270 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



do the variety justice in size, color or shape, the Station grounds being 

 one of the many places in which the variety cannot be had at its best. 



Where, by whom and when St. John originated and what its parentage, 

 are unknown. It is more than half a century old, came from the South, 

 and has been widely planted in southern peach-districts, especially along 

 the southern coast of Alabama. The variety reproduces itself from seed 

 and this fact has led to its being distributed under a number of different 

 names as is shown by the synonyms listed in the references. In Michigan 

 the variety was grown for some time as Crane, or Crane's Early Yellow, 

 having come from the orchard of Charles G. Crane of Fenn villa. 

 Mr. Crane, it appears, had lost the true name of the peach and after fruit- 

 ing his supposed seedling for a time it was discovered by T. T. Lyon ' to be 

 identical with St. John. In 1871 the American Pomological Society added 

 this peach to its fruit-list as Yellow St. John but dropped " Yellow " from 

 the name in 1891, the variety having appeared since that time in the 

 Society's catalog as St. John. 



Tree medium to large, vigorous, upright-spreading, with the lower branches drooping, 

 unproductive; trunk stocky, medium to smooth; branches thick, smooth, reddish-brown 



' Theodatus Timothy Lyon, fruit-grower, experimenter and writer, was for many years the leading 

 pomological authority of his adopted State, Michigan. T. T. Lyon, as he always signed his name, was 

 born in Lima, New York, January 13, 1813, and died in South Haven, Michigan, February 6, 1900. At 

 the age of fifteen he moved with his parents to Michigan where until his thirty-first year, in 1844, he 

 worked at most of the arts and crafts practiced by pioneers in a new country. In the year named, he 

 began the career of horticulturist, by planting a nursery at Plymouth, Michigan. In the nearby regions 

 French missionaries had early planted orchards and old settlers had long been importing varieties of fruit. 

 The nomenclature of these fruits was in uttermost confusion. T. T. Lyon set himself the task of ascertain- 

 ing the correct names of these varieties in the old settlements of the State. The result was he became 

 the pomological authority of the State. In 1874 Mr. Lyon moved to the famous " peach-bell " of western 

 Michigan, where he lived until his death. Here, at first, he was president of a prominent nursery company. 

 In 1876 he was elected president of the State Horticultural Society and continued as its active president 

 until 1891 and from then on until his death was honorary president. In 1888 T. T. Lyon wrote a History 

 of Michigan Horticulture which was published in the Seventeenth Report of the State Horticultural Society. 

 From the beginning of his interests in horticulture in southwestern Michigan Mr. Lyon was particularly 

 interested in peaches — growing seedlings, testing new varieties, planting orchards and in every way 

 helping to forward the great peach-industry of the region. He was probably, in his time, the best informed, 

 the most accurate and the most critical judge of peaches in this country. In 1889 he was given charge 

 of the South Haven Sub-station of the Michigan Experiment Station which gave him added facilities 

 for studying and describing fruits and a means of publishing, through his connection with the Experiment 

 Station, bulletins on fruits. These, for accurary of description of varieties, are still unsurpassed among 

 American pomological pubhcations. Besides these bulletins, the fruit-lists in the reports of the Michigan 

 Horticultural Society and in the American Pomological Society, during the last half of the Nineteenth 

 Century, show the results of his accurate judgment of fruits. A modest man, shrinking from publicity, 

 his printed works but poorly represent his vast knowledge of fruits and his great influence in the betterment 

 of American pomology. 



