THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 1 85 



possibly, a little too susceptible to leaf-curl. The color-plate shows the 

 fruit to be a little more irregular than it is in nature. 



This variety originated about i860 in a seedling orchard of Benjamin 

 Bequette, Yisalia, California. J. H. Thomas of the same place named 

 the sort and first propagated it about 1877. In 1899 the American 

 Pomological Society added the variety to its list of fruits under the name 

 Bequett Free but in 1909 corrected the spelling to Bequette Free. 



Tree large, vigorous, spreading, open-topped, hardy, rather unproductive; trunk- 

 thick, smooth; branches stocky, smooth, reddirh-brovm mingled with light ash-gray; 

 branchlets slender, long, olive-green mingled with dark red, smooth, glabrous, with 

 numerous large and small, inconspicuous, raised lenticels. 



Leaves very numerous, six and three-fourths inches long, one and three-fourths inches 

 wide, folded upward, oval-lanceolate inclined to broad-obovate, leathery; upper surface 

 very dark green, smooth or slightly rugose; lower surface light ;^ayish-green ; margin 

 coarsely serrate, tipped with dark glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, with two to five 

 large, reniform, greenish-yellow glands variable in position. 



Flower-buds large, long, oblong-conic, plump, pointed, heavily pubescent, usually 

 appressed; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers light to dark pink, nearly one and one- 

 fourth inches across, borne in ones and twos; pedicels short, thick, glabrous, green; calyx- 

 tube reddish-green, light yellow within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes rather short, 

 medium to narrow, nearly acute, pubescent within, heavily pubescent without; petals 

 roundish-oval, slightly notched near the base, tapering to short, narrow claws tinged with 

 red at the base ; filaments nearly one-half inch long, shorter than the petals ; pistil heavily 

 pubescent at the ovary, longer than the stamens. 



Fruit matures in mid-season; two and one-half inches long, two and three-eighths 

 inches wide, round-oval, compressed, often with unequal sides; cavity small, deep, abrupt 

 or flaring, often tinged with red; suture shallow, deepening toward the apex; apex roundish, 

 depressed at the center, with a small, recurved, mamelon tip; color greenish-white mingled 

 with yellow, blushed, splashed and blotched with dark red; pubescence thick, long, coarse; 

 skin thin, tough, separates readily from the pulp; flesh white, slightly tinged with red 

 near the pit, juicy, stringy, tender and melting, pleasantly flavored, sprightly; good to 

 very good in quality; stone nearly free, one and three-eighths inches long, seven-eighths 

 inch wide, oval, with a short-pointed apex, medium in plumpness, with deeply pitted 

 and slightly grooved surfaces; ventral suture slightly bulged near the apex, deeply furrowed 

 along the edges, narrow; dorsal suture grooved. 



BERENICE 



I. La. Sta. Bui. 3:44. 1890. 2. Ibid. 27:941. 1894. 3. Tex. Sta. Bui. 39:806. 1896. 4. Ca. 

 .Sla. Bui. 42:233. 1898. 5. Del. .Sta. Rpl. 13:9- '90'- 6. Mich. .Sta. Bui. 194:45. 1901. 

 7. Berckmans Cat. lo. 1912-1.V 



When at its best Berenice is hardly surpassed in quality by any other 

 peach but it seems capricious, in the North at least, and this, with the 



