THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 67 



ruary;^ as remarkable as any is the Transvaal Yellow of South Africa 

 which we have seen in a foregoing paragraph grows " amongst granite 

 boulders," " as a hedge aroimd homesteads " and " beside water furrows 

 and dams, the roots of one side of the tree immersed in water; " the Fra- 

 grant Peach and the Firm Peach from China are not yet known in America; ^ 

 another Chinese peach is a dwarf, " grown in pots indoors, which fruits 

 at a height of fifteen inches and bears peaches on the main trunk though 

 the stem be scarcely larger than a lead pencil." ^ Most of the examples 

 named are from China but others can be found in every distinct region in 

 which peaches have long been grown. 



Every well-marked geographical region in which the peach is grown 

 comes, sooner or later, to have a type of varieties of its own; yet the uni- 

 versal stamp of the peach — of ctiltivated Prunus persica — is on them all. 

 These facts imply two important things. First, the peach is an .exceedingly 

 flexible fruit, capable of being moulded to fit many conditions of environ- 

 ment ; and, under cultivation, training, feeding and culture in unlike regions, 

 soils and climates, may still be greatly improved and the improvements 

 all intensified and augmented by crossing and selecting. Second, the peach, 

 a gift to the world from China, has seemingly, in its centuries of cultiva- 

 tion by the Orientals, taken on sufficient immutability to make it one of 

 the most stable of species, especially in its fruits. The many races and 

 thousands of varieties are all best put in one species; many varieties come 

 true to seed; and peaches from seed seldom " revert " to worthless forms 

 as so many seedling fruits habitually do. Cultivated plants, as all who 

 work with them know, differ widely in variability. Some, as corn, the 

 cucurbits, and grapes and plums with their many species, are so variable 

 as to be almost unmanageable in attempts to improve them; others, as the 

 cereals, are quite too immutable for the best work of the breeder. The peach 

 is neither a stone wall nor shifting sand in the matter of variability. 



' U. S. D. A. Bur. of For. Plant Int. No. 60:431. 1911. 

 2 U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants No. 113:920. 1911. 

 5 /iid. No. 114:929. 1911. 



