PRUNUS PERSICAStokes.

A more detailed discussion of the horticultural and botanical characters of the peach logically follows here.

Tree low, attaining a height of thirty feet, diffuse, open-headed, broad-topped, often without a central leader; trunk at maturity sometimes a foot in diameter; bark dark reddish-brown, in old trees rough and scaly; branches spreading, slender and sometimes drooping; twigs round, rather slender, glabrous, glossy green changing to shades of red, with numerous, large or small, conspicuous, usually raised lenticels.The leaves are alternate, simple, four to seven inches long, one to two inches wide, broad-lanceolate or more often oblong-lanceolate; upper surface dark green, smooth, dull or shining, some rugose along the midrib; lower surface paler, with little or no pubescence; apex long-tapering, base abrupt or acute; margins coarsely or finely serrate, or crenate, sometimes doubly toothed, teeth tipped with glands or sometimes glandless; petioles stout, from a quarter-inch to an inch long, grooved, glandless or more often with from one to eight globose or reniform glands, sometimes mixed, a part of which may be on the base of the leaf.The flowers develop from scaly buds on the wood of the previous season; flower-buds plump, conical or obtuse, free or appressed and usually appearing before the leaves; flowers of two distinct sizes, with some intermediates, the smaller size ranging under an inch in diameter, the larger, an inch and a half or more; the floral color ranges from an occasional pure white through shades of pink to deep red; fragrant and always pleasantly so; pedicels very short, sometimes seemingly wanting, glabrous, green; calyx-tube urn-shaped, usually smooth but sometimes pubescent without, green overlaid with red outside, greenish-yellow or dark orange within; calyx-lobes five in number, short, broad, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals ovate, five in number, rounded at the apex which is sometimes notched, tapering to a claw, sometimes notched at the base; stamens twenty to thirty, about one-half inch long, slender, distinct, usually colored; anthers yellow; ovary sessile,pubescent, one-celled, surmounted by a simple style which is terminated with a small stigma, the whole pistil equaling the stamens in length or longer.Fruit a fleshy drupe, sub-globular but much modified in shape and size under cultivation; suture usually distinct; cavity well marked, abrupt; apex with a mamelon or mucronate tip; color varying from greenish-white to orange-yellow, usually with a red cheek on the side exposed to the sun, sometimes covered with red; very pubescent except in the nectarine; skin adherent or free from the pulp; flesh greenish-white or yellowish, often stained with red at the pit, occasionally red, sweetish, acidulous, aromatic; stone free or clinging, elliptic or ovoid, sometimes flat, compressed, pointed; outer surfaces wrinkled and pitted, inner surfaces polished; ventral and dorsal sutures grooved or furrowed, sometimes winged; the seed almond-like, aromatic, bitter.

The leaves are alternate, simple, four to seven inches long, one to two inches wide, broad-lanceolate or more often oblong-lanceolate; upper surface dark green, smooth, dull or shining, some rugose along the midrib; lower surface paler, with little or no pubescence; apex long-tapering, base abrupt or acute; margins coarsely or finely serrate, or crenate, sometimes doubly toothed, teeth tipped with glands or sometimes glandless; petioles stout, from a quarter-inch to an inch long, grooved, glandless or more often with from one to eight globose or reniform glands, sometimes mixed, a part of which may be on the base of the leaf.

The flowers develop from scaly buds on the wood of the previous season; flower-buds plump, conical or obtuse, free or appressed and usually appearing before the leaves; flowers of two distinct sizes, with some intermediates, the smaller size ranging under an inch in diameter, the larger, an inch and a half or more; the floral color ranges from an occasional pure white through shades of pink to deep red; fragrant and always pleasantly so; pedicels very short, sometimes seemingly wanting, glabrous, green; calyx-tube urn-shaped, usually smooth but sometimes pubescent without, green overlaid with red outside, greenish-yellow or dark orange within; calyx-lobes five in number, short, broad, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals ovate, five in number, rounded at the apex which is sometimes notched, tapering to a claw, sometimes notched at the base; stamens twenty to thirty, about one-half inch long, slender, distinct, usually colored; anthers yellow; ovary sessile,pubescent, one-celled, surmounted by a simple style which is terminated with a small stigma, the whole pistil equaling the stamens in length or longer.

Fruit a fleshy drupe, sub-globular but much modified in shape and size under cultivation; suture usually distinct; cavity well marked, abrupt; apex with a mamelon or mucronate tip; color varying from greenish-white to orange-yellow, usually with a red cheek on the side exposed to the sun, sometimes covered with red; very pubescent except in the nectarine; skin adherent or free from the pulp; flesh greenish-white or yellowish, often stained with red at the pit, occasionally red, sweetish, acidulous, aromatic; stone free or clinging, elliptic or ovoid, sometimes flat, compressed, pointed; outer surfaces wrinkled and pitted, inner surfaces polished; ventral and dorsal sutures grooved or furrowed, sometimes winged; the seed almond-like, aromatic, bitter.

The characters given in the foregoing description are those of the cultivated peach—the consummate fruit ofPrunus persica. The generic name, Prunus, is the ancient Latin name of the plum,Prunus domestica, the type species. The specific name,persica, commemorates the old belief that the peach came from Persia. The common name, peach, in English, as in most European languages, is a derivative frompersica. Amygdalus, found several times in the synonomy, is the Syrian name of the almond. The drupe-fruits are put in two, three and sometimes four genera by various botanists but in the fruit-books issued by this Station, following most botanists and pomologists, all are put in a single genus, Prunus. Such lumping of several distinct fruits into one genus has its disadvantages but the several fruits cannot be reasonably separated because outliers closely connect all. Hybridization between the cultivated stone-fruits adds to the perplexities of classification.

Prunus persicais variously divided by botanists and pomologists. Quite commonly two botanical varieties of edible peaches are split off, as shown in the synonomy, to separate the nectarine and the flat peaches from the pubescent and globular peaches. But these sub-species, originating over and over in the case of the nectarine as a bud or seed-mutation and the flat peaches probably having originated as a mutation, are not more distinct from the parent species than the red-fleshed sorts, the snowball peaches, the Yellow Transvaals from South Africa, the nippled peach, the cleft peach, the beaked peach, the winter peaches of China, or the pot-grown dwarfs from China; in fact, are not more different from other peaches than a clingstone is from a freestone, a yellow flesh from a white flesh or a large-flowered from a small-flowered sort. All constitute merely pomological groups, which, more and more, are becoming interminably confused by hybridization.

