Adam's Apples

I find that most keepers, or winter apples, hale from the later part of the harvest. But there are many exceptions. One of these is Melrose . I discovered this apple's winter virtue a year ago by virtue of poor organization of my apple hoard.  Then, several Melrouge (a sport of Melrose) lurked in the back of my refrigerator. They proved good. This past fall I made a point of buying some for a midwinter bonus.

The web logs for this site (no personal data) show that yesterday a vistor using a French internet-service provider requested a translation of my Melrouge review via Google Translate, an automated online translator. This is another freebie from Google, and you do get what you pay for. There is something charming about reading one's prose rendered in French. At least, if one doesn't look too closely. See for yourself. To get some idea of the quality of this translation, I fed it backwards through Google Translate, French to English.

I had read about Melrouge, a sport of Melrose, but I didn't expect to find any around here. Yet this week they were a few bins down from Melrose at farmers market. This medium-large apple sports a partial crimson blush over yellow-green. Its large lenticels are light tan (greenish where the blush doesn't reach). It is moderately ribbed and firm in the hand. My sample apple has a very deep stem well and what may be two kinds of russet--brown stripes in one area and little black stipples in another.  The apple also has very dark red dimples in the blush, about 5 mm across. All in all, character rather than beauty.