The Bloody Turk
Can anyone trace a " Bloody Turk " ? The question is neither idle nor offensive. The adjective is a compliment, and this particular Turk is much wanted to make good a company that has been collected by a long labour of love,. The Bloody Turk is an apple, remembered from their youth with 'affection by more than one dweller in the Three •
Counties, as Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester proudly
call themselves. Apples earn their names curiously. An almost extinct variety was called Carrion because a farmer had the habit of throwing the body of any dead farm animal into the boughs of a particular tree. The Turk was so called because it was not red only on the outside, but throughout. It had red blood, like one variety of orange or, in a much more partial way, the Red Quarrenden, which has streaks of inner red. Possibly, too—and for this reason it would be precious—it had a high percentage of tannin, which marks the supreme quality of the cider apple.
W. Baena Mmes.
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