grown in popularity, to be honest it had still only done so to a modest degree by the end of the nineteenth century. ‘Striped Beefing’ certainly hadn’t taken off to the extent that it had any real chance of eclipsing much more highly regarded culinary apples – such as ‘Blenheim Orange’ (115 votes in the National Poll of 1883), ‘Lord Suffield’ (101 votes), ‘Dumelow’s Seedling’ (93 votes), Keswick Codlin (84 votes), or of course the eventually ubiquitous ‘Bramley’s Seedling’²³ – that were, or came to be, much more widely grown and highly regarded.

I do have to wonder though whether all three ‘Beefing’ apples might have suffered by comparison with their culinary competitors, due to the 1883 Congress, the 1888 Conference and all three Great Exhibitions being held in the months of September or October? The ‘Beefing’ apples are all late-ripening, long-keeping varieties, so picking and showing their fruit so early in their growing season would surely have meant that they weren’t at their peak of perfection; perhaps there were a lot more ‘Beefing’ growers in the country, but they decided not to exhibit the apples in a state of under-ripeness?

Presumably though, the National Poll voters in 1883 and 1888 were expressing a more general preference for those varieties that they knew to be excellent, rather than commenting on the apparent qualities of the actual apples in the exhibition. In which case the late-ripening qualities of all three ‘Beefing’ apples may have further counted against them, requiring of their growers a second phase of picking, packing and distribution at a much less clement and work-friendly time of year.

However, it has to be said that these rather modest ‘Beefing’ showings, in comparison to the much wider popularity of those other culinary apple varieties, seems to herald the onset, or just confirm, the decline in popularity of the ‘Beefing’ apples that was discussed in chapter one.

‘Striped Beefing’ did hold on to its popularity relative to the other ‘Beefing’ apples, at least into the latter part of the nineteenth century and, as we’ve seen in chapter one, into the early part of the twentieth. The nursery firm of George Bunyard and Co. listed ‘Striped Beefing’ – but not ‘Norfolk Beefing’ or ‘Hereford Beefing’ – in their 1898 catalogue, and they were definitely growing, and presumably supplying, the variety for a few years before that; in the Gardener’s Chronicle for September 30th 1893, mention is made of an exhibition prize won by Bunyard’s for a 48-plate collection of culinary apples, and ‘Striped Beefing’ was among a few selected as the best on show.

Sadly, this was probably the zenith for the ‘Striped Beefing’, along with so many other old apple varieties. The era of mass-market ‘Bramley’ ubiquity had dawned towards latter part of the century and was soon to become the dominant theme of English kitchen apple production. Many fine, old culinary varieties of apple would soon be consigned to the pages of pomological history, remaining viable only through the efforts of enthusiasts and, of course, the work of the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale.

Chapter Two, Part Three: Summary and Conclusions

In this part of the ‘Beefing’ story I’ve suggested that in 1847, Robert Hogg planned to use his contacts in the field of pomology to promote the long-forgotten apple variety ‘Striped Beefing’; introducing it to as many nurserymen and gardeners as he possibly could and encouraging them to grow this “beautiful and handsome” and “noble apple”, which he considered to be “one of the handsomest and best culinary apples in cultivation”, as per his own description of the variety in British Pomology(1851).

The measure of success of Hogg’s plan can be assessed by the variety’s rise from almost complete obscurity pre-1850 to becoming a regularly exhibited and recommended kitchen apple that was stocked by a number of nursery firms, both in the United Kingdom and overseas, between 1850 and 1899.

As for Hogg’s motivation, either he simply considered ‘Striped Beefing’ to be an excellent variety deserving of wider inclusion in the nation’s orchards, or perhaps he had a financial interest in doing so, via his method of introducing the apple to various nursery firms. Not that I think the latter is in any way unseemly or underhand; plenty of shadier methods have been used to promote products a lot less wholesome and healthy than a fine old cooking apple, and it’s entirely through Hogg’s efforts that the variety is still available to be grown today. In fact, I rather hope he did receive a fee of some sort from the nurserymen, as his work clearly deserved to be rewarded.

At this point, I should point out that what I haven’t done is read every word and scour every catalogue entry in Hogg’s complete body of written work, to see if he voiced the same enthusiasm for other apple varieties. It could actually be the case that he had a whole list of under-valued apples that he was working to bring to wider attention, rather than just ‘Striped Beefing’ alone, and that he applied the same method to promoting several forgotten varieties.

In fact, I do know of one other that Hogg definitely seems to have been extremely keen to promote to an equal, if not surpassing degree²⁴. And it just so happens that the apple in question is another member of the main ‘Beefing’ trio.

In the final part of this chapter of the ‘Beefing’ Apples Story, I’ll take a look at Hogg’s central role in the discovery – or was it another re-discovery? – of an apple variety that he apparently was given the honour of naming: ‘Herefordshire Beefing’.

