THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK l8l 



texture and flavor. The accompanying cut shows the beauty of the out- 

 side but unfortunately on the grounds of this Station the variety is almost 

 a clingstone so that the stone could not be separated to permit photograph- 

 ing the creamy-white flesh, red at pit, and, all in all, most tempting to the 

 eye. Alton seems to be most at home in the Middle West and South and 

 is not a familiar inhabitant of eastern orchards as a commercial product. 

 This variety originated with T. V. Munson, Denison, Texas, a quarter- 

 century ago and was introduced by him under the name Minnie. By 

 some it is supposed to have come from Alton, Illinois, and to have been 

 introduced as Emma but this is an error. Munson's Minnie was tested 

 at the Illinois Experiment Station from which place Stark Brothers Nursery 

 Company, Louisiana, Missouri, received it and propagated it under the 

 name Alton. In 1909 the American Pomological Society placed the variety 

 upon its list of fruits as Alton, a name which usage makes preferable to 

 the first one, Minnie. 



Tree large, vigorous, spreading, hardy, medium in productiveness; trunk very stocky; 

 branches thick, reddish-bronze overlaid with light ash-gray; branchlets slender, long, 

 olive-green mingled with dull red, smooth, glabrous, with many small, inconspicuous 

 lenticels. 



Leaves six and one-fourth inches long, one and three-fourths inches wide, folded 

 upward, oval-lanceolate, broad; upper surface dark green, rugose at the base; lower surface 

 light grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with dark glands; petiole three-eighths 

 inch long, with two to four reniform glands, greenish-yellow, tipped \vith dull red, variable 

 in [)osition. 



Flower-buds small, short, conical, usually appressed, heavily pubescent; season of 

 bloom early; flowers pale pink, nearly two inches across; borne usually singly; pedicels very 

 short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube dull reddish-green, tinged with greenish-yellow within, 

 campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes acute to slightly obtuse, glabrous within, heavily 

 pubescent without; petals roundish-oval, with blunt apex, frequently notched near the 

 base, tapering to narrow claws; filaments one-half inch long; pistil pubescent at the ovar\-, 

 as long as the stamens. 



Fruit matiires in early mid-season; two and five-sixteenths inches long, two and five- 

 eighths inches thick, round-oblate, slightly compressed, with unequal halves; cavity abrupt 

 or slightly flaring; suture of medium depth; apex roundish, mucronate; color creamy-white 

 overspread with dull red, dotted and splashed with carmine; pubescence thin, short; skin 

 tough, adhering slightly to the pulp; flesh white, juicy, stringy, tender, pleasantly subacid; 

 fair in quality; stone semi-cling, one and three-eighths inches long, seven-eighths inch 

 wide, obovate, plump at the apex, winged near the base, with pitted surfaces; ventral 

 suture deeply grooved along the sides, narrow; dorsal suture deeply grooved. 



