THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 255 



duced from Europe by Sir John Oldmixon but Downing believes that it 

 was the pit and not the tree which Oldmixon brought to America. At any 

 rate the variety takes its name from its supposed introducer. If the pit 

 were planted by Sir John Oldmixon, this must be the oldest of our peaches 

 for Oldmixon came to America nearly 200 years ago. He was, by the way, 

 the author of one of the early and notable books on America, The British 

 Empire in America, published in London in 1741. Pomologists from 

 time to time have made two words of the name making it appear that 

 old and new Alixon peaches existed. Oldmixon Cling was placed in the 

 fruit-list of the American Pomological Society in 1856 and ever since has 

 retained a place there. In 1881 the Society changed the name from Old 

 Mixon Cling to Oldmixon Cling. 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, rather unproductive; trunk medium 

 to thick, smooth; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown tinged with light ash-gray; 

 branchlets of medium thickness and length, with tendency to rebranch, red intermingled 

 with dull green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous, large, raised 

 lenticels. 



Leaves six and three-fourths inches long, one and one-half inches wide, flattened 

 or curled downward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dark green, 

 smooth becoming rugose along the midrib; margin finety serrate, tipped with reddish- 

 brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, with one to fovu" small, globose glands 

 variable in color and position. 



Flower-buds large, conical or pointed, plump, pubescent, appreseed or somewhat 

 free; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers three-fourths inch across, light pink at the 

 center deepening to darker pink at the margins, often in twos, sometimes in threes; 

 pedicels short, green; cah"x-tube reddish-green at the base, greenish-yellow within, 

 obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes short, narrow, acute, glabrous within, pubescent without; 

 petals round-oval, nearlj^ entire, tapering to claws tinged with red at the base; filaments 



one Daniel Smith in what, for the times, was an extensive fruit-tree and ornamental nursery. Demands 

 for information became so frequent that he determined to put his knowledge in print and his Fruit Trees 

 was the result. The objects he sought to obtain in writing are well set forth in the title page as follows: 

 " A VIEW of the CULTIVATION of FRUIT TREES, and the Management of Orchards and Cider; 

 with Accurate Descriptions of the Most Estimable Varieties of NATIVE AND FOREIGN APPLES, 

 PEARS, PEACHES, PLUMS, AND CHERRIES, Cultivated in the Middle States of America; lUustrated 

 by Cuts of two hundred kinds of Fruits of the natural size; Intended to Explain Some of the errors which 

 exist relative to the origin, popular names, and character of many of our fruits; to identify them by accurate 

 descriptions of their properties, and correct delineations of the full size and natural formation of each 

 varietj'; and to e.xhibit a system of practice adapted to our climate, in the Successive Stages of 

 A NURSERY, ORCHARD, AND CIDER ESTABLISHMENT." He was at one time a member of 

 the State Legislature and later a Congressman intimately associated with Daniel Webster. He was, also, 

 an honorary member of the Horticultural Society of London to which during many years he was a faithful 

 correspondent. It was Coxe's privilege to see the very beginnings of commercial peach-growing in America 

 and through his nursery, his orchard and his book he contributed much to American peach-culture. 



