THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 25 1 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, low-growing and dense-topped, rather 

 unproductive; trunk thick, medium in smoothness; branches stocky, smooth, reddish- 

 brown covered with light ash-gray; branchlets thick, long, with intemodes of medium 

 length, dark red intermingled with olive-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with nvmierous 

 conspicuous, large and small lenticels raised near the base. 



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

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

 green; lower surface grayish-green; apex long-acuminate; margin finely serrate, tipped 

 with reddish-brown glands; petiole seven-sixteenths inch long, with two to four small, 

 globose, reddish-brown glands variable in position; flower-buds conical to pointed, plump, 

 very pubescent, usually appressed; blossoms appear in mid-sea&on; flowers small. 



Fruit matures in early mid-season; two and one-eighth inches long, two and one- 

 fourth inches wide, roundish-oblate to slightly cordate; cavity intermediate in depth 

 and width, flaring to abrupt, often twig-marked; suture shallow, becoming deeper toward 

 the tip; apex roundish, depressed in the suture, with mucronate or sometimes mamelon 

 tip; color creamy-white blushed with deep red, with a few splashes of darker red; 

 pubescence long, thick; skin thin, tough, variable in adhesion; flesh white, stained red 

 near the pit, juicy, tender and melting, sweet, mild, pleasantly flavored; good to very 

 good in quality; stone free, one and one-fourth inches long, seven-eighths inch wide, oval 

 to ovate, plump, bulged on one side, contracted toward the base, tapering to a short point, 

 usually with small pits in the surfaces; ventral suture deeply grooved along the sides, 

 furrowed; dorsal suture grooved, faintly winged. 



MUIR 



I. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 314. 1889. 2. Wickson Cal. Fruits 312, &g. 1889. 3. Ga. 5to. Bm/. 42:239. 

 1898. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 34. 1899. S- Mich. Sta. Bui. 169:221. 1899. 6. Budd-Hansen Am. 

 Hort. Man. 2:352. 1903. 



As a rule, peaches originating in California find small favor in New 

 York. California peaches are selected for canning, evaporating and ship- 

 ping, whereas New York varieties are dessert fruits. Muir is a California 

 sort suitable only for culinary purposes — ■" attractive enough inside but so 

 unattractive externally that it could tempt no one who did not know the 

 fruit to be sweet and delicious in flavor. It is a late mid-season, yellow- 

 fleshed, freestone peach much used by canners on the Pacific slope. It 

 ought to be more generally grown for the same piuipose in the East; for, 

 as a canned product, it is hardly surpassed in appearance or quahty. The 

 trees are vigorous, productive and little subject to leaf-curl but the fruits 

 in New York are often marred by peach-scab. The variety seems per- 

 fectly at home in this State as, seemingly, it is in most peach-regions. 

 In fruit-characters, Muir is very similar to Wager. 



The variety was found more than twenty-five years ago on the farm 



