286 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



free, one and three-eighths inches long, one inch wide, ovate; ventral suture deeply 

 grooved along the sides, faintly winged; dorsal suture grooved, not winged. 



WAGER 



I. Cult. &■ Count. Gent. 43:584- '878- -=. W. N. Y. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 113, 114. 1880. 3. Cult. & 

 Count. Gent. 48: 82;^. 1883. 4. Black Cult. Peach & Peariii. 1886. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 22. 1897. 

 6. Kan. Hort. Soc. Peach, The 148. 1899. 7. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:358, 359. 1903. 



Hardiness, productiveness and early bearing are the outstanding 

 characters of Wager that give it a high place in the peach-list for New 

 York. It is a yellow-fleshed, freestone peach none too attractive in color- 

 ing, always rather small and of only fair quality as a dessert fruit but 

 excellent for canning, drying and all culinary purposes. The variety comes 

 true to seed, or nearly so. The fruits of Wager are not attractive enough 

 and the trees are too small to make the variety of much value in com- 

 mercial plantations but it is a very good peach for home orchards and one 

 of the .best of all where hardiness is a prime requisite. Several qmte dis- 

 tinct peaches are sold by nurserymen as Wager. 



Wager originated some time previous to 1870 with Benjamin Wager, 

 West Bloomfield, Ontario Cotmty, New 'York. The variety was added to 

 the frtoit-list of the American Pomological Society in 1897. 



Tree medium in size or small, upright-spreading, hardy, productive; trunk inter- 

 mediate in thickness and smoothness; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown overlaid 

 with light ash-gray; branchlets rebranching near the tips, dark red with some green, 

 roughened by the lenticels, which are medium in size and number. 



Leaves five and one-half inches long, one and one-fourth inches wide, flattened or 

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

 green, rugose along the midrib; lower surface grayish-green; apex acuminate; margin 

 finely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole five-sixteenths inch long, with 

 two to four small, globose or reniform glands variable in color and position. 



Flower-buds medium in size and length, heavily pubescent, conical, plump, usually 

 free; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers one and one-eighth inches across; