National Fruit Collections (NFC)
Collections of top fruit varieties were established at Chiswick in the early 19thC with the aim of describing and identifying accurately the many top fruit varieties grown in Britain. The NFC conserves in the field (two trees per variety) about 2,200 varieties of apple (said to be the largest apple collection in the world) and several hundreds of pear, plum, cherry etc.
This definition is abridged from A – Z of tree terms: A companion to British arboriculture.
Read the preface. Order the book.