Peaches

“ The pears and peaches of Green Peace were{52} known far and wide; I have never seen such peaches since, nor is it only the halo of childish recollection that shines around them, for others bear the same testimony. Crimson-glowing, golden-hearted, smooth and perfect as a baby’s cheek, each one was a thing of wonder and beauty; and when you ate one, you ate summer and sunshine. ”

“ PERNICIOUS PEACHES The Pernicious Peaches whereof we speak are never out of season. They may be seen almost any month of the year on the covers of magazines, devoted to the moral and social uplift of young girls in general, and the American young girl in particular.
The February magazine peach crop is usually most abundant—All through the merry month of Saint Valentine they hang on the news-stands, singly or in clusters, and Peaches they are to be sure—Peaches in the stupidest, cheapest, slangiest nonsense of the word. ”

“ Then peaches, and melons;—and there are certain pears, too, that taste like heaven. One of my favourite daydreams for the long afternoon of life is to live alone, a formal, greedy, selfish old gentleman, in a square house, say in Devonshire, with a square garden, whose walls are covered with apricots and figs and peaches: and there are precious pears, too, of my own planting, on espaliers along the paths. I shall walk out with a gold-headed cane in the autumn sunshine, and just at the right moment I shall pick another pear. ”

“ With regard to peaches, the way is open to the enterprising and clever cultivator, for with such a constant supply of sunshine much ought to be done in the way of growing this queen of fruits. Many of us here in England, who have to trust to trees laboriously trained against a wall, or spread out and tied in to wires at the cost of many a back and neck ache, beneath the sloping glass of an orchard-house, have read with watering mouths of the standard trees of the United States, where the fallen peaches are gathered up in barrowfuls and considered of no account. ”

“ A short walk down the road between the gum trees brought them to the fruit gardens, where Mollie saw peaches that made up by their magnificence for any hothouse elegance lacking in the grapes. Large as apples, soft and downy as velvet, glowing with crimson and gold, they were a perfect revelation of what peaches could be when they tried, and Mollie could hardly bear to wait till they reached the Fairy Dell before devouring one. But Prudence was firm. ”

“ The peaches and nectarines have become fragrant, and the whole wall where they hang is ‘musical with bees.’ Along the espaliers, the rosy-cheeked apples look out from among their leaves, like laughing children peeping at each other through screens of foliage; and the young standards bend their straggling boughs to the earth with the weight of their produce. ”

“ Especially was this the case with the peaches, the blushing peaches of Montreuil, with skin as delicate and clear as that of northern maidens, and the yellow, sun-burnt peaches from the south, brown like the damsels of Provence. The apricots, on their beds of moss, gleamed with the hue of amber or with that sunset glow which so warmly colours the necks of brunettes at the nape, just under the little wavy curls which fall below the chignon. The cherries, ranged one by one, resembled the short lips of smiling Chinese girls ”

“ For a young woman to dream of gathering luscious peaches from well-filled trees, she will, by her personal charms and qualifications, win a husband rich in worldly goods and wise in travel. If the peaches prove to be green and knotty, she will meet with unkindness from relatives and ill health will steal away her attractions. ”

“ Where is that fruitage now, where in particular are the peaches d'antan? where the mounds of Isabella grapes and Seckel pears in the sticky sweetness of which our childhood seems to have been steeped? It was surely, save perhaps for [Pg 71] oranges, a more informally and familiarly fruit-eating time, and bushels of peaches in particular, peaches big and peaches small, peaches white and peaches yellow, played a part in life from which they have somehow been deposed; every garden, almost every bush and the very boys' pockets grew them ”

“ The variety surpasses most of its orchard-associates in productiveness but the peaches are inviting prey to brown-rot and the trees are sometimes defoliated with leaf-curl so that, with its capriciousness as to soils, it has grave faults as a commercial variety. Because of high quality of the fruit and the beauty of the tree, Champion should have a conspicuous place in the orchard of the amateur. ”

