118 THE PEACH AND NECTARINE 



THE APRICOT 



tudes. Coining to America soon after Co- 

 lumbus discovered the New World, the peach 

 found such congenial surroundings that it 

 spread rapidly and widely, leading botanists 

 three centuries later to call it a native. In 

 the fruit areas of the United States, after two 

 centuries of cultivation, the peach is so plenti- 

 ful that it is to be found fresh, canned, or 

 evaporated in every home in the land, and 

 the species is represented in American orchards 

 by over 1000 varieties which have originated 

 in this country. 



European settlers took the peach across the 

 Equator in their migrations, and have made 

 it a favorite fruit in the gardens and orchards 

 of the South Temperate Zone. It is common 

 in the colonies of South Africa; Darwin in 

 his famous voyage to South America found 

 a part of Argentina "thickly clothed with peach 

 and orange trees"; it grows wild on the tem- 

 perate and subtropic coasts in Chile, Peru, 

 and Bolivia, where it is also an important 

 orchard plant. In temperate Oceanica, New 

 Zealand, and Australia, the peach plays an 

 important part in horticulture. 



In its world-wide wanderings, the peach in 

 tree and fruit has taken on most interesting 

 combinations of characters not found in the 

 original. Round, flat, beaked; free or cling- 

 stone peaches; with smooth or downy skin; 

 having red, yellow or white flesh; sweet, sour 

 or bitter; all combinations of these characters 

 are known to American growers of this fruit, 

 but there are varieties of less well-known char- 

 acters. Thus, the peach in China bears fruits 

 weighing a pound apiece and haying extraordi- 

 nary keeping and shipping qualities; a Chinese 

 peach of the Honey type has a tree with a 

 maximum height of only seven or eight feet; 

 still another Chinese variety has extraordi- 

 narily long leaves; another variety from China 

 is a white-stoned sort; a well-known peach in 

 the French West Indies has fruits that peel 

 easily and withstand a continued temperature 

 in the ripening season of 76 to 90 degrees; in 

 Kashgar, a peach is reported that will keep 

 for several months ; in Chinese Turkestan there 

 is a nectarine said to keep for several weeks 

 after fully ripe; even more remarkable is the 

 Feichen peach from China which ripens in 

 late September, and can be kept wrapped in 

 paper until February; as remarkable as any 

 is the Transvaal Yellow of South Africa which 

 grows among granite boulders, as a hedge 

 around homesteads, or beside water furrows 

 and dams with the roots in water; the fragrant 

 peach and the firm peach from China are not 

 yet known in America; nor is the Chinese 

 dwarf peach, grown in pots indoors, which 

 fruits at the height of fifteen inches and bears 

 peaches on the main trunk, though the stem 

 is scarcely larger than a lead pencil. 



The facts just stated imply two important 

 things to peach-growers. First, the peach is 

 an exceedingly variable fruit which is capable 

 of being moulded to fit many conditions of en- 

 vironment; and which, under cultivation in 

 unlike regions, soils, and climates, may still 

 be greatly improved by crossing and selecting. 



Second, the peach has seemingly, in centuries 

 of cultivation by the Orientals, taken on suffi- 

 cient immutability to make it one of the most 

 stable of species. The many races and thou- 

 sands of varieties are all best put in one 

 species. Many varieties come true to seed; 

 peaches from seed seldom revert to worthless 

 forms, as so many seedling fruits habitually do. 

 American pomologists loosely divide peaches 

 into four groups or races. First, the Persian 

 race brought to America by the early settlers, 

 best represented by the Crawfords. Second, the 

 North China race made up of varieties char- 

 acterized by fruits of large size, great beauty, 

 tender skin and flesh, and vigorous trees which 

 bear abundantly and regularly; Chinese cling 

 and Chinese free, early varieties of this race, 

 are still as good representatives of it as any. 

 Third, the South China race represented by 

 varieties which bear small, oval, yellow fleshed 

 fruits with a peculiar honey-sweet flavor; from 

 the flavor, this race is sometimes called the 

 Honey peach. It is adapted only to subtropical 

 parts of America. Fourth, the Peento race, rep- 

 resented by trees which are inclined to be ever- 

 green and by fruits which are sub-globose or 

 much flattened endwise, skin white and mot- 

 tled with carmine, flesh white or yellow, and 

 the flavor sweet with a peculiar almond taste; 

 the stone in the flattened peaches is also flat- 

 tened endwise and is either free or cling. The 

 Peentos grow only in subtropical regions. It 

 is now useless to try to keep these several races 

 distinct. All have been and are being freely 

 hybridized, producing offspring which connect 

 the groups. 



Nectarines. 



The nectarine is a hairless peach. The trees 

 differ in no respect from those of the peach, 

 and, apart from the absence of pubescence, 

 the only distinguishing marks between the 

 fruits are smaller size, firmer flesh, greater 

 aroma, and a distinct and richer flavor in 

 nectarines. The varieties of the two fruits 

 correspond in characters. In both the peach 

 and the nectarine there are clingstone and 

 freestone sorts; both have varieties with red, 

 yellow, or white flesh; the flowers of both may 

 be large or small; nectarine leaves in one 

 variety or another show all the variations in 

 glands and serrations known to the peach; 

 the stone and kernels are indistinguishable in 

 the two fruits; peaches and nectarines are 

 adapted to the same soils and climatic condi- 

 tions, and, wherever the peach is grown, the 

 nectarine is found. The history of the nec- 

 tarine goes back over 2000 years, merging into 

 that of the peach. 



THE APRICOT 



Three species of Prunus are known as apri- 

 cots: Armeniaca, the common apricot; Mume, 

 the Japanese apricot; and dasycarpa, the black 

 apricot. The apricot-plum, Simonii, is more 

 closely allied to the plums and is classified with, 

 plums. 