ALTON (Large Flowered)

BLOOD LEAF

We name but one sub-species ofPrunus persica, and that doubtful. Mr. Frank N. Meyer of the United States Department of Agriculture has recently introduced into the United States cuttings of a wild peach from the province of Kansu, China, which he thinks has horticultural value. The peach isPrunus persica potaniniBatalin (Act. Hort. Petrop.12:164. 1892) which Mr. Meyer describes as follows:168

"A wild peach of thedavidianatype, but differing from it in various points. Collected at the base of sheltered mountains at an elevation of 4300 feet. A tall shrub or even small tree, up to 30 feet in height, bark of stem or trunk dark reddish-brown and quite smooth in the younger shoots; leaves like those ofAmygdalus davidianabut often broader in the middle and always less pointed. Fruits of round-elongated form; skin covered with a heavy down, no edible flesh; stones of elliptical shape, grooves longer than inA. davidiana, shells very hard and thick, kernels elongated and relatively small. Found growing at elevations from 4000 to 7000 feet, in side valleys away from the Siku river; thrives especially well in sheltered and warm mountain pockets. Of value especially as a stock for stone-fruits and possibly able to stand even more dry heat thanA. davidiana; also recommended as an ornamental spring-flowering tree, especially for the drier parts of the United States. Chinese nameMao t'ao, meaning 'hairy peach.'"

There are many ornamental forms of the peach-tree—sorts with single or double flowers, white, pink or red in color, normal, red or variegated foliage and standard or dwarf trees. The best-known named ornamental peaches arecamelliaeflorawith large, carmine flowers and its sub-variety,plena, with double flowers;versicolorwith different colored flowers on branches of the same tree;atropurpureawith brownish-red foliage;foliis rubris, similar or possibly the same as the preceding, the color in both extending to the fruit;magnifica, a semi-double with brilliant carmine-crimson flowers;pyramidalis, a pyrimidal form;pendula, a weeping peach; and still others, of the distinctness of which we cannot be certain, asdianthi-alba-plena,rubro-plena, andcoccineo-plena. With these ornamentals we are not to be further concerned.

Of Japanese garden-forms the following varieties have been described:P. Persicavar.densaMakimoTokyo Bot. Mag.16:178. 1902.P. persicavar.vulgaris, f.stellataMakimo l. c.22:119. 1908.P. Persicavar.vulgaris, f.praematuraMakimo l. c.22:119. 1908.

Species are but convenient groups, their limits reflecting the judgmentof the species-maker. Were the authors of this text to dividePrunus persica, the cleavage lines would be other than those indicated in the foregoing paragraphs.Prunus persicamight be divided, though there is no intention of furthering confusion by the addition of new names, into two species. One would include the white-fleshed, clingstone peaches, with large flowers and calyx greenish-yellow inside; the other the yellow-fleshed, freestone peaches, with small flowers and calyx-cups orange inside. Primitive forms in China indicate such a division, the evolution of varieties suggests it and the present disposition of the characters named as separating these theoretical species attest the reasonableness of such a separation. The primitive forms have been described and the descent of varieties may be traced in the last two chapters, so that we need only amplify the statement as to the present disposition of characters.

The characters in the two hypothetical species have been thoroughly shuffled by hybridization but even if there is not correlation, as there certainly is between color in calyx-cup and color of flesh, it might be expected that those associated in the primitive plant, the Adam of the race, would, despite the shuffling, still be most often associated. What are the facts? In the Station orchard are 109 white-fleshed peaches; 40 per ct. of these are semi-cling or clingstones leaving 60 per ct. nearly or quite free (there is constant selection for freestones); 64 per ct. have large flowers; all have calyx-cups yellowish-green inside. There are in this orchard 106 yellow-fleshed peaches; but 17 per ct. of these are cling or semi-cling, the remainder being either quite free or nearly so; 73 per ct. have small or medium-sized flowers; all have calyx-cups deeply colored with orange inside.

Similarities in characters indicate so close a relationship between the almond and the peach that one might well suspect many hybrids between the two. Yet there appear to be but few clear cases of peach and almond crosses. Knight169reports crossing the two, the doubtful results of which led him to believe, as we have seen, that the peach is but a modified almond. Several such crosses are indicated in botanical literature170but whether all refer to one or several supposed crosses there is no way of knowing—probably to one. The almond blooms so much earlier than the peach that crosses could hardly occur in nature. A hybrid between the twofrom which could be evolved a late-blooming almond is a consummation to be wished.

CHINESE FREE (Medium Flowered)

CROSBY (Small Flowered)

The nectarine is a hairless peach. The tree differs in no respect from that of the peach and besides the absence of pubescence the only other distinguishing marks between the fruits are smaller size, firmer flesh, greater aroma and a distinct and richer flavor in nectarines. Even the varieties of the two fruits correspond in characters. Thus, there are clingstone and freestone sorts of each; both may have red, yellow, or white flesh; the flowers of both may be large or small; nectarine leaves, in one variety or another, show all the variations in glands and serrations known to the peach; and the stones and kernels are indistinguishable. There seem to be no records so far, however, of flat or beaked nectarines, abnormalities each represented in several varieties of peaches. The two fruits are adapted to the same soil and climatic conditions and wherever the peach is grown, the world over, the nectarine is found.

The established history of the nectarine goes back 2000 years and then merges into that of the peach. Despite the fact that De Candolle171"sought in vain for a proof that the nectarine existed in Italy in the time of ancient Rome," we are convinced that Pliny's "duracinus" is the nectarine. Matthiolus172in 1554 discusses Pliny's statements concerning the kinds of peaches at length and concludes that the author's "duracinus" is the peach. Dalechamp, in 1587, and J. Bauhin, in 1650, both describe nectarines after which botanists and pomologists invariably include this fruit. In the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries the nectarine was called "nucipersica" because it resembled in smoothness and color of the outer skin as well as in size and shape, the walnut. "Nectarine," the meaning of the word obvious, appears first to have been used for this fruit, in the English language at least, by Parkinson in 1629 who describes six varieties173and gives us the information "they have been with us not manyyears." Gerarde, the great English herbalist, 1597, does not mention them. We find the nectarine first mentioned in America in 1722 by Robert Beverly in hisHistory of Virginia, who, after discussing the culture of peaches, nectarines and apricots, says (pages 259, 260): "Peaches and nectarines I believe to be spontaneous, somewhere or other on that continent, for the Indians have, and ever had greater variety, and finer sorts of them than the English."

The nectarine is one of the most interesting phenomena in horticulture. It is the classical example of bud- and seed-variation, furnishing more instances of mutation, and these more instructive, than have yet come from any other fruit. Darwin, with the magnificent exhaustiveness which characterized his method, brought together inAnimals and Plants under Domestication174a striking array of facts which leaves nothing to be added as to the manner in which the peach and nectarine are reciprocally reproduced the one from the other. He shows by numerous examples: (1) That nectarines may spring from peach-stones and peaches from nectarine-stones.(2) That peach-trees produce nectarines by bud-variation and nectarine-trees likewise produce peaches, and that either the nectarines or peaches so arising will come true to seed. (3) That either peach or nectarine-trees may produce individual fruits half-nectarine and half-peach. (4) A case is cited of a nectarine tree bearing a half-and-half fruit and subsequently a true peach.

KENTUCKY (Nectarine)

SUMMER SNOW (White Flowered)

It must be noted that in all of the variations so far recorded there are no intermediate forms between the two fruits. The peach produced in these bud-variations is a peach and nothing but a peach; the nectarine, a nectarine and nothing but a nectarine. Even in those remarkable phenomena, of which several are recorded, in which the fruits are divided into halves or quarters, one or more segments being peach and one or more nectarine, there can be no mistake as to peach and nectarine in pubescence, color or flavor. The nectarine from the peach, thus becomes as clear-cut a case of discontinuous variation as can be. 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. The relations of the two fruits have furnished a fertile field of inquiry for over a century but the problem is one of those mysterious ones in which there are many facts that cannot be fitted into a theory, so that our ignorance is as profound now as ever. There are, however, several theories which, without going into full detail, need to be stated.