“ There were the peaches, as tempting as any that ever grew, and yet as safe from fingers as if no child were ever in the garden. It was not necessary to forbid. The blackbirds, the thrushes, the white-throats, and even that very shy bird the goldfinch had their nests and bred up their young ones in great abundance, all about this little spot, constantly the play-place of six children; and one of the latter had its nest and brought up its young ones in a raspberry-bush, within two yards of a walk, and at the time that we were gathering the ripe raspberries. ”

“ We figure and describe the variety in full only to show that honey-fleshed peaches can be grown this far north and to call attention to the possibility and desirability of using peaches of this stock in breeding to improve the quality or give new flavors to northern peaches. ”

“ Peaches were grown in quantities wherever they could be made to succeed in the colonies, not for the fruit itself, but for the making of peach-vinegar, a sort of cider, and peach-brandy, a distilled liquor. ”

“ Champion is the white-fleshed peach par excellence in quality—rightly used as the standard to gauge the quality of all other white-fleshed peaches. The fruits are nearly as attractive to the eye as to the palate but unfortunately run small and off color in all but choicely good peach-soils. The 196 peaches are not only very good in the characters that make up quality—tender flesh, juiciness, pleasant flavor—but there is a peculiar honeyed sweetness possessed by few other peaches which gives the Champion individuality. ”

“ After the year 1800 we read less about peaches as food for hogs and less about peach-products for assuaging the thirst for strong drink. As cities and towns built up, market demands increased and money-making began to quicken the charms of peach-growing. ”

“ Blood Cling is the favorite curiosity of the peach-orchard and as such we accord it a color-plate and a full description in The Peaches of New York. Unfortunately, the beet-red color of the flesh could not be reproduced with sufficient accuracy to make the attempt satisfactory. It is a pleasant peach to eat out of hand and is much used for pickling and preserving, for which purposes it has real merit. The round-headed, compact tree might make the variety a desirable parent in breeding new peaches. ”

“ Perhaps to Rivers may be added three or four more 267 exotic peaches which are now and then planted in this country but all are passing out so rapidly that we shall soon be standing on a basis in peach-growing which is wholly American. ”

“ Peaches seem to be their favourite fruit, and whoever wishes to preserve them must take pains to destroy the lerot. They likewise climb up pear, plum, and apricot trees, and in a scarcity of fruits, they eat almonds, nuts, and even leguminous plants. These they carry off in great quantities to their holes, which they dig in the earth, above all, in well cultivated gardens, where they make themselves beds of herbs, moss, and leaves. The cold stupefies them, but they are revived by the heat ”

“ Several types of Prunus persica are planted for beauty of flower 118 and foliage but the fruit-producing peaches are almost never planted for landscape effect though their peculiarly sunny expression in leaf and flower, one of the best types of cheerfulness among trees, should make them useful either standing alone or in mass for ornamental planting. ”

“ John, or of the Ascension, eats a Peach, will be cured, provided only that the Peach-tree dies at the same time; the idea being that the tree, in dying, takes the goître away with it, and so delivers the sufferer from the affliction. In Italy, as a charm to cure warts, Peach-leaves are carefully buried in the earth, so that as they perish the wart may disappear.——To dream of Peaches in season denotes content, health, and pleasure. ”

“ The peaches in their best state are but indifferent, being small and dry; I never eat any that were good, excepting such as were raised with care in gardens. It is said that the climate is so much altered that they will not grow now as they formerly did. ”

“ Peaches, pears, blackberries, apples, raspberries, wild grapes and tame, persimmons, strawberries in a little patch, cherries coming on red and ripe—the fruits of the earth were his. For substance, he raised corn, potatoes, carrots, turnips, cabbages, tomatoes, and all the ingredients of a mulligan, every one honestly come by. ”

