I08 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



to racial strains must have occuiTed to all who have read the preceding 

 pages. The peach acquires distinct varietal characters in every great 

 geographical region in which it is grown. Possibly in no other character 

 is the change greater than in the long, pointed, erect or recurved apex in 

 common parlance called the beak. As a rule, the farther south the more 

 pronounced is the beak and the more oblong is the fruit. In this respect, 

 southern peaches, taking them as a whole, are as markedly different from 

 New York peaches as are the long, crowned, angular-topped apples of the 

 Pacific Northwest from the rotund fruits of the Atlantic Northeast. The 

 four sorts of honey-flavored peaches described and illustrated in The 

 Peaches of New York, named in the foregoing paragraph, illustrate this 

 well, none of them being nearly so abruptly conical as specimens coming 

 to us from the South. Peaches in China, evidently, show the same modifi- 

 cation, for those discussed in the previous group are as markedly rotund 

 as those in this group are conic and beaked. It is a fair inference, then, 

 that the beaked character of the peach, counting time in generations of the 

 tree, is permanent only in southern climates. 



Peento peaches. — ■ Another group of these Chinese peaches, not very 

 different from the South China varieties we have just given an account 

 of, is composed of the score or more sorts showing relationship to the 

 variety, Peento. These may be rather indefinitely described as follows: 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading; branches willow-like, branch- 

 ing at an angle of about forty degrees; flowers large, pink, opening early, 

 often at a low temperature and very irregularly; leaves narrow, long, 

 finely serrated, with reniform glands; inclined to be evergreen; fruit sub- 

 globose except in Peento which is flattened endwise ; skin white and mottled 

 with carmine, parting readily from the flesh; flesh white or yellow; flavor 

 sweet, with a peculiar almond taste; stone occasionally flattened endwise, 

 either free or cling. This race is adapted to sub-tropical parts of the Gulf 

 States where it ripens from May ist to June ist. 



The Peento, which gives name to this group, is without doubt a 

 descendant of the flat peaches of China, common enough as we have seen. 

 The first tree, however, came from Java to England where it was first 

 grown by John Braddick under the name Java peach.' William Prince, - 



' Trans. Hort. Soc. Land. 4:512-513. 1822. 



2 Prince, Wm. Treat, on Hort. 16. 1828. 



William Prince, second of the name in American pomology and third proprietor of the celebrated 

 Prince nurseries at Flushing, Loiig Island, was bom November 10, 1766, and died April 9, 1842. His 

 grandfather, a French Huguenot, was the founder of the establishment of which he became owner, and 