>> Click here to read Chapter Two, Part Four: Dr Hogg, Dr Bull, and the Origins of ‘Herefordshire Beefing’

˃˃ Click here to return to Chapter Two: The ‘Beefing’ Apples Story, 1850 – 1899

˃˃ Click here to return to the main Table of Contents and explore the rest of the series.

Footnotes

1
A full list of references from the 1801-1850 sources will be available in Chapter Three, once it goes live. ↩︎
2
George Lindley’s Catton Nursery was operational until 1822 and – for reasons to be explored in a later chapter – could well have been selling ‘Striped Beaufin’ apples up until this date, but no examples of any of the firm’s catalogues of the period seem to have survived, at least not in accessible, digitised form. ↩︎
3
‘Millmount Beaufin’ seems to have originated in Ireland, and could be a synonym for ‘Norfolk Paradise’, according to various interrelated synonym connections, but this earlier-ripening dessert apple doesn’t seem to be a member of the ‘Beefing’ group, as far as I can tell. ↩︎
4
I did think that ‘Beaufinette’ might suggest a smaller version of a ‘Beaufin’, – making it unlikely to be the very large ‘Striped Beaufin’ – but then I came across a reference by Robert Hogg to a ‘Beaufinet’ apple of Normandy, which seems a far more likely original name. ↩︎
5
A ‘Striped Monstrous Reinette’ crops up a couple of times as well – in Louis-Claude Noisette’s Catalogue Méthodique des Arbres Fruitiers (1825) and John Cree’s Hortus Addlestonensis (1829) – which again could be a ‘Striped Beefing’ by another name, but again, no clear links have been established that I’m aware of. It seems more likely that it was a sport of the more common ‘Monstrous Rennet’, which from various descriptions sounds very much like one of the ‘Calville’ apples. ↩︎
6
I’ve searched around online but can’t find a George Jefferies who might fit the bill, apart from a gun maker of the same name, but who seems to have been Norfolk-based rather than Kensington-based, and another George Jeffries who was born and lived in Swardeston in Norfolk, and who married Henrietta Wade in Bethnal Green in London, suggesting he might have spent time in the capital, but nothing more about him is available. ↩︎
7
Actually it’s listed as ‘Striped Reefing’, but that must surely be a typographical and/or print error. ↩︎
8
This is the first available edition of the catalogue that bears the company name ‘Thomas Rivers and Son’, as opposed to just ‘Thomas Rivers’. Perhaps the Son in question, T. Francis Rivers, was responsible for the re-design of the catalogue, which featured separate lists of ‘Select Dessert Apples’ and ‘Select Kitchen Apples’, as opposed to one long list that combined both? ↩︎
9
Although please see my thoughts on the significance of synonyms in an earlier part of this chapter; ‘Norfolk Bearer’ could well be another variety that has been lost because a few examples were similar enough to ‘Norfolk Beefing’ for it to have been declared a synonymous variety. ↩︎
10
1853 is the earliest Rivers catalogue currently available in digitised, online form, but others might be archived and as yet un-digitised. ↩︎
11
The Lawsonian Collection – Synopsis of the Vegetable Products of Scotland in the Museum of the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew (1851) ↩︎
12
Presumably Delamer and Dixon were the same author, who decided to use a pen-name for one of the volumes? ↩︎
13
Presumably Mr Cramb was the head gardener, as the property belonged at the time to Henry Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Earl of Ducie. ↩︎
14
Again, I’m assuming Mr Wighton was the Head Gardener, as the Hall’s owner in 1877 was Henry Stafford-Jerningham, 9th Baron Stafford. ↩︎
15
Oddly, the 1877 and 1882 editions of the Papers and Proceedings also list ‘Striped Beaufin’ as having been introduced in the preceding year, so perhaps the first two specimens died, and a re-introduction was twice required? ↩︎
16
Of course, modern scanning and image processing methods may have over-emphasised the colouration, so perhaps the original illustration wasn’t quite so garish… ↩︎
17
According to Google Translate. ↩︎
18
British Apples (1884), A. F. Barron, p.8 ↩︎
19
There will be much, much more on ‘Herefordshire Beefing’ in the next section of this chapter. ↩︎
20
Although ‘Norfolk Bearer; is listed elsewhere in the report as a synonym of ‘Norfolk Beefing’, so perhaps that should have been 14 votes in total for ‘Norfolk Beefing’? ↩︎
21
Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, Vol. 18, p.100 ↩︎
22
Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, Vol. 19, p.230 ↩︎
23
Bramley’s Seedling’ is listed as a new apple at the 1883 Congress so hadn’t achieved the degree of popularity that it was to reach in the following decades, but it was noted by Barron as “a very excellent culinary Apple”, and by the time of the 1896 Great Exhibition it was already the joint 20th most exhibited apple. ↩︎
24
Although as we’ll see, there’s a chance he may have been not-so subtly persuaded to do so by a fellow gentleman pomologist. ↩︎