220 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



and bud and by remarkable productiveness. Indeed, it loads itself so 

 heavily that the peaches invariably run small unless the trees are heavily 

 pruned and the crop thinned — small size of fruit is the greatest defect 

 of the variety. Besides being one of the hardiest of all peaches it is also 

 about the least susceptible to brown-rot and leaf-curl, the two worst 

 scourges of the peach when yellows permits the trees to live. Earliness 

 in coming in bearing 's another admirable character. The trees are of 

 but medium size, are dainty in habits with clean, fresh foliage so that 

 the variety is an attractive ornamental. All in all, Gold Drop is ideal 

 for the home garden and has many good characters which can be used 

 as stepping-stones in breeding peaches. 



The origin of Gold Drop is unknown. It is evidently an old sort 

 and some horticultvuists believe it to be an old variety renamed. The 

 variety has been cultivated in Michigan orchards for many years under 

 the name Golden Drop given it by George W. Griffin, Casco, Allegan 

 County, Michigan, who introduced it. The variety was at one time 

 supposed to be the peach which is grown in Michigan as Yellow Rareripe 

 but it is not the Yellow Rareripe cultivated today. The American Pomo- 

 logical Society listed it in its fruit-catalog in 1909 under the name Gold 

 Drop. 



Tree of medium size and vigor, spreading, rather open-topped, hardy, very productive; 

 tnmk thick and smooth; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown with a covering of light 

 ash-gray; branchlets slender, with intemodes dull pinkish-red intermingled with green, 

 smooth, glabrous, with conspicuous, raised lenticels. 



Leave five and one-half inches long, one and one-fourth inches wide, folded upward 

 and recurved, oval to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dark green, mottled; 

 lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with red along the edge; petiole 

 three-eighths inch long, with two to nine large, reddish-brown or grapsh. mixed glands 

 usually on the leaf. 



Flower-buds long, conical or obtuse, plump, somewhat appressed, pubescent; season 

 of bloom early; flowers pale pink, one "and three-fourths inches across, well distributed; 

 pedicels short, medium to slender, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange-colored 

 within, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes broad, usually acute, glabrous within, pubescent 

 without; petals ovate, notched near the base, tapering to long, narrow claws variable 

 in color at the base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent 

 at the ovary, equal to or longer than the stamens. 



Fruit matures late; two and seven-sixteenths inches long, nearly two and one-half inches 

 wide, roundish-oval, bulged at one side, with unequal halves; cavity deep, abrupt, twig- 

 marked; suture very shallow, extending beyond the apex; apex roundish, \^dth a slightly 

 mamelon or mucronate tip; color greenish or golden-yellow, with a dull blush on one side; 



