On a recent visit to one of our local supermarkets I had a careful look at the apple varieties on offer and was sad to see only two English kinds along with the foreign varieties. The two were Egremont Russet, a brown skinned apple, and samples of Coxes Orange Pippin, which I suspect were grown overseas. The rest included the Golden Delicious, Jonagold, ldared and Empire, all American raised varieties. With these were Braeburn, a New Zealand apple and Sparton, a deep red skin kind that first appeared in Canada. Now it may well be that all these varieties have a flavour that is acceptable to some of us, but how sad that we no longer see British raised apples. Who remembers the taste of Sunset, Laxton Fortune, Ellisons Orange, Laxtons Superb, or that excellent late apple Rilston Pippin, not to mention the nutty Blenheim Orange, the names even sound fit to eat.

Poor Mr Cox never lived to see his famous apple top the list of dessert kinds. He put a few pips in pots taken from our own Yorkshire apple Rilston Pippin and two grew, one he named Pomona, the other Orange Pippin, this latter one became world famous in the late 1800s. The original tree at Colnbrook, Slough, blew down just before the first World War, yet all the millions of Coxes Orange Pippin trees came from this first one, by grafting or budding onto rootstocks. A well-grown Cox apple is probably the finest of all the dozens of eaters we have in the World. His other seedling named Coxes Pomona is a cooking variety, not grown today although it is still listed in the National Apple Register, but very few trees can be found in old gardens.

We in the East Riding can grow Coxes Orange Pippin or one of the sorts, such as Queen Cox and Crimson Cox; these are apples that like a sunny, sheltered site and a pollinator growing close by, such as James Grieve, Charles Ross or Fortune. When planting time comes round again in November - January, why not plant one of Mr Coxes' apples and enjoy the very best of British fruits?