Cuttings: Tracing Mr Cave

JACK BRIGGS, of Whittlesford, Cambs, who has spent most of his working life as an entomologist at the East Malling Research Station, writes with more information about the George Cave who gave his name to an apple (the Independent, 27 August).

'The variety was raised in 1923, as you say. Not long after this, when the apple was a seedling, Cave was 'shoved out' (his words) of his chemist's business in Dovercourt, just outside Harwich. His apple was rescued from a dustbin at Dovercourt by his daughter and grown on, before being tested at the National Fruit Trials where it compared favourably with the then standard 'Beauty of Bath'. Cave wanted 'no pecuniary advantage' from his apple and sent it to Pye of Morley Fruit Farms, Ferndown, Dorset, to distribute.'

I had wondered whether the Cave of the apple was the George Cave who worked at Kew in 1890 before taking over the botanical gardens of Calcutta and Darjeeling. Mr Briggs thinks not. 'His neglect of his apple does not make him sound like a Kew-trained man.' Indeed not.