“ Wild peaches having larger fruits than the ordinary wild ones, said to come from near Tze Wu, to the south of Sianfu, but some also probably collected from trees in gardens which were raised from wild seeds. When seen wild this peach generally assumes a low bush form of spreading habit; when planted in gardens and attended to, it grows up into a small tree, reaching a height of 12 to 20 feet, with a smooth trunk of dark mahogany-brown color. ”

“ For many years Mountain Rose was preeminent among white-fleshed, freestone peaches by virtue of high quality and handsome appearance. It has a distinct and curious but delicious flavor—a sort of scented sweetness that appeals to all who appreciate choicely good fruit. Unfortunately, it fails in the chief requirement for popularity in these days of commercial fruit-growing—the trees are unproductive, a fault so marked that the variety is rapidly passing from cultivation. ”

“ All Peaches, with us, are standing; neither have we any Wall-Fruit in Carolina; for we have Heat enough, and therefore do not require it. We have a great many sorts of this Fruit, which all thrive to Admiration, Peach-Trees coming to Perfection (with us) as easily as the Weeds. A Peach falling on the Ground, brings a Peach-Tree that shall bear in three years, or sometimes sooner. Eating Peaches in our Orchards makes them come up so thick from the Kernel, that we are forced to take a great deal of Care to weed them out; otherwise they make our Land a Wilderness of Peach-Trees. ”

“ Peaches require rather an adhesive soil, not too rich; as in a rich loose soil they will produce wood rather than fruit. Peach trees are seldom planted against the wall where they are to remain, till they have been two, three, or four years trained; and they are generally removed at the latter end of October, or beginning of November, just as [Pg 205] the leaf begins to fall. They are best trained in the fan manner; and as they always bear their fruit on shoots of a year old, these shoots must always be left on in pruning, and the old wood cut out. ”

“ These wild peaches are locally cut for firewood, for the fruits are pretty near inedible, being small and having hard, sourish flesh. They grow at the edges of deep loess ravines and on the steep, sloping bottom of such ravines. The Chinese locally do not call this peach 'yeh tao' 6 or 'shan tao' but 'Mao t'ao,' meaning 'hairy peach.' In the vicinity where they grow, no peaches are cultivated although half a day's journey lower down, one meets with some poor looking trees in gardens. ”

“ Peaches are dwarfed somewhat by all plum-stocks. The Myrobalan plum, very commonly used for nearly all cultivated plums, was at one time recommended for the peach but turned out to be very unsatisfactory and is now practically never used. The nectarine, Peento and Honey peaches are budded upon seedling peaches. 149
A stock greatly desired in peach-growing is one that will dwarf the tree sufficiently so that winter-protection for buds and wood is practicable. ”

“ The very thought made me feel rily about the temper—all that I wanted was some peaches.
You will not wonder, sisters, that I hankered after this delicious fruit, which is about the only good thing that grows which we do not have in the old Vermont State. Only think of them—round, plump, juicy; with the redness of a warm sunset burning on one side, and pale-gold glowing on the other; cool, delicious, melting away in the mouth with a flavor that just [Pg 405] makes you want to kiss some smiling baby while it is on your lips! ”

“ The tree can probably mature these buds into large, beautiful peaches, and still maintain its vigor. By this shortening-in process you have less tree, but more fruit. The growth is directed and kept within proper limits, and the tree preserved for future usefulness. Thus the peach-trees of the garden will not only furnish some of the most delicious morsels of the year, but also a very agreeable and light phase of labor. They can be made pets which will amply repay all kindness; and the attentions they most appreciate, strange to say, are cutting and pinching. ”

“ Whether or not the peach has proceeded from the almond, it has certainly given rise to nectarines, or smooth peaches, as they are called by the French. Most of the varieties, both of the peach and nectarine, reproduce themselves truly by seed. Gallesio (10/29. 'Teoria della Riproduzione Vegetale' 1816 page 86.) says he has verified this with respect to eight races of the peach. Mr. Rivers (10/30. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1862 page 1195.) has given some striking instances from his own experience, and it is notorious that good peaches are constantly raised in North America from seed. ”