446 Report of the Department of Horticulture of the 



PEACHES 



Arp Beauty is the earliest good yellow peach. This is the chief 

 reason for its cultivation though it has other good characters be- 

 side earliness to give it a place among yellow peaches. At this 

 Station the trees are healthy, vigorous, productive and hardier 

 in bud than the average, its buds having withstood the cold of 

 the test winter of 1911-12. The round-oval shape and shallow 

 suture give it a pleasing appearance of rotundity. To its shape- 

 liness, add a skin creamy and yellow with a heavy blush of red 

 and covered with short, thick, pubescence with the sheen of velvet, 

 and you have a beautiful peach. The flesh is light yellow, firm, 

 juicy, sweet, rich, and of excellent quality, but unfortunately clings 

 rather tenaciously to the stone. The season of Arp Beauty is from 

 a month to five weeks earlier than Elberta and for so early a peach 

 is remarkably long. We do not know from experience how the 

 fruit will ship but believe it will stand the wear and tear of trans- 

 portation and markets as well as any of the standard peaches. It 

 ought to be in every home orchard. 



Arp Beauty was introduced by Stark Brothers, Louisiana, Missouri, 

 but we are unable to ascertain its origin. 



Tree above medium to large, spreading, hardy, productive; leaves folded upward, 

 oval to obovate-lanceolate, large, thin; upper surface dark green; lower surface silvery- 

 green; season of bloom early, long. Fruit early, season long; two inches long, over 

 two inches through, roundish-oval, slightly compressed, halves unequal; cavity deep 

 and wide, abrupt; suture shallow, deeper at cavity; apex roundish, depressed; 

 color greenish-yellow changing into a deep yellow, with a heavy blush of red; pubes- 

 cence short, thick; dots large, conspicuous; skin thick, tough, adherent; flesh light 

 yellow with faint red at pit, tender, melting, fibrous, juicy, rich, sweet; very good; 

 stone clinging. 



Frances. — The great desideratum of New York peach-growers is 

 a good market variety to follow Elberta. Of a score or more, good, 

 bad and indifferent, advertised to fill this particular niche in peach- 

 growing, Frances is the best on our grounds. The trees are vigorous 

 and productive and the buds withstood the winter of 1911-12, 

 the severest winter in a quarter-century, better than did Elberta. 

 The fruits average as large as those of Elberta — or, at most, fall 

 short of it but a trifle. If anything it is more handsome than- 

 Elberta having a richer background of yellow and more brilliancy i 

 in its red cheek, more nearly round and more uniform in size and 

 shape, seeming to have been cast in a rather more beautiful mold. 

 Its quality is much the same as that of Elberta, the difference in 

 flavor, texture, juiciness and all that go to make peaches palatable 

 being in favor of Frances — though higher quality could be desired. 

 But its chief right to a place in New York pomology arises fronii 

 the fact that it extends the Elberta season a few days or a week. t 

 While it is quite as good a market peach as the Elberta on our ' 

 grounds it can hardly be hoped that it has in equal degree the quality 