The oldest notion is that the production of a nectarine on a peach-tree is due to the direct action of pollen from some nearby nectarine-tree on the ovary of the peach. This theory, wholly at variance with present knowledge, is also discredited by the many instances in which the sports occur when the two fruits are not growing in the same neighborhood or even region. Thus, within ten years, several cases of nectarines on peach-trees have occurred in this State where the nectarine is scarcely known. Besides, crossing these fruits shows no direct effect of pollen—as is true with nearly all other plants. Still further, when a branch of a peach has borne a nectarine it usually goes on year after year producing nectarines; and certainly impregnation of a flower by foreign pollen could not so profoundly modify a branch. There is so little foundation for thisbelief that it would not be mentioned were it not that many fruit-growers still look to the action of pollen as the explanation of the phenomenon.

Another, and a much more probable explanation, is that every sporting peach or nectarine-tree is a more or less remote hybrid. There is a growing belief that species are fixed and that crossing is the only source of new seed- or bud-forms. Certainly all who have crossed plants in any considerable numbers know that hybridity is at least one cause, and a frequent one, of mutations. It is possible that sometime in the past the peach and the nectarine were crossed, the offspring showing no trace of the cross, and that now there is an occasional disassociation of the characters brought together by such crossing. There are several objections to this hypothesis. One is that two forms sufficiently distinct to induce so striking a variation as a nectarine from a peach, must have differed in tree as well as in fruit-characters and that these differences would crop out just as smoothness of fruit so frequently does. Another, and less potent objection, is that the nectarine has never been found wild, that it never becomes naturalized, that it is shorter-lived and less vigorous and behaves in general like an artificial plant.

The third, and at present the most acceptable theory, is that we have in the nectarine from the peach what De Vries calls a retrogressive mutation. That is, an active character, in this case pubescence on the fruit, becomes latent and appears to be lost—a type of mutation frequent among cultivated plants. The nectarine, then, is a peach with one character subtracted. When the nectarine yields a peach, the character is restored. The one is a negative, the other a positive step; one is retrogressive, the other progressive mutation. The speculations as to what causes these mutations are as yet too vague to be profitable. Probably we can never make use of the cause by which mutations arise or of the conditions leading to them until we can induce these strange variations. That they are due to disturbances in the processes of cell-division is the theory now current—sufficiently comprehensive and sufficiently vague to be a most convenient explanation, at any rate.

Nectarines do not attain the perfection in New York reached west of the Rocky Mountains. The trees, possibly, are a little less manageable in the orchard, less vigorous and certainly more susceptible to pests. Nectarines, in particular, suffer more than peaches from the scourge of the crescent sign, curculio, a pest which finds all smooth-skinned stone-fruits much to its taste and the nectarine more than others. Then, too, whetherfresh, canned or dried, fruit-buyers in America prefer the peach. This discrimination in favor of the peach is largely due to lack of knowledge of the nectarine, which, though different from the commoner fruit, is equally delectable, fresh or preserved, and certainly is a handsomer product preserved either by canning or evaporating. Indeed, the dried nectarine, with its beautiful, translucent, amber hue is the most attractive of all cured fruits. The nectarine-industry, however, belongs to California, where all conditions favor production, canning and curing.

KENTUCKY (Nectarine)

NEWTON (Nectarine)

P. DavidianaFranchetNouv. Arch. Mus. Parisser. 2,V:255 (Pl. David.1:103). 1883.Persica DavidianaCarrièreRev. Hort.74. 1872.Prunus PersicavarDavidiana Maximowicz Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Petersbourg29:81;Mel. Biol.11:667. 1883.Tree attaining a height of twenty-five feet on the Station grounds, vigorous, upright, with slight spreading tendency, dense-topped, hardy in tree but not in flower-bud, unproductive; trunk stocky; branches thick, smooth, bronze-colored; branchlets slender—inclined to rebranch, long, with rather short internodes, ash-gray mingled toward the base with dark brown, glabrous, with inconspicuous, small, slightly raised lenticels.Leaves five and one-half inches long, one and one-eighth inches wide, curled downward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thick; upper surface smooth, dull, dark green; lower surface grayish-green; margin coarsely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole five-eighths inch long, glandless or with one or two small, globose, reddish glands at the base of the leaf.Flower-buds tender, small, pointed, plump, appressed, brownish-red; flowers appear very early, a few days earlier thanPrunus tomentosa, usually on short spurs; blossoms one and five-eighths inches across, whitish, tinged with pale pink near the margins, well distributed, usually singly; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange-colored within, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes long, narrow, glabrous within and without; petals widely spaced, oval, shallowly dentate, tapering to long, white claws; filaments shorter than the petals; pistil red, heavily pubescent at the ovary, as long as the stamens.Fruit less than one inch in diameter, nearly spherical; cavity medium in width and depth; suture shallow, deeper toward the base; apex mucronate; color grayish-white turning yellow at maturity; pubescence downy; skin wrinkles and roughens before maturity and soon decays; flesh very thin, rather dry, tasteless and insipid, lacking almost entirely the flavor of the peach; not edible; stone separates from the pulp readily even before ripe, nearly spherical, plump, very blunt at base and apex; surfaces deeply pitted.

P. DavidianaFranchetNouv. Arch. Mus. Parisser. 2,V:255 (Pl. David.1:103). 1883.

Persica DavidianaCarrièreRev. Hort.74. 1872.

Prunus PersicavarDavidiana Maximowicz Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Petersbourg29:81;Mel. Biol.11:667. 1883.

Tree attaining a height of twenty-five feet on the Station grounds, vigorous, upright, with slight spreading tendency, dense-topped, hardy in tree but not in flower-bud, unproductive; trunk stocky; branches thick, smooth, bronze-colored; branchlets slender—inclined to rebranch, long, with rather short internodes, ash-gray mingled toward the base with dark brown, glabrous, with inconspicuous, small, slightly raised lenticels.

Leaves five and one-half inches long, one and one-eighth inches wide, curled downward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thick; upper surface smooth, dull, dark green; lower surface grayish-green; margin coarsely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole five-eighths inch long, glandless or with one or two small, globose, reddish glands at the base of the leaf.

Flower-buds tender, small, pointed, plump, appressed, brownish-red; flowers appear very early, a few days earlier thanPrunus tomentosa, usually on short spurs; blossoms one and five-eighths inches across, whitish, tinged with pale pink near the margins, well distributed, usually singly; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange-colored within, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes long, narrow, glabrous within and without; petals widely spaced, oval, shallowly dentate, tapering to long, white claws; filaments shorter than the petals; pistil red, heavily pubescent at the ovary, as long as the stamens.

