260 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



is a large, handsomely-colored, white-fleshed, freestone peach of good 

 quaUty which ripens ten days before Champion. There are, it is true, a 

 good many white-fleshed peaches at this season but Pearson is an exception- 

 ally good one, much excelling Mamie Ross with which it might have 

 to compete although the latter ripens a little later. The trees are very 

 vigorous, productive and, so far, about as healthy as any on the Station 

 grounds. 



Pearson originated with J. M. Pearson, McKinney, Texas. Its 

 parentage is unknown. The variety was introduced by E. W. Kirkpatrick 

 of McKinney, who thinks it may be a seedling of Chinese Cling. 



Tree large, vigorous, spreading, the lower branches drooping, very productive; trunk 

 mediiun in thickness, smooth; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown mingled with 

 light ash-gray; branchlets slender, sliort, with short intemodes, dark red mingled with 

 olive-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with few inconspicuous lenticels variable in size 

 and raised toward the base 



Leaves seven inches long, one and three-fourths inches wide, variable in position, 

 oval to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dark, dxill green, smooth becoming 

 rugose along the midrib ; lower surface grayish-green ; apex long and narrow ; margin finely 

 serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, glandless or 

 with one to four small, globose, reddish-brown glands usually at the base of the blade. 



Flower-buds hardy, long, heavily pubescent, conical to obtuse, plump, appressed or 

 partly free; blossoms appear very early; flowers nearly two inches across, pink, usually 

 single; pedicels short, of medium thickness, glabrous, green; calyx-tube dark, dull 

 reddish-green, greenish-yellow within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes broad, often 

 emarginated, acute or obtuse, glabrous within, heavily pubescent without; petals oval to 

 roundish-obovate, tapering to long, narrow claws; filaments about one-half inch long, 

 shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent only at the base, equal to the stamens in length. 



Fruit matures in early mid-season; two and one-fourth inches long, two and three- 

 sixteenths inches wide, round-oval or somewhat cordate, compressed, with imequal halves, 

 bulged near the apex; cavity medium to deep, abrupt or flaring, with tender sldn; suture 

 quite variable in depth; apex rovmd or depressed, with a small, mucronate or recurved, 

 mamelon tip; color greenish- white, with a blush covering much of the surface, more or 

 less mottled; pubescence thin, fine, short; skin thin, tough, semi-free; flesh white, faintly 

 tinged with red near the pit, juicy, string>% tender and melting, pleasantly flavored; good 

 in quality; stone semi-clinging or free, one and three-eighths inches long, one inch wide, 

 oval, flattened at the base, winged, with pitted surfaces; ventral suttu-e deeply grooved 

 near the edges, narrow; dorsal suture grooved, winged. 



PEENTO 



I. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 41. 1877. 2. Gar(f. ifo«. 19:114, 301. 1877. 3- Gard. Man. 26:61. 1884. 

 4. r. S. D. A. Rpt. 650. 1887. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 32. 1889. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. H4-116. 

 1889. 7. Fla. Sla. Bui. 62:506-509, PI. i. 1902. 8. Fulton Peach Cult. 202. 1908. 



