T^E PEACHES OF NEW YORK 219 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, unproductive; trunk thick; branches 

 stocky, smooth, reddish-brown covered with light ash-gray; branchlets dark red, with 

 faint traces of green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with ntraierous conspicuous, smaU lenticels. 



Leaves seven inches long, one and five-eighths inches wide, folded upward and recurved, 

 oval to obovate-lanceolate, rather thick, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth except 

 near the midrib; lower surface grayish-green; margin sharply serrate, red; petiole three- 

 eighths inch long, glandless or with one to three small, globose, reddish-brown glands 

 usually at the base of the blade. 



Flower-buds short, obtuse, plump, heavily pubescent, appressed; blossoms appear 

 in mid-season; flowers pale pink, with white centers and edged with darker pink, nearly 

 one inch across; pedicels nearly sessile; calyx-tube reddish-green, light yellow within, cam- 

 panulate, glabrous; caljrx-lobes medium in length and width, obtuse or acute, glabrous 

 within, pubescent without; petals roundish-oval, tapering to claws red at the base; 

 filaments one-fourth inch long, equal to the petals in length; pistil longer than the 

 stamens. 



Fruit matures in mid-season; two and five-sixteenths inches long, two and seven- 

 sixteenths inches wide, roundish-oblate, bulged near the apex, oblique, with unequal sides; 

 cavity slightly contracted, deep, wide, abrupt, with tender skin; suture shallow, becoming 

 deeper at both apex and cavity and faintly showing beyond the tip; apex roundish, with 

 a mucronate tip; color greenish- white changing to creamy- white, with a pink blush and 

 sometimes with faint mottlings of red; pubescence short, thick, fine; skin thin, tough, 

 variable in adherence to the pulp; flesh whitish, deeply tinged with red near the pit, juicy, 

 stringy, tender, mUd, pleasantly flavored; good in quality; stone semi-free to free, one and 

 one-eighth inches long, three-fourths inch thick, roundish-oval, very pliunp, flattened at 

 the base, tapering to a short, rounded point, with grooved surfaces; ventral suture winged, 

 rather narrow; dorsal suture grooved. 



GOLD DROP 



I. Kan. Hort. Soc. Peach, The 142. 1899. 2. Mich. Sta. Bui. 169:214. 1899. 3. Budd-Hansen 

 Am. Hort. Man. 2:347. I903- 4- .^w. Pom. Soc. Cat. 37. 1909. 



Golden Drop. 5. U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 298. 1855. 6. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 243, 1886. 7. Ont. 

 Fr. Exp. Sta. Rpt. 2:58 Hg. 1895. 8. Ificfe. 5ta. 5p. Bm/. 44:42, 43 fig., 44, 45. 1910. 



Gold Drop, long a familiar variety in Michigan peach-orchards, is 

 not much grown elsewhere. It is doubtfully worth planting in New York 

 as a peach of commerce but should find a place in every home orchard. 

 The variety has several distinctive peculiarities which make it a pleasing 

 variation in the peach-orchard and add to its merits as a home fruit. 

 Thus, its transparent, golden skin and flesh make it one of the handsomest 

 of all peaches; add to handsome appearance a somewhat distinctive 

 flavor — vinous, rich, refreshing — and the peach becomes one that all 

 agree is very good and one that, were the size larger, would sell in any 

 market. Gold Drop is ftirther characterized by great hardiness in tree 



