PEACH VARIETIES 271 



experience we had one year with a late frost. 

 The rows of trees extended up and down a 

 certain hillside. Below a certain point all 

 varieties were stripped of fruit except the 

 Greensboro — on this one variety we gathered 

 peaches four rows farther down the hill than 

 on any other kind. 



Heath Cling 



Hedrick says that the Heath Cling is "un- 

 questionably the oldest named American 

 peach now under cultivation." Aside from 

 the fact that it is an old variety and therefore 

 entitled to our reverence it has nothing to 

 commend it. The fruit is about as poor as a 

 peach well can be. It has long been popular 

 however, for the making of "pickled peaches" 

 and when thus used with an abundance of 

 sugar and plenty of spices it becomes quite 

 edible. As a fruit to eat from the tree it is 

 a joke when compared with some of our really 

 fine sorts. The grower objects to it also be- 

 cause it is very subject to rot and the curculio 

 take especial delight in using it as a breeding- 

 ground. As a result the fruit is often riddled 

 with the larvae of these small beetles. In spite 

 of the fact that I was once an entomologist 

 by profession I am very much inclined to be 

 a vegetarian in my diet — when I am eating 

 vegetables. 