Fruit less than one inch in diameter, nearly spherical; cavity medium in width and depth; suture shallow, deeper toward the base; apex mucronate; color grayish-white turning yellow at maturity; pubescence downy; skin wrinkles and roughens before maturity and soon decays; flesh very thin, rather dry, tasteless and insipid, lacking almost entirely the flavor of the peach; not edible; stone separates from the pulp readily even before ripe, nearly spherical, plump, very blunt at base and apex; surfaces deeply pitted.

Father David's peach,Prunus davidiana, has been grown in Europe since 1865 as an ornamental, seeds of it having been sent from China to France in that year by Father David, a missionary traveler.175The speciesis described as flowering in America in the Arnold Arboretum as early as 1888,176seeds from which the trees grew having been sent from China. Some ten or twelve years ago the species was distributed by the United States Department of Agriculture, trees being received at this Station in the spring of 1906. Meanwhile, agricultural explorers representing this country in China have discovered that the species is much used by the Chinese as a stock upon which to work other species of Prunus. Whereupon, new distributions were made through seeds and plants to nearly every fruit-growing state in the Union. We are, therefore, now able to speak of the behavior of the Davidiana peach in America with some degree of confidence as to its future as a stock for peaches. But, first, a word as to its habitat and uses in China.

The several importations of seeds recorded by the United States Department of Agriculture seem all to have been made from the province of Chili in China and from the cities of Pekin and Tientsin in the neighborhood of which the tree is commonly found wild. According to Bretschneider,177the species was first discovered by Bunge near Peking in 1831 who took it to be an almond. The same authority says that Father David's seeds came from wild trees growing in the mountains near Jehol, and that the species is much cultivated in the gardens of Peking, there being two varieties, one with rose-colored and the other with white flowers. At the time of its introduction into Europe, it was considered, by some, the wild form of the cultivated peach. The fruit of David's peach is not edible and peach-growers would have but passing interest in the species as a very attractive ornamental were it not for the fact that it is a common and most valuable stock, used for centuries in China for several of the stone-fruits.

It is, then, with a view to its fitness as a stock that the Davidiana peach must be discussed. Its characters in several respects indicate that it may make an invaluable stock in America as it has long been in China. For this purpose it seems possible to use it equally well for several stone-fruits.

As it grows on the Station grounds the most experienced fruit-grower cannot guess whetherPrunus davidianais a peach, nectarine, almond, apricot or plum. As we shall show later, too, it hybridizes with several other species of its genus. Its similarities to all of these stone-fruits givea clue to its value as a stock—it may be used for all. It is the commonest stock for all of these fruits in parts of China and is sometimes used for the cherry as well. It is reported by the United States Department of Agriculture178to have been tried in commercial plantings of peaches, plums, apricots and almonds in California and Texas and for all is "unusually promising."

PRUNUS DAVIDIANA

The trees are vigorous, healthy, hardy, and resistant to drouth. Consorted with any stone-fruit it should impart these qualities in some degree to the resulting tree. On the Station grounds,Prunus davidianais growing with vigor and health despite the fact that in the ten years of its existence here we have had all but record-breaking extremes of cold, heat, drouth and rain—a decade long to be noted for its extremes of weather. It seems to stand the heat of Texas, and in Minnesota has withstood cold as low as forty degrees below zero, a temperature which kills commercial varieties to the ground. It cannot be fruited, however, in cold climates as its buds swell quickly with rises of temperature and succumb to subsequent cold; neither will it fruit in regions of late frost since it is one of the earliest species in the genus Prunus to flower. In Texas and southern California, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, it is proving resistant to drouth and in the latter region to alkali as well. In very dry and exposed places, it is said to lose its tree-characters and to become a thrifty shrub.

Present nursery practices in growing peaches are unsatisfactory in the extreme. More and more, pits from canneries are being planted for stocks. The pits come from a great diversity of varieties and the resulting seedlings are variable in vigor, health, size and capacity to take the bud. Should no unsurmountable weaknesses appear inPrunus davidianait is almost certain that its seedlings will be more satisfactory as stocks for the peach than those from either cannery pits or from pits grown on southern wild trees. The trees do not fruit well in this climate, even when buds and flowers escape the cold, possibly because of infertility of bloom, and for this reason, the chief objection so far, some favorable region would have to be discovered in which to grow the pits.

As one might suspect from its similarities to the several stone-fruits,Prunus davidianagives promise of being a go-between in hybridization. I. V. Mijurin, a noted Russian hybridist of Kozloo, Russia, has crossed the Davidiana peach and the dwarf almond,Prunus nana, with the idea of getting a hardy fruit for central Russia. The resulting offspring, accordingto Mr. F. N. Meyer,179looks in tree like the peach-parent but the fruit is more like that of the almond-parent. The fruit of the hybrid is inedible but the plant is a handsome ornamental. Mr. Mijurin states that while neither of the two parents will hybridize with the common peach, this hybrid does.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.

A word must be said as to the merits ofPrunus davidianaas an ornamental. It is the first harbinger of spring in the great family to which it belongs, bursting into a profusion of white or pinkish flowers with the approach of warm weather even before forsythias are in flower. Its thickly set, erect branchlets are wands of pinkish-white two feet in length, making a handsome tree and furnishing beautiful cut-flowers. If grown for its flowers, however, one must be content in northern climates to have it in bloom only about one season out of three but even so it repays culture. The Chinese cultivate dwarf specimens, possibly a dwarf form, for winter-flowering and the plant, it would seem, would readily lend itself to winter-forcing in American floriculture. The tree, quite aside from its flowers, is handsome at all times. A form with pure white flowers is a very desirable ornamental.180On the Station grounds this white-flowering peach has a fastigiate habit of growth and resembles somewhat a small Lombardy poplar.

P. miraKoehnePlant.Wilson.Pt. 2, No.4:272. 1912.Tree thirty feet in height; trunk sixteen inches in diameter; branches very smooth, those of the current year's growth green, the older ones dark reddish-yellow; flowering-season short; stipules lacking or obscure; petioles five-sixteenths to ten-sixteenths of an inch long, with from two to four glands toward the apex, the glands broadly elliptical, disc-shaped; leaf at the base usually roundly lanceolate, two to four inches long, nine-sixteenths to one and one-sixteenth inches broad, gradually narrowing toward the apex; marginbroadly crenulate-serrulate, tapering upward without division; teeth crowned with small, soot-colored, mucronate glands; upper surface clear green, glabrous; lower surface paler, villous along both sides of the lower ribs and the rest glabrous; veins on both sides twelve to sixteen, the veinlets somewhat raised on the under side.The pedicels of the single or twinned fruits two-sixteenths to three-sixteenths of an inch long, very thick, glabrous; drupes somewhat dry, sub-globose, one and one-eighth inches long, one inch in diameter, densely tomentose, edible; stone ovate, somewhat compressed, dimensions three-fourths by one-half by three-eighths inches; dorsal suture keeled, the ventral surface covered with narrow ridges, the ridges at the base of the keel nearly disappearing, the rest inconspicuous.

