THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 219 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, unproductive; trunk thick; branches 

 stocky, smooth, reddish-brown covered with light ash-gray; branchlets dark red, with 

 faint traces of green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous, smaU lenticels. 



Leaves seven inches long, one and five-eighths inches wide, folded upward and recurved, 

 oval to obovate-lanceolate, rather thick, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth except 

 near the midrib; lower surface grayish-green; margin sharply serrate, red; petiole three- 

 eighths inch long, glandless or with one to three small, globose, reddish-brown glands 

 usually at the base of the blade. 



Flower-buds short, obtuse, plump, heavily pubescent, appressed; blossoms appear 

 in mid-season; flowers pale pink, with white centers and edged with darker ]Dink, nearly 

 one inch across; pedicels nearly sessile; calyx-tube reddish-green, light yellow within, cam- 

 panulate, glabrous; caljTc-lobes medivmi in length and width, obtuse or acute, glabrous 

 within, pubescent without; petals roundish-oval, tapering to claws red at the base; 

 filaments one-fourth inch long, equal to the petals in length; pistil longer than the 

 stamens. 



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

 sixteenths inches wide, roundish-oblate, bulged near the apex, oblique, with unequal sides; 

 cavity slightly contracted, deep, wide, abrupt, with tender skin; suture shallow, becoming 

 deeper at both apex and cavity and faintly showing beyond the tip; apex roundish, with 

 a mucronate tip; color greenish-white changing to creamy-white, with a pink blush and 

 sometimes with faint mottlings of red; pubescence short, thick, fine; skin thin, tough, 

 variable in adherence to the pulp; flesh whitish, deeply tinged with red near the pit, juicy, 

 stringy, tender, mild, pleasantly flavored; good in quality; stone semi-free to free, one and 

 one-eighth inches long, three-fourths inch thick, roundish-oval, very plump, flattened at 

 the base, tapering to a short, rounded point, with grooved surfaces; ventral suture \vinged, 

 rather narrow; dorsal suture grooved. 



GOLD DROP 



I. Kan. Hon. Soc. Peach, The 142. 1899. 2. Mich. Sla. Bui. 169:214. 1899. 3. Budd-Hansen 

 Am. Hor't. Man. 2:347. 1903. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 37. 1909. 



Golden Drop. 5. U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 298. 1855. 6. Mich. Hart. Soc. Rpl. 243. 1886. 7. Onl. 

 Fr. Exp. Sta.Rpt. 2:5s fig. 1895. 8. Jl/JcA. 5/o. 5p. 5«/. 44:42, 43 fig., 44, 45. 1910. 



Gold Drop, long a familiar variety in ' Michigan peach-orchards, is 

 not much grown elsewhere. It is doubtfully worth planting in New York 

 as a peach of commerce but should find a place in ^vcry home orchard. 

 The variety has several distinctive peculiarities which make it a pleasing 

 variation in the peach-orchard and add to its merits as a home fruit. 

 Thus, its transparent, golden skin and flesh make it one of the handsomest 

 of all peaches; add to handsome appearance a somewhat distinctive 

 flavor — vinous, rich, refreshing — and the peach becomes one that all 

 agree is ver}^ good and one that, were the size larger, would sell in any 

 market. Gold Drop is further characterized by great hardiness in tree 



