THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 225 



187,188. 1846. II. Elliott Fr.Boofe 274, 275. 1854. 12. Mas Le Ferger 7:207, 208, fig. 102. 1866-73. 

 13. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 37. 1909. 



White English. 14. Horticulturist N. S. 7:178, 179. 1857. 



Heath Cling is unquestionably the oldest named American peach 

 now under cultivation. Its antiquity constitutes about its only claim to 

 recognition though for its tree-characters and for at least one fruit- 

 character it ought to be retained for breeding. Few varieties have larger, 

 healthier, hardier trees than Heath Cling, the fact that the oldest of our 

 peaches has from the first retained these characters in pristine vigor 

 confuting the notion that varieties degenerate. In the descriptions of 

 Chinese peaches in Chapter I, we read of winter peaches — sorts that 

 could be kept for three or four months after picking. Of all American 

 peaches. Heath Cling, possibly, most nearly approaches these Chinese 

 winter peaches. It has been known to keep in good condition from 

 October to December. Its quality, at best, is good but often it runs poor. 

 Well grown, the peach has a sweet, rich, vinous taste but the flesh adheres 

 so tightly to the stone that it is not pleasant eating out of hand though 

 splendid cooked, preserved or pickled, the stone in culinary operations 

 imparting a pleasant flavor of peach-pit bitterness. It is the best of all 

 peaches to preserve or pickle whole. The color-plate shows the blushed 

 sides of Heath Cling arid therefore too much red for typical specimens 

 of this variety. 



Just how old Heath Cling is no one knows but it probably was grown 

 in the colonies before the Revolution. Two accounts are given of its 

 origin. According to one it originated with Daniel Heath of Maryland 

 from a pit brought from the Mediterranean. Another is that the honor 

 of originating this peach belongs in the Prince family and that the first 

 William Prince discovered the variety growing wild on the farm of Judge 

 Willet, Flushing, New York. The Princes, according to this account, 

 gave it the name Heath because it was found on a barren heath. It 

 seems fairly well established that the variety was in the Prince orchards 

 before the Revolutionary War whether or not it was found and named 

 by them. 



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

 stocky, reddish-brown covered with Hght ash-gray; branchlets long, dark red intermingled 

 with oHve-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous, large, raised 

 lenticels. 



Leaves six and one-fourth inches long, one and one-half inches wide, folded upward, 

 recurving, oval to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dark green, rugose; lower 

 15 