P. miraKoehnePlant.Wilson.Pt. 2, No.4:272. 1912.

Tree thirty feet in height; trunk sixteen inches in diameter; branches very smooth, those of the current year's growth green, the older ones dark reddish-yellow; flowering-season short; stipules lacking or obscure; petioles five-sixteenths to ten-sixteenths of an inch long, with from two to four glands toward the apex, the glands broadly elliptical, disc-shaped; leaf at the base usually roundly lanceolate, two to four inches long, nine-sixteenths to one and one-sixteenth inches broad, gradually narrowing toward the apex; marginbroadly crenulate-serrulate, tapering upward without division; teeth crowned with small, soot-colored, mucronate glands; upper surface clear green, glabrous; lower surface paler, villous along both sides of the lower ribs and the rest glabrous; veins on both sides twelve to sixteen, the veinlets somewhat raised on the under side.

The pedicels of the single or twinned fruits two-sixteenths to three-sixteenths of an inch long, very thick, glabrous; drupes somewhat dry, sub-globose, one and one-eighth inches long, one inch in diameter, densely tomentose, edible; stone ovate, somewhat compressed, dimensions three-fourths by one-half by three-eighths inches; dorsal suture keeled, the ventral surface covered with narrow ridges, the ridges at the base of the keel nearly disappearing, the rest inconspicuous.

Prunus mirais a new peach discovered in China by Mr. E. H. Wilson of the Arnold Arboretum. The foregoing technical description is a translation from the original description by Koehne. Mr. Wilson describes forThe Peaches of New Yorkthe outstanding botanical and horticultural characters ofPrunus miraas follows:

"Prunus mirais a small bushy tree, growing about 6m. tall, with a trunk about 1m. in girth and a crown some 8m. through. The branches are relatively slender and the branchlets twiggy, and these, together with the narrow, lance-shaped, long-pointed leaves, give the plant a very distinct appearance. The fruit is roundish oval, about 4.5 cm. high and 3.5-4 cm. broad, downy on the outside, with white flesh and a free stone. The flavor is the same as that of fruits from the semi-wild plants of the Common Peach (P. Persica). The stone is 2 to 2.2 cm. high and 1.3-1.4 cm. broad, and in shape is flattened ovoid and pointed. The flowers are unknown to me.

This plant grows wild on rather barren mountain slopes at about 3000m. altitude north of the town of Tachienlu on the China-Thibetan borderland, where it was first detected by me on July 9, 1908, and from whence I introduced it by means of seeds in the autumn of 1910. I saw only a few trees, but have reason to believe that it is fairly common, and also that it is thereabouts cultivated for its fruit. In the Arnold Arboretum this species has proved no more hardy than the Common Peach, though from the altitude at which it grows naturally it ought to be the hardier plant. Our largest specimen is 2.5m. high and crown 3m. through. It starts into growth and leafs out much later than the Common Peach, and is therefore much less liable to be affected by late frosts. This is the one advantage so far evident in our experience with this new Peach under cultivation. Undoubtedly it possesses important horticultural possibilities, and especially should it be valuable to the hybridist on account of its small and smooth stone. Indeed, it requires no imagination to realize the advantage to be gained by supplanting in our present day race ofgarden peaches for the large and deeply furrowed stone one that is quite smooth and small."

Prunus mirais now under cultivation at the Arnold Arboretum near Boston, in the parks at Rochester, New York, on the grounds of this Station and at Brookville, Florida, in charge of the United States Department of Agriculture. No doubt within a few years we shall have positive evidence of its horticultural value.

Seven pubescent-fruited species of Prunus are found in the Southwestern States. From reading the descriptions, it is hard to tell whether these plants, unique in more than one respect, are most closely related to peaches, plums, apricots or almonds. Professor S. C. Mason of the United States Department of Agriculture, who has studied these fruits,181thinks that some if not all of them may have horticultural value, at least in the Southwest where fluctuations of heat and cold are great and drought and alkalinity of soil must be endured by plant-life. They deserve brief mention inThe Peaches of New Yorkbecause of the possibility that some of them can be used as dwarfing-stocks for the peach and possibly that some may be hybridized with cultivated peaches. The species, with brief notes taken for most part from Mason, are as follows:

Prunus texanaDietrich, the "wild peach" of Texas, is a plum-like fruit from eastern Texas of which there are already several hybrids with the wild plums of the region.Prunus andersoniiGray is the "wild almond" or "wild peach" of Nevada. The species is found in western Nevada and eastern California in a region subject to severe cold in winter and extreme drought and heat in summer. One cultivator of this species suggests it as a good stock for the peach and the almond and thinks it has possibilities for hybridization.182The "desert apricot,"Prunus eriogynaMason, comes from a very restricted region in southern California. The characters of this species should fit it to endure the environment on the desert slopes of mountains. The "desert almond,"Prunus fasciculataTorrey, sometimes called "wild peach" and "wild almond," ranges much farther south and east thanPrunus andersoniiin southern Nevada and southern California, crossing into southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, and grows in gravels and sands where its roots penetrate to greatdepth.Prunus minutifloraEngelman, the "Texas almond," is found in southwestern Texas, a shrub which, like the former species and the one following, is dioecious, a marked and unique peculiarity of these three species. The "Mexican almond,"Prunus microphyllaHemsley, is found in the high mountain region of Mexico.Prunus havardiiWight, is known only in a restricted region in western Texas. The last two species are so little known that one cannot even surmise whether they may have horticultural possibilities.

The opening years of the Nineteenth Century mark the first attempts at classifying peaches. By 1818 as many as three classificatory schemes had been proposed, all being modifications of the same general arrangement. July 7, 1818, John Robertson read a paper on classifying peaches and nectarines before the Horticultural Society of London. Later, this was printed in the Transactions of the Society183together with a classification by M. Poiteau from theBon Jardinierand another by Count Lelieur from hisPomone Francaise. In January, 1824, George Lindley read before the same society a classification which was but an extension of the older arrangements.184

Robertson separated peaches into true peaches and nectarines and these in turn into Classes, Divisions and Sub-divisions. He founded the two classes on the presence or absence of glands; for each of his classes he made two divisions distinguished by the size and color of the flowers; each of the four divisions is once redivided into a sub-division in which the flesh parts from the stone and another in which the flesh adheres to the stone. The two French writers use the same characters but found their second division on the adherence or non-adherence of the flesh to the stone; their third on the size of the flower but making three partitions as to size; and their fourth on the presence or absence of glands which they divide into globose and reniform. Lindley created three classes dependent on the presence or absence and the character of the glands and the character of the serrations; three divisions of each class in accordance as to whether the flowers are large, medium-sized or small; two sub-divisions of each division to agree with the presence or absence of down; and for each sub-division two sections, one for clingstones and one for melters.

This was the age of the classifier and other classifications, all similar in plan, rapidly followed in England, France, Belgium and Germany. No one at this time seems to have attempted a natural classification of peaches.

