THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 267 



exotic peaches which are now and then planted in this country but all are 

 passing out so rapidly that we shall soon be standing on a basis in peach- 

 growing which is wholly American. Earliness and high quality of fruit 

 keep Rivers alive in private places in America. No one would think of 

 planting it in a commercial orchard because of its small fruit, tender skin 

 and flesh which show every bruise, and its susceptibility to brown-rot. 

 It is a white-fleshed freestone, tender, juicy and with an exceedingly rich, 

 sugary flavor with a savoring smack of the nectarine. This variety stands 

 almost alone in beauty of flesh which is white to the stone, translucent 

 and more or less mottled and interspersed with white veins. At its best 

 the fruits are rather large and quite handsome as they grow in America, 

 but even so they are but a shadow of the peach described under this name 

 in European fruit-books. The trees are fairly satisfactory in all essential 

 characters. 



Rivers originated with Thomas Rivers, Sawbridgeworth, England, 

 about 1865 as a seedling of Early Silver. Soon after its introduction in 

 England it was brought to America. The American Pomological Society 

 listed the variety in its fruit-catalog in 1875 as Early Rivers but in 1883 

 changed the name to Rivers though it is still popularly known as Early 

 Rivers. 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, with incHnation to droop, round-topped, 

 hardy, productive; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth, dark reddish-brown overspread 

 with light ash-gray; branchlets long, with intemodes olive-green overlaid with thin brownish- 

 red, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous, large and small lenticels. 



Leaves five and three-fourths inches long, one and five-eighths inches wide, folded 

 upward and somewhat recurved, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thin, leathery, dark green, 

 smooth or sometimes rugo?e; lower surface grayish-green, not pubescent, with a promi- 

 nent midrib; apex acuminate; margin finely serrate, tipped with fine, reddish-brown 

 glands; petiole one-fourth inch long, with one to six reniform, greenish-yellow glands 

 variable in position. 



Flower-buds large, long, conical, heavily pubescent, appressed; season of bloom early; 

 flowers pink, one and one-half inches across, often in pairs; pedicels short, glabrous, green; 

 calyx-tube dtdl reddish-green, light yellow within, campaniilate, glabrous; calyx-lobes 

 short, narrow, acute to obtuse, glabrous within, heavily pubescent without; petals roimd- 

 ovate, bluntly notched near the base, tapering to long, narrow claws occasionally with 

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

 the ovary, equal to the stamens in length. 



Fruit matures early; two and three-eighths inches long, two and one-fourth inches 

 wide, roimd-oval, compressed, with unequal halves; cavity shallow, contracted, irregular, 

 abrupt; suture medium to shallow; apex roundish, somewhat mucronate; color creamy- 



