U. P. Hedrick

“ Earliness and high quality of fruit keep Rivers alive in private places in America. No one would think of planting it in a commercial orchard because of its small fruit, tender skin and flesh which show every bruise, and its susceptibility to brown-rot. It is a white-fleshed freestone, tender, juicy and with an exceedingly rich, sugary flavor with a savoring smack of the nectarine. This variety stands almost alone in beauty of flesh which is white to the stone, translucent and more or less mottled and interspersed with white veins. ”

“ It is doubtfully worth planting in New York as a peach of commerce but should find a place in every home orchard. The variety has several distinctive peculiarities which make it a pleasing variation in the peach-orchard and add to its merits as a home fruit. Thus, its transparent, golden skin and flesh make it one of the handsomest of all peaches; add to handsome appearance a somewhat distinctive flavor—vinous, rich, refreshing—and the peach becomes one that all agree is very good and one that, were the size larger, would sell in any market. ”

“ We cannot refrain from quoting his description of North Carolina as printed on page 79 of his history: "A delicious country, being placed in that girdle of the world which affords wine, oil, fruit, grain, and silk, with other rich commodities, besides a sweet air, moderate climate, and fertile soil. These are the blessings, under Heaven's protection, that spin out the thread of life to its utmost extent, and crown our days with the sweets of health and plenty, which, when joined with content, render the possessors the happiest race of men upon earth." ”

“ Its numerous reddish-brown veins make it a most beautiful wood but the trees seldom attain sufficient size to give the species value as a lumber-product.
The peach is attractive to the eye at all seasons. A tree or an orchard in bloom is a strikingly beautiful sight while a panorama in a peach-country in flowering-time is one of the most beautiful scenes in nature. There is a great difference in the floral beauty of varieties, some sorts having very inconspicuous flowers while others rank with our finest ornamentals when in bloom. ”

“ A green peach is quite as palatable, nutritious and wholesome as a green olive. The ripe product of the one is just as superior to the green as is the other. All this not to point a moral or adorn a tale but to bring out the fact that the green peach is an edible fruit and that the annual performance of health inspectors in all large markets in condemning carloads of green peaches as unfit for food while green olives, apples, pears, plums, cherries and grapes pass muster, is an unjust discrimination against the peach. ”

“ The capacity of species to split into types, using types in a broad sense, is, we all agree, one of the greatest assets of cultivated plants. Through diversity of types come adaptabilities to soils and climates and variety in the crop, to mention but two of the essentials of standard crop-plants. New types afford the material from which greatest progress comes in fruit-growing. In common with all fruit-growing, peach-growing has received impetus from time to time from the introduction of new and distinct types. ”

“ The gardens constitute the beauty of all this land. The long rows of poplar and elm trees, the vineyards, the dark foliage of the pomegranate over the walls, transport one at once to the plains of Lombardy or of Southern France. ”

“ The preeminently meritorious character of Elberta is its freedom from local prejudices of either soil or climate—it is the cosmopolite of cultivated peaches. Thus, Elberta is grown with profit in every peach-growing state in the Union and in nearly all, if not all, is grown in greater quantities than any other market peach. The second character which commends Elberta to those in the business of peach-growing is fruitfulness—barring frosts or freezes the trees load themselves with fruit year in and year out. ”

“ It is interesting to follow the ups and downs of the peach-industry in the Peninsula. Epidemics of yellows, a succession of cold winters, over-production, transportation difficulties or expense, San Jose scale, have all been factors powerful enough at various times to make or mar the 100 fortunes of those engaged in growing peaches. Indeed, in following the history of this fruit on the Peninsula, one is forced to declare that peach-growing is gambling pure and simple. ”

“ The flesh is a beautiful, marbled yellow, rayed with red at the pit and perfectly free from the stone. The trees are all that could be desired in health, vigor, size and shape but are unproductive and uncertain and tardy in bearing. Yet with these faults Early Crawford, for at least a half-century, was the leading market peach of its season giving way finally to white-fleshed sorts of the Belle, Carman and Greensboro type. Fast passing from commercial importance, Early Crawford ought long to be grown in home plantations because of the beauty and unexcelled quality of the fruit. ”

“ Summer-pruning is not practiced in New York peach-orchards. No doubt every grower, however, as he goes about among his trees in the growing season cuts back a branch outstripping its neighbors, removes an occasional unruly member or one out of place, pinches here and rubs there, better to train his trees to the ideal he has in mind. Certainly no harm is done by such summer-pruning when the trees are strong and vigorous.
This record of pruning practices in New York cannot be closed without stating that there are growers who do not prune—not only through neglect but as a matter of principle. ”

“ If, then, the history of the peach begins with the history of agriculture, and the beginnings of agriculture are lost in the obscurity of antiquity, it is useless to speculate as to how long the peach has been cultivated. The statements of the early historians as to the age of the domesticated peach are so at variance that they serve only to confuse. Indeed, were we to attempt to bring into agreement the diverse assertions of 2 historians we should never know even the place of origin of the peach; for it is upon data from botany that we must depend most in determining the habitat of our fruit. ”