Of the nine leading American pomological writers of the Nineteenth Century, Coxe, Prince, Cole, Hooper, Elliott and Barry either do not attempt to classify or make but one or two simple divisions. Kenrick, 1832, follows Lindley in part but makes use of season in his classification. Downing in his first edition, 1845, divides peaches into freestones with pale flesh, freestones with deep yellow flesh and clingstones. This simple arrangement by Downing is notable only because it is the first time color of flesh is made use of as a distinguishing mark, the Europeans probably not having done so because yellow-fleshed varieties are rare in Europe whereas in America they are as common or more so than white-fleshed sorts. Thomas, in 1846, did not classify but in later editions divided peaches into two divisions, founded on adherence of flesh to the stone; two classes for each division in accordance with color of flesh; and three sections founded on leaf-serrations and glands.

These Nineteenth Century classifications are artificial. That is, they single out a few points of resemblance and difference and arrange varieties in accordance with them, convenience and facility of use being the controlling principles. They are natural to a degree, however, because varieties agreeing in one point of structure commonly agree in other characters. With the peach, more than in the artificial classification of most other fruits, the characters are readily distinguished and are stable. Yet most English pomologies now arrange varieties of peaches alphabetically, while the American texts do the same or use the pseudo-natural system of Onderdonk. His classification we are about to discuss. The early artificial arrangements failed to stand the test of time because classifiers could not agree upon any one arrangement and added confusion by the multiplicity of them; and, because the new varieties of the last half-century, coming in great numbers, are so poorly described that the great majority of them could not be classified from the data at hand.

In 1887 Gilbert Onderdonk,185a special agent of the United States Department of Agriculture, published a natural classification of peaches.186He put varieties of peaches into five groups which he called races and to which he gave the names: Persian, Northern Chinese, Spanish, Southern Chinese and Peento. He bounded peach-culture in America on the north by the Great Lakes and on the south by the Gulf and divided this great region into five zones to each of which he assigned one of his races. Onderdonk studied peaches in Texas and found there remarkable distinguishing characters; as, in adaptations to southern climates, in length of the rest-period, in differences in leafing, blooming and fruiting-time, and in the organs of the plants. Professor R. H. Price, working with a large number of varieties at the Texas Agricultural College, verified and greatly extended Onderdonk's observations.187Eventually, Price became the pontifical authority in this country on the classification of peaches and in numerous articles and addresses set forth the Onderdonk grouping of varieties so convincingly that it was adopted by practically all American pomologists and at present is in use, to some degree at least, in nearly all of our horticultural literature. It becomes necessary, therefore, to scrutinize closely this natural classification of Onderdonk and Price.

The end to be attained in a classification of peaches, as in classifying natural objects of any kind, is to provide an epitome of the knowledge of the fruits classified. Incidentally, a classification helps in the identification of varieties of peaches. Does the Onderdonk classification serve these purposes? We have not found that it does. In most arduous attempts to arrange the sorts of peaches growing on the Station grounds according to the Onderdonk plan, we have wholly failed. Even the varieties named as types do not fit, as they grow in the north, in the places provided for them by these southern classifiers. Indeed, we have wasted so much time and patience in attempting to group varieties according to Onderdonk and Price, and with so little success, that the Onderdonk classification seems to us to be cursed with the confusion of Babel. Since pomologists so generally accept this classification, these words demand that it be shown wherein this attempt at a natural arrangement of varieties fails.

In the first place the basis of Onderdonk's classification, as the names suggest, is regional variation. Each race stands for a region, the Peento included—for the name is very obviously Chinese. Incompleteness, then, is the first fault of this system for there are other regions in which races ofpeaches just as distinct as those named have developed: as, for examples, the Bokhara represents a hardy "Russian race;" Yellow Transvaal belongs to the very peculiar "South African race;" in the rich alluvial lands of Egypt, the "Egyptian race" has developed; still another regional race is found in the evergreen peach of the West Indies. We have no doubt that distinct races of peaches may have originated or will arise in the Canary Islands, Hawaii, New Zealand, Argentina, Chili and Mexico, to mention only countries spoken of in the foregoing pages. The Onderdonk classification can, of course, be extended to take in these new races, most of which are now represented in America, but eventually such a classification would become too cumbersome for use. It must not be overlooked that the Onderdonk classification should be doubled to apply to the nectarine, the other division ofPrunus persica, which the present classification wholly ignores.

If the variations are stable, and all regions represented, the likenesses and differences brought about by regional environment may well be used by classifiers. But in the Onderdonk classification unstable variations due to climate are too largely used; as, differences in the succession of life-events, in the rest-period, in the capacity to endure heat and drought, and in minor modifications of organs, as color of foliage and shape of fruit. All of these are variations that fluctuate with even slight changes in the climate. We have said that this classification, though constantly referred to by northern fruit-growers, is not satisfactory in New York. Professor Price, too, found as he went northward that his classificatory scheme was less dependable. He says:188"Some of the distinctions made in this classification cannot be noticed with decisive clearness a few hundred miles farther north." A further objection to this regional classification of Onderdonk is that, in the numerous distinct peach-regions of America, new regional variations are arising which make it impossible to classify in accordance with characters that appeared before the peach came to America.

These "races" of Onderdonk and Price, then, by leaving out the peach-floras of many regions, are too exclusive, but it is no less true that they are too inclusive. Thus, the many varieties of the historic peach of western countries are put by the Onderdonk classification in the Persian race. So considered, this Persian race contains types quite as widely separated from each other as are the five "races" of the Onderdonk classification. In one great group are collected early, late, white-fleshed, yellow-fleshed,red-fleshed, globular, oblong, beaked, hardy and tender, vigorous and dwarfish peaches. Persian peaches run the whole gamut of peach-characters, the flatness of the Peento possibly excepted, and from the several hundred sorts a score of "races" might be made. These peaches are noted by Price and Onderdonk as requiring a long period of rest and as succeeding only in northern climates. Yet to this group belong the peaches of France, Spain and Italy; those of the warm parts of Africa, South America and Oceanica; and most of the varieties that thrive at the most northern limits of peach-growing in Europe and America.

The Onderdonk classification, in assigning zones to each of its five races, misleads peach-growers as to the hardiness of varieties. It makes the Peento and honey-flavored peaches much more tender in tree than they are. Varieties of both groups grow as far north as this Station and Waugh reports that one of the Peento varieties "was discovered growing thriftily and fruiting nicely on the grounds of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Massachusetts."189Of the score of descendants of the Honey, several are fruiting well on our grounds, four being illustrated and described inThe Peaches of New York. If there were a demand for honey-flavored peaches, climate would not prevent their culture in New York.

The name used for the Peento group, if it be worth while keeping these peaches in a group, is inapt. It gives the impression that all, like Peento, are flat peaches—in fact Price several times so publishes them—whereas of the twenty-three sorts described by Hume,190though nearly all are seedlings of Peento, only Peento is flat. We must look upon the Peento as a peach-monster similar to the cleft peach,Emperor of Russia, the nippled peach,Teton de Venus, thePersequewith its teat-like protuberances, or the more familiar snow-white and blood-red varieties.

We are not able to see where the Peento group leaves off and the Honey group begins in the Onderdonk classification, though, since varieties of the Peentos have not fruited at Geneva and the several Honey-flavored peaches, though both thrifty in tree and fruitful, are possibly not typical, we ought not to be too critical. As we read the descriptions made by others, however, we are struck by the fact that there are more similarities than differences in the two groups and that the differences are rapidly disappearing through hybridization.

