166 



CHAIRS 



CHINESE CLING 



CHAIRS. Chair's Choice. Chairs is a se- 

 lect fruit in the Crawford group, in its turn 

 the most select of the several groups of 

 peaches. The variety was at one time a 

 standard late, yellow-fleshed, freestone, market 

 peach, competing in popularity with Late 

 Crawford, over which it often held ascendency 

 because less subject to brown-rot. The coming 

 of the Elberta type has driven the Crawford 

 group from the markets, and Chairs is now 

 known only in collections where it will be long 

 treasured for its delectable fruits. Unproduc- 

 tiveness and capriciousness in soil and climate, 

 faults of all Crawford-like peaches, are marked 

 in Chairs. The variety originated about 1880 

 in the orchard of Franklin Chairs, Anne Arun- 

 del County, Maryland. 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, unpro- 

 ductive ; trunk stocky. Leaves 5% inches long, 1% 

 inches wide, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thin ; margin 

 coarsely serrate, often in 2 series ; teeth tipped with 

 reddish-brown glands ; petiole >4 inch long, with 2-6 

 small, globose, greenish-yellow glands. Flowers late, 

 dark pink fading toward the whitish centers, % inch 

 across. Fruit late midseason ; 2% inches in diameter, 

 round-oval, irregular, bulged beak-like along one side 

 toward the apex, compressed, with unequal halves ; cavity 

 deep, wide, flaring ; suture shallow, deepening toward 

 the apex and extending slightly beyond ; apex roundish, 

 with a small, recurved, mamelon tip ; color golden- 

 yellow, blushed and splashed with dull red ; pubescence 

 short, fine ; skin thin, tough, free ; flesh yellow, faintly 

 stained with red near the pit, juicy, stringy, tender, 

 subacid or sprightly, pleasantly flavored ; very good in 

 quality ; stone free, large, broadly oval, bulged along 

 one side, plump, with surfaces deeply pitted and with 

 short grooves. 



CHAMPION. Fig. 157. Champion is 

 rightly used as the standard to gauge the 

 quality of all other white-fleshed peaches. The 

 fruits are nearly as attractive to the eye as to 

 the palate; but, unfortunately, run small and 

 off-color in all but choicely good soils. The 



157. Champion. 



peaches are not only very good in the char- 

 acters that make up quality tender flesh, 

 juiciness, pleasant flavor but also have a pe- 

 culiar honeyed flavor which gives individuality. 

 The tree is almost perfect, few other varieties 

 surpassing it in height and girth, and none 

 equalling it in the quantity and the luxurious 

 green of its foliage. A Champion tree is 

 known by its foliage as far as the eye can 

 distinguish color. As would be expected from 

 the tree-characters given, Champion rejoices 

 in vigor and health as do few other varieties. 

 The variety surpasses most of its orchard- 



associates in productiveness, but the peaches 

 are inviting prey to brown-rot; and the trees 

 are sometime defoliated with leaf-curl ; so that, 

 with capriciousness as to soils, it has grave 

 faults as a commercial variety. The original 

 seed was planted about 1880 by I. G. Hubbard, 

 Nokomis, Illinois, and the variety was intro- 

 duced in 1890. 



Tree large, vigorous, spreading, open-topped, very 

 productive. Leaves 5^4 inches long, l 1 /^ inches wide, 

 oval to obovate-lanceolate ; margin finely serrate ; teeth 

 tipped with dark red glands ; petiole % inch long, with 

 2-5 small, globose, greenish-yellow glands. Blossoms 

 midseason, pink, less than 1 inch across. Fruit mid- 

 season, 2% inches in diameter, round-oval, truncate, 

 with halves usually equal ; cavity shallow, narrow 

 flaring, contracted ; suture shallow ; apex rounded, with 

 a recurved tip ; color pale creamy-white, with splashes 

 of carmine mingled with a blush of darker red ; pubes- 

 cence short, thick ; skin tough, adherent to the pulp ; 

 flesh white, red at the pit, very juicy, tender, sweet, 

 pleasantly flavored ; very good ; stone semi-free to free, 

 oval, long-pointed, with deeply grooved surfaces. 



CHILI. Hill's Chili. Chili, long familiar 

 to the older generation of peach-growers as 

 Hill's Chili, is now waning in popularity, after 

 having been for nearly a century one of the 

 mainstays of commercial orchards the country 

 over. The fruits were notable for " culinary 

 purposes, being especially desirable for canning 

 and curing because of firm, dry, well-flavored 

 flesh; and, besides, the crop ripened late in 

 the season, when cool weather gave good stor- 

 age conditions and made culinary work agree- 

 able to housewives. The peaches are not 

 attractive in size, color, or shape; are too dry 

 of flesh to eat with pleasure out of hand; 

 and are made less agreeable to sight and taste 

 by pubescence so heavy as to be woolly. The 

 trees of Chili are about all that could be 

 desired; for, while of but medium size, they 

 are vigorous, very hardy, long-lived, and an- 

 nually fruitful. Chili came into cultivation 

 early in the nineteenth century, when the 

 first tree appeared in the orchard of Pitman 

 Wilcox, Chili, New York. 



Tree medium in size, compact, vigorous, upright- 

 spreading, hardy, productive. Leaves folded upward 

 and recurved, 6 inches long, 1% inches wide, long-oval, 

 thin ; margin finely serrate ; teeth tipped with reddish- 

 brown glands; petiole % inch long, with 2-7 small, 

 usually reniform, reddish-brown glands. Blossoms mid- 

 season, pink, 1% inches across. Fruit late; 2^ inches 

 in diameter, oblong-conic, angular, compressed, with 

 unequal halves ; cavity uneven, shallow, contracted, 

 flaring, the skin tender and tearing easily ; suture shal- 

 low, extending beyond the apex ; apex poinied ; color 

 orange-yellow, with a dark red blush, splashed and 

 mottled with red ; pubescence long, thick, coarse ; skin 

 thin, tough, separates from the pulp ; flesh red at the 

 pit, yellow, dry, stringy, firm but tender, mild, sprightly ; 

 good ; stone free, flattened at the base, obovate, winged, 

 usually without bulge, long-pointed at the apex with 

 pitted surfaces. 



CHINESE CLING. Chinese Peach. 

 Shanghai. Chinese Cling holds a high place 

 in the esteem of American pomologists for its 

 intrinsic value, because it was the first peach 

 in one of the main stems of the peach-family 

 to come to America, and because it is the 

 parent of a great number of the best white- 

 fleshed peaches grown in this country. The 

 variety is not now remarkable for either fruit- 

 or tree-characters, being surpassed in both by 