“ Illinois is a mid-season, white-fleshed, freestone peach, still on probation with what result as to commercial possibilities we should not like to predict. It has been little tried in New York and growers in other peach-regions are not in accord as to its value. In size, color and shape of fruit, as the color-plate shows, Illinois is one of the beauties of the orchard. Yet, all things considered, the new variety is not as good as Champion with which it would have to compete. ”

“ Stump has long been a favorite white-fleshed, freestone, late peach of the Oldmixon type. It is not a handsome fruit, the color-plate flattering rather than detracting from its appearance, but makes up in quality what it lacks in looks. The flesh is melting, juicy, sparkling, rich and good though dry and very mediocre if permitted to overripen. The peaches are too tender for distant shipment and the variety is of value only for local markets and home use. ”

“ It is quite untrue that the peach which grows in Persia is poisonous, and produces dreadful tortures, or that the kings of that country, from motives of revenge, had it transplanted in Egypt, where, through the nature of the soil, it lost all its evil properties—for we find that it is of the 'persea' that the more careful writers have stated all this, a totally different tree, the fruit of which resembles the red myxa, and, indeed, cannot be successfully cultivated anywhere but in the East. ”

“ It seems certain, as De Candolle suggests,1 that if the peach had been a native of Persia, had it existed there during all time, so beautiful and so delectable a fruit would have been taken earlier into Asia Minor and Greece. As gratifying to all the senses by which we judge fruits as any other product of the orchard, as easily transported and propagated as any—more so than most—it cannot be believed that the other fruits named would have been given preference over the peach by conquerors or travelers carrying Persian luxuries to westward countries. ”

“ The chosen use for any choice fruit is to eat it as it comes from the tree or as prepared fresh fruit for dessert. So the peach is chiefly used the world over. Refreshing and delectable as any other fruit, it has another quality, appreciated by those who sell as well as by those who consume—it does not cloy the appetite. ”

“ If we accept the mutation theory of the origin of species—new species arising suddenly at a single step—the nectarine is a species in process of birth.
As yet we are entirely ignorant in regard to the conditions under which the peach or the nectarine sports, the one producing the other. It is wholly a natural phenomenon, for no one has been able to cause the peach to produce the hairless form or the nectarine to bring forth a downy fruit. ”

“ Picked green and allowed to ripen in the markets, Elberta is scarcely edible by those who know good peaches. The stone is large but is usually wholly free from the flesh. With these faults, the dominance of Elberta is not wholly desirable as growers have a feeling of sufficiency with the one variety and consumers are forced to put up with a peach none too high in quality. Still, since no other variety is so reliable for the trade, this, by the way, being about the only variety suitable for export by reason of shipping qualities, Elberta promises long to continue its commercial supremacy. ”

“ Indeed, it loads itself so heavily that the peaches invariably run small unless the trees are heavily pruned and the crop thinned—small size of fruit is the greatest defect of the variety. Besides being one of the hardiest of all peaches it is also about the least susceptible to brown-rot and leaf-curl, the two worst scourges of the peach when yellows permits the trees to live. Earliness in coming in bearing is another admirable character. The trees are of but medium size, are dainty in habits with clean, fresh foliage so that the variety is an attractive ornamental. ”

“ Prunus davidiana, then, like the Sand Cherry of the Western Plains, may prove to be a valuable go-between in hybridizing species of Prunus.
The fruit has no comestible value. It is small, less than an inch in diameter, nearly round, very downy, yellow at maturity, with thin, dry, tasteless flesh which parts readily from the stone even before fully ripe. As if to complete its worthlessness as an edible product, it begins to shrivel as maturity approaches and soon decays. In fruit, even more than in tree, it is an intermediate between the peach and the almond. ”

“ But the peach loves sun, heat and clear skies and if these come not naturally the peach-tree must be artificially grown. The peach is not, after centuries of cultivation, acclimatized in England. But in all times, and of all people, the English have been most fond of gardens and orchards and so beautiful and delectable a fruit as the peach could not escape their attention. And so, though under the necessity of growing this fruit on walls or under glass, England, since the Middle Ages, has done much toward the development of the peach, the difficulties of culture seeming to stimulate interest. ”

“ The fisherman returns after a sojourn with them, and tells his fellow villagers of this wonderful country and stirs up so much interest that finally the governor of the province joins in the search for this wonderful country, but it is all of no avail and at last the fisherman realizes that he will never more see the peach blossom days of his youth with its rosy dreams and ideals that come but once in a lifetime. ”

“ Fruit matures early; one and three-eighths inches long, two and seven-sixteenths inches wide, strongly oblate; cavity shallow, very wide, flaring, twig-marked; suture deep, wide, extending two-thirds around the fruit; apex depressed, set in a large, wide, flaring basin; color creamy-yellow, mottled and delicately pencilled with red, often blushed toward the apex; pubescence short, thick; skin thick, tough, nearly free; flesh white, stained red at the stone, juicy, stringy, tender and melting, sweet, mild, with an almond-like flavor; very good in quality ”