But the obstacle which most effectually blocks the use of Onderdonk's classification in the systematic arrangement of peaches is the brood of hybrid seedling peaches annually brought forth by fruit-growers. No doubt the classification is workable, to a degree, with the type-varieties and a few carefully selected progeny but after the practical peach-grower, with a devil-may-care attitude toward classification, crosses and recrosses the types, the several races become hopelessly interlocked. The characters chiefly used by Onderdonk, as has been said, are fluctuating variations and these do not descend according to Mendelian laws. And so the great out-pouring of varieties during the past quarter-century has literally swamped a classification which served only fairly well when it included but the pioneer varieties. In the trituration of the thousand and more varieties of peaches now going on, the Onderdonk classification will be less and less useful.

In dismissing the Onderdonk scheme as having but limited application for classificatory purposes, acknowledgment is made that it serves other purposes very well. It calls attention to the history of the peach; it shows that racial strains of the peach are arising; it brings out valuable information in regard to hardiness and the rest-period of peaches; it offers instances of modification of the peach by climate; and it shows the capacity of the peach to vary. For thus illuminating the natural history of the peach, more especially the climatology of the peach, pomology is much indebted to Onderdonk and Price.

A key to varieties of peaches.—A natural classification of peaches to show the relationships of varieties is seemingly impossible. The deluge of new varieties, which growers continue with cheerful optimism to pour out, overwhelms the classifier with difficulties. About the best that can be done is to arrange varieties, for convenience in identifying, according to some of the artificial systems of a century ago when the cult of the classifier was at its height. These were really synoptical keys rather than biological classifications. If such a key is to be used very generally by fruit-growers, only characters of the fruit are admissible, thereby attaining necessary simplicity and providing that all data can be had at one examination.

The first division of a synoptical key would of course be founded on the absence or presence of pubescence on the skin; these two great divisions would then be separated into freestones and clingstones; these, in turn, divided in accordance to color of flesh—white, yellow, red; the Peento andhoney-flavored peaches make necessary a division in regard to shape—globular, flat, beaked; a further separation into early, medium and late sorts could then be made. A great merit in this extremely simple classification is that the language of the layman fits it. As examples: Greensboro would follow the key from bottom to top—an early, round, white-fleshed, freestone peach; or Salwey, a late, round, yellow-fleshed, freestone peach. This key provides for seventy-two groups, fifty-four for the peach and eighteen for the nectarine, the latter having but the globular form. Other characters, of less general application in the key than those so far used, as size, flavor, adherence or non-adherence of the skin, suture, apex, and stone, could be used to carry this classification still further.

Commercial peach-growing began in America early in the Nineteenth Century. About this time, it will be remembered, budded trees began to take the place of seedlings. Named varieties appeared as a consequence of budding and, as nurseries sprang up in the settled parts of the country, varieties multiplied at a rapid rate. 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. With the coming of extensive plantings and intensive culture in commercial orchards, new and menacing pests and other problems began to appear at every turn. Before the middle of the century, commercial peach-growing was in full swing in the Chesapeake peach-belt and in its infancy in several westward regions. Stories of great success now filled the papers, "peach kings" abounded, and, with the return of good times following the Civil War, fruit-growers indulged in a saturnalia of peach-tree planting. The rouge of speculation made the industry doubly attractive. An account of the rise of commercial peach-growing in America cannot help but be of interest and, besides, it is only by the study of the past of the industry that we can draw safe conclusions for the future.

Peach-growing on a commercial scale in the United States began in what is known as the Peninsula, consisting, technically, of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey but horticulturally, because of similitude of soil, climate and products, taking in a bit of Virginia, touching eastern Pennsylvania and running up to Long Island. All of this region, including the southern reaches of the Hudson, may be considered as one commercial territory. The peach began its undisputed supremacy among fruits in the orchards of the Peninsula as early as orchards were planted but, beginning with 1800, the industry pushed ahead with leaps and bounds so that the figures at times remind one of Alice in Wonderland when she drank from the magic bottle and immediately grew to gigantic proportions.

In 1800 an orchard of 20,000 trees was set in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, the product to be used in brandy-making.191The last peach-growerto engage in the liquor business seems to have been a certain Mr. Bayley in Accomack County, Virginia, the tip of the Peninsula, who in 1814 planted 63,000 trees which six years later yielded fifteen gallons of brandy per 100 trees, worth $2 per gallon—not profitable unless the seed were sown in rows, as was probably the case, and the seedlings permitted to crowd rather closely.192One of the first large orchards planted in this region to supply city peach-markets was that of a Mr. Cassidy who set an orchard of 50,000 trees in Cecil County, Maryland, about 1830.193The product of this orchard went to market in sailboats and large wagons. The industry was not in full swing in this region until the fifties when orchards were planted all along the water courses in Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne counties, making a continuous forest of peach-trees two miles back from the rivers.194

The peach-industry in Delaware seems to have begun, according to Mr. Charles Wright,195in 1832 at Delaware City, when a twenty-acre orchard of budded trees was set by Messrs. Reeves and Ridgeway, which by 1836 had increased to 110 acres. The receipts from this orchard in a single season were as much as $16,000, the fruit bringing in Philadelphia from $1.25 to $3 per three-peck basket. Other notable orchards of these early times mentioned by Mr. Wright are those of Major Philip Reybold and Sons who, beginning in 1835, by 1846 had 117,720 trees on 1090 acres near Delaware City from which 63,344 baskets of peaches were shipped in August, 1845; in Kent County, John Reed began planting as early as 1829 and several years later had 10,000 trees of Red Cheek Melocotons. In 1848 the peach-crop in Delaware was estimated at 5,000,000 baskets, chiefly from New Castle County. Peach-yellows, first a serious pest around Philadelphia about 1800, became epidemic in northern Delaware in 1842 and, little by little, the center of the peach-industry shifted southward from Middletown in the late sixties to Smyrna; a few years later it had reached Wyoming and in the nineties it was as far south as Bridgeville.

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 thefortunes 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. Take, for example, the building of the Delaware railroad. Peaches were scarcely planted in the interior parts of the Peninsula, away from water-ways, until the building of this road in the sixties and seventies, when the yield increased so rapidly that 4,175,500 baskets were shipped by rail in 1875, the total yield being 8,782,716 baskets196—fortunes followed the completion of the railroad only to be lost in subsequent over-production.

New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and southeastern New York rather slowly followed the lead of Delaware in commercial peach-growing. New Jersey, according to census reports, reached her zenith in peach-growing in 1899 when there were 4,413,568 peach-trees in the State which produced 2,746,607 bushels of fruit giving her third rank among the states of the Union in production. Ten years later the State had dropped to fourteenth. The peach seems to have been neglected in eastern Pennsylvania as a commercial crop, possibly because a good start was never made on account of the early appearance of yellows. In southeastern New York and on Long Island, peach-growers have usually followed the fortunes of their neighbors in New Jersey who have ever grown on a much larger scale.

To show how quickly the peach gives returns and how great the return from the capital invested, the following figures, savoring a good deal of American boastfulness of dollars and cents, are illustrative:197"The peach farms in Upper Delaware and Maryland have returned to their owners the most fabulous amounts for their investments far exceeding in profit any other staple crop that has been raised in the Middle States, and on a scale never before heard of in this or any other country. Some of the orchards containing from 1000 to 1300 acres have netted their owners from $20,000 to $30,000 annually. A peach orchard in New Castle county, Delaware, of 400 acres, netted the owner in one crop, $38,000. One in Kent county, Maryland, of some 600 acres, produced a crop paying $31,000, and the same orchard in 1879 yielded $42,000. In 1873, the Delaware Peach Growers' Association reported that there were sent from the Delaware peninsula to the northern markets of Philadelphia and New York 1,288,500 baskets of peaches, or 2577 car-loads by the railroad. Adding the quantity shipped by steamers and sailing vessels, and the amount canned, the actual quantity amounted, in the aggregate, to 2,000,000 of baskets. In 1872, the whole district, comprising the EasternShore of Maryland, marketed 3,500,000 baskets. The late Col. Wilkins, on Chester river, Kent county, Maryland, had 1350 acres in with peach trees, numbering 137,000, producing in bearing years from $30,000 to $40,000 annually."

Commercial peach-growing in the South is of recent development—its history is known to all pomologists of the present generation. It began in the seventies, the impetus being given by the introduction of a number of early, bright-colored, very showy peaches that could be marketed in northern cities in May and June. It took years, however, to develop means to send these peaches to market and it was not until in the nineties that the perfection of refrigerator cars and rapid transportation was such that the southern crop cut any figure in the peach-markets. The introduction of the Elberta in the seventies may be said to be another stone in the foundation of the peach-industry in the South. After Georgia became a factor in the culture of this fruit in America in the nineties, the State was followed in lesser degree, by South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas. In most of these southern states the peach-orchard is so near the cotton-plantation—often the two are interplanted—that the owners rob Peter to pay Paul in the care of the two crops. But this is not always the case, and at its best the southern peach-orchard is the consummate flower of modern commercial peach-growing.

The peach-industry in Connecticut is a recent development, as in the South. As late as 1880 the crop was negligible in the State; in 1889, 37,295 bushels were grown; 61,775 in 1899; and 417,918 bushels in 1909. This, considering the smallness of the State and the very uneven surface of much of it, is a rather remarkable development. Winter-killing, which takes place about one winter out of four, is the chief drawback but the high prices received from nearby markets make the peach, despite the occasional off-year, a profitable crop. Connecticut peaches are characterized by large size, bright color and good quality. From Connecticut the industry has spread into Massachusetts where all conditions are essentially the same.

Peach-growing in New York has never been spectacular. Along the lower Hudson before the Civil War and again a decade after it there was a thriving peach-industry such as there was in New Jersey and Delaware. A peach-industry is first of all dependent on quick transportation—the fruit must move. This meant in early days that there must be nearby markets and water transportation—western New York had the latter but not the former. Peaches, however, were early grown, in fact, as wehave seen, were cultivated by the Indians, in the lake regions of western New York. In 1828 the Domestic Horticultural Society, the third such organization in America, was organized in Geneva, having for its field ten counties in western New York.198The Monroe County Horticultural Society was organized in 1830,199and in 1831 theGenesee Farmer and Gardener's Journalcame into existence. These institutions bore fruit, more literally bore orchards, and a taste for horticulture, which, together with the nurseries that by this time were being established in the salubrious climate and excellent soil of western New York, gave a perfection in fruit-growing long unrivalled in America and now equalled only in California.

Of the history of commercial peach-growing in western New York, it can only be said that there has been such an industry since 1800. The product of the orchards of the first quarter-century went, for most part, to the brandy-still, for the second quarter it was used at home and for local markets and from then on, since 1850, or a little before, the region has been well to the front in the peach-markets of eastern United States. Changes in the commerce of the continent have made great changes in the peach-industry in New York. In 1825 the opening of the Erie Canal made western New York the granary of eastern United States—wheat was more profitable than peaches. Twenty-five years later millions of bushels of wheat from the plains, carried through the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal to the sea, began to drive wheat out of western New York and make the peach more profitable. This is a fine illustration of the fact that transportation is often as important a factor as soil or climate in the profitable production of a crop. Until figures were taken by census enumerators, the history of the peach-industry could be written only by giving innumerable items taken at random from newspapers of the times. The present status of peach-growing in this region is to be discussed in a future chapter.

Another large commercial peach-region is to be found along the shore of Lake Erie in Ohio. The peach has been cultivated very generally in Ohio since the first settlements there more than a century ago and the industry assumed commercial importance in a dozen or more centers as early, at least, as 1867, when the assessors' returns showed a total crop for the State of 1,402,849 bushels.200But what is now known as the peach-belt along the shores of Lake Erie is largely a growth of comparativelyrecent times, much of the land now covered with peach-orchards having been originally planted to vineyards. Possibly the region was at its zenith in the nineties, the plantings here contributing greatly to putting Ohio in third place at this time among the states of the Union in the production of peaches.

Michigan furnishes an interesting chapter in the history of the peach-industry. The industry was started in what is now the Michigan peach-belt by an Indian trader who planted a pit in 1775 near St. Joseph. From this tree sprang seedling orchards, one of which, near Douglas at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River, numbered 300 trees. There were no budded trees until 1834. A conjunction of several factors now gave peach-growing a tremendous impetus in the State. Chicago, growing with leaps and bounds, demanded peaches; the soil and climate of western Michigan were found to be ideal for this fruit; between the supply and demand was quick and cheap transportation by water. Shipments began in 1834 to Chicago and, as this and other western cities grew, peach-planting in Michigan progressed as probably never before in any other part of the world. In the seventies peach-yellows swept like a wave of fire over the southern portion of what is now the belt, driving the industry northward until at Traverse City the peach reached its highest northern limit in the eastern states. With better control of the yellows, peach-orchards were again planted in the southern parts of the belt and the industry continues to thrive, though with the ups and downs incident to this fruit wherever grown.

Another large peach-growing area lies in southern Illinois extending across the Mississippi into Missouri and Kansas. Westward, in Colorado, Utah, California, Oregon and Washington, are the world's newest peach-orchards, all of which have arisen to commercial importance within recent times. In southern Illinois and Missouri, however, even before the Civil War, peach-growing had assumed sufficient magnitude to be called an industry. The present standing of these later peach-areas may best be compared with that of the older regions by a tabulated report from the United States Census Reports which is herewith printed. In the fluctuating figures of this table one sees the exploitation of the peach. What other tree-crop in the whole world could show more ups and downs in the brief space of thirty years? No state holds first rank two decades in succession; in fifteen states in 1910 there were more trees not of bearing age than there were in bearing; there were more peach-trees in the UnitedStates in 1900 than in 1910; the figures most graphically attest the shifting of peach-regions; decreasing numbers represent misfortunes—most often yellows, or San Jose scale, a freeze, or overproduction; increasing numbers stand for a newly discovered advantage. By these tokens we better realize the speculative nature of peach-growing.

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