270 



THE GARDENERS MONTHLY 



[September, 



all with leaves having globose glands; and Bea- 

 trice, Louise and Rivers, having reniform glands, 

 all in the same orchard, now in its fifth year. 



The result of another season has strengthened 

 my conviction that on our grounds Cumberland 

 is the earliest peach yet fruited, closely followed 

 by Saunders and Downing, with Alexander, 

 Amsden and Musser very little behind Wilder- 

 although ripening some fruit nearly as early as 

 any. continued to ripen much longer, so as to 

 close with Rivers and Louise, which came in 

 fully two weeks behind the earliest varieties. 

 Early Beatrice coming between. 



The season being unusually early, we picked 

 the first ripe specimens from Cumberland on 

 June 24th, and marketed the first bushel June 

 26th. and to-day, July 23d, we pick the last Wil- 

 der, LoLiise and Rivers, while Hale's will barely 

 be ripe by Aug. 1st. The other new early sorts 

 which are growing on our grounds, and which we 

 expect to fruit in a year or two at most, are E 

 Canada, Early Rose. Hyne's Surprise, Ashby's 

 Early, Baker's Early, Brice's Early, Early Lydia, 

 Nectar, Gov. Garland, Waterloo, and McKain's 

 Early, all having globose glands, except Early 

 Lydia, which is glandless and Waterloo, which 

 has reniform glands. I make this distinction 

 that they may be recognized, as the glandless va- 

 rieties, are invariably weaker growers, and the 

 leaves and young wood are more or less subject 

 to mildew on some soils and during some sea- 

 sons. We are indebted to Mr. T. V. Munson, of 

 Denison, Texas, and to Mr. Hynes, of West Plains, 

 Missouri, for most of the aforenamed varieties 

 which have not yet fruited. Mr. Munson has 

 probably the largest collection of quite early 

 peaches in the country, which he is testing with 

 the view of making public the results of his ex- 

 perience. In an article published in the Deni- 

 son Daily News of June 20th, 1880, he says, "the 

 present season has been a peculiar one, retard- 

 ing tne maturity of the extra early varieties, 

 while the later came on in unusual season. 

 This has thrown the ripening of nearly all vari 

 eties up to Hale's Early, into a heap. It has 

 been noticed, too, that the old, well-established 

 trees have ripened fruit much earlier, and of 

 larger size, than young trees of the same variety." 

 Our experience this season is that they were un- 

 usually early, and will leave, apparently, a lar- 

 ger gap between the quite early and later ones 

 than at any previous season since these quite 

 early peaches have been fruiting. 



Some of our friends who have fruited Wilder, re- 



ported it as filling the season between the quite 

 early kinds andHale's, bat with us it invariably ri- 

 pened as early as Alexander and Amsden, but 

 continued its crop a little longer. Bower's Early 

 and Amsden on the same tree showed the latter 

 to be several days earlier. In our orchard of 

 several hundred trees, about 75 were in full 

 fruiting, many being entirely overloaded. The 

 crop was unusually fine, high colored, and with 

 the exception of a few trees, quite free from rot, 

 while Hale's not yet ripe is rotting considerably. 

 I am not sanguine that these early kinds will 

 continue exempt from rot, but may we not rea- 

 sonably hope that some of them will? All these 

 early kinds thus far fruited are, like Hale's, half 

 clings, and no doubt, seedlings from it, except 

 Rivers seedlings, which are of a different class, 

 and which we shall discard, Beatrice being too 

 small and the others too tender for market. 



New early varieties are still being introduced, 

 and we shall continue to collect and test them as 

 fast as we can, in order to prove, if possible, which 

 is the earliest peach. Meanwhile, we look forward 

 for a freestone as large and fine as " Mountain 

 Rose," and as early as the earliest. 



THE OLD SECKEL PEAR. 



BY JAFET. 



I had heard from a friend, of the old, original 

 accidental seedling, the parent stock of all of that 

 ilk extant, and the story gradually infected my 

 imagination. It began to haunt me. I saw it — 



" In my mind's eye, Horatio," — 



standing like a sentinel down there in " The 

 Neck " among the dikes and ditches ; living 

 through slow and patient history; watching 

 through its " two hundred years," so the story 

 goes, and listening to the hum and stir of distant 

 life in the Quaker metropolis, and the growing 

 traffic of the two rivers that washed the meadow's 

 foot more than one hundred and fifty years from 

 this 31st day of July, 1880. 



" More than one hundred and fifty years ago" 

 —say the "Neckers" — the first dike was thrown 

 up to reclaini the meadows on which they and 

 their fathers' fiithers have lived and moved and 

 had their being; fighting the waves at spring tides, 

 and the rheumatiz' nipre at their leisure ; but 

 never much troubled with a dry time, even 

 though there be but a fraction of an inch of rain- 

 fall in a month, or a whole dry summer never so 

 long. 



It is a fat land down there, and has its bless- 

 ings and its drawbacks like other places. A 



