2l6 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



FOSTER 



I. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 32. 1869. 2. Am. Ilorl. .-inn. 82 fig. 39. 1870. 3. Card. Mon. 12:371. 

 1870. 4. Downing Fr. Treci id m. 1st App. 121. 1872. 5. Mich. Ilorl. Soc. Rpl. t,2, 260. 1874. 6. Cull. 

 & Count. Gent. 44:678. 1879. 7. Budd-Hansen Am. Hart. Man. 2:345. I903- 8. Waugh Am. Peach 

 Orch. 202. 1913. 



Foster's .Seedling. 9. Am. Jour. Horl. 2:277 fig. 1867. 



Foster is another very good peach of the Crawford type and at one 

 time was widely grown in all northern peach-regions. It is so similar 

 to Late Crawford that even experienced growers can hardly tell them 

 apart. Those who grow the two in the same orchard find the essential 

 differences to be: Foster is the larger peach, is more rotund, somewhat 

 more flattened at the base, is a little earlier, possibly handsomer and is 

 even of better quality than Late Crawford; the trees of Foster, however, 

 are hardly as productive as those of either of the two unproductive Craw- 

 fords. This unproductiveness is the fault that keeps the variety in the 

 background as a commercial peach. The variety is well worth planting 

 in any home orchard. 



Foster originated about 1857 with J. T. Foster, Medford, Massa- 

 chusetts, from the stone of a peach purchased by him in a Boston market. 

 It was awarded a place on the American Pomological Society's list of recom- 

 mended fruits in 1869. 



Tree very large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, variable in productiveness; trunk 

 thick; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown intermingled with light ash-gray; branch- 

 lets spur-like, long, dark pinkish-red mingled with olive-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, 

 with numerous large and small lenticels raised at the base. 



Leaves six inches long, one and three-eighths inches wide, folded upward, oval to 

 obovate-lanceolate, intermediate in thickness, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth 

 becoming rugose near the midrib ; lower surface grayish-green ; margin finely serrate, tipped 

 with small glands; petiole seven-sixteenths inch long, with one to four small globose 

 glands variable in color and position; flower-buds somewhat tender, conical or pointed, 

 pubescent, free; blossoms appear in mid-season. 



Fruit matures in mid-season; two and seven-sixteenths inches long, more than two 

 and one-half inches wide, round-cordate, often bulged at one side, compressed, with unequal 

 sides; cavity deep, wide, flaring or somewhat abrupt, often splashed with red; suture shal- 

 low, becoming deeper at both apex and cavity and extending slightly beyond the point; 

 apex roundish or pointed, with a recurved, mamelon or occasionally mucronate tip; color 

 deep yellow overspread with dark red, with a few splashes or stripes of red; pubescence 

 long, thick; skin thick, tough, separates from the pulp when fully ripe; flesh deep yellow, 

 faintly stained with red near the pit, juicy, coarse and stringy, firm but tender, sweet, 

 mild, spicy; very good in quality; stone free. 



