The Bloody Turk"
Some years ago the search for a cider apple that was thought to have vanished was brought to success by three readers of The Spectator. The variety bore the euphonious name of "The Bloody Turk," and its remarkable quality was that it was red all through. A new and quaint query concerning it has reached me. An Oxford author investigating the association of names with historical events, especially in connection with Turkey, is anxious to know whether any student can tell when this particular name was coined. Cider apples have won, for some unknown reason, more racy names—fox whelp, for example—than other apples, perhaps because they belong to the more imaginative West Country, and their distinction in chemical quality is remarkable. They contain more tannin and more sugar—as do perry pears—and wholesome cider cannot be made without a large preponderance of their peculiar qualities, a fact that the Ministry of Agriculture has sometimes disregarded.
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