98 



360 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



tree. The original tree is a heavy croppsr in alternate years, bearing 

 about a half crop in the " off year." It yielded 15 bushels in 1905. 



The specimen illustrated on Plate XXVII was grown in 1905 by 

 Prof. C. C. Newman, at Clayton, Rabun County, Ga. 



EARLY WHEELER PEACH. 



(SYNONYMS: Wheeler Cling; Early Wheeler Cling.) 



[PLA.TE XXVIII.] 



The lengthening of the peach season through the origination of both 

 earlier and later varieties of good quality is a matter of much impor- 

 tance to peach growers, especially in the Southern States. At the 

 present time so large a proportion of the trees in southern orchards 

 consists of the one variety, Elberta, that almost the entire peach crop 

 of each important locality must be harvested and marketed within a 

 period of ten days or two weeks. This cau'ses serious labor shortage 

 at the critical times, overburdens transportation facilities, and tends 

 to produce that most expensive menace to profitable peach growing, 

 a glutted market. If the weather conditions chance to be unfavorable 

 during this short harvest period, the evils are accentuated and most 

 of the returns for the year's work are not infrequently lost through 

 the shortness of the marketing season. Peach growers and nursery- 

 men have long recognized the need of earlier market varieties, and a 

 large number of early sorts have been brought into notice from time 

 to time. Among these the Greensboro, Carman, Waddell, Mamie 

 Ross, and Hiley varieties have attained a more or less stable foothold 

 in different sections as commercial sorts. 



Most of the varieties earlier than these, however, unless grown under 

 very favorable conditions, are of inferior flavor and deficient carrying 

 quality. The Early Wheeler, which was one of a large number of 

 seedlings of Heath Cling grown by Mr. E. W. Kirkpatrick, of McKin- 

 ney, Tex., and first fruited in 1900, appears to be an exception in these 

 respects, being as early as Alexander, as large as Mamie Ross, and of 

 as excellent dessert and shipping quality as Oldmixon Cling. It was 

 experimentally disseminated by Mr. Kirkpatrick immediately after it 

 first fruited, being sent out as Early Wheeler Cling. About 1903 this 

 was reduced to Early Wheeler, and on April 17, 1906, an arbitrary 

 device bearing this name and a portrait of the originator was regis- 

 tered in the United States Patent Office as a trade-mark by the Texas 

 Nursery Company, of Sherman, Tex., which introduced it commer- 

 cially in that year. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Form roundish oblong to oblong conical; size medium to large; 



^gular, large, broad, of medium depth and slope, marked with 



?m short, moderately stout; suture shallow except near 



