280 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dark olive-green, rugose along the midrib; 

 apex acuminate; margin finely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole seven- 

 sixteenths inch long, glandless or with one to four small, globose glands variable in color 

 and position. 



Flower-buds tender, pubescent, conical to pointed, plump, usually free; blossoms 

 open in mid-season; flowers seven-eighths inch across, light pink but darker along the 

 edges, usttally single; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange- 

 colored within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes long, narrow, acute, glabrous within, 

 pubescent without; petals ovate, with short, indistinct claws; filaments three-eighths inch 

 long, equal to the petals in length ; pistil as long as the stamens. 



Fruit matures in mid-season; two and one-half inches long, two and three-eighths 

 inches wide, rotmd-cordate, irregular, compressed, much bulged near the apex, with 

 unequal halves; cavity deep, wide, flaring to abrupt, with tender, reddish skin; suture 

 a line becoming deeper toward the tip; apex pointed, usually with an erect, mamelon 

 tip; color pale yellow or orange-yeUow, mottled and splashed more or less with red and 

 overspread with a lively, dark red blush; pubescence medium in length, thick, fine; skin 

 thin, separates from the pulp ; flesh light yellow, red near the pit, very juicy, rather coarse, 

 stringy, tender and melting, sprightly, highly flavored; good to very good in quaUty; 

 stone free, one and three-eighths inches long, fifteen-sixteenths inch wide, ovate, rather 

 plump, tapering to a long point, sometimes slightly winged along the ventral suture, with 

 pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply grooved along the edges, below medium in width, 

 furrowed; dorsal suture grooved, winged. 



THURBER 



I. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 75. 1873. 2. Gard. Mon. 17:175. 1875. 3. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 2nd 

 App. 144. 1876. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 32. 1881. 5. Del. Sta. Rpt. 13:109 fig. 8, no. 1901. 

 6. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:357. I903- 



Thtirber is mediocre in all of its characters in New York, though 

 perhaps it is a little better in quality than the average white-fleshed, 

 mid-season freestone. In the South, however, it seems to be considered 

 one of the best of its class not only in quality but in size and appearance. 

 The fruits are small in New York, as the color-plate shows, while all 

 descriptions of them in the South say they are large. The variety is 

 possibly worth planting, because of good quality, in home orchards in this 

 State. 



Thurber is a seedling of Chinese Cling grown by L. E. Berckmans, 

 Rome, Georgia, more than forty years ago. The variety was named in 

 honor of Dr. George Thurber, American botanist, nattiralist and editor. 

 It is similar to its parent but is a freestone and the trees are more com- 

 pact and thrifty than those of Chinese Cling. The American Pomological 

 Society added Thurber to its fruit-list in 1881, a place it still holds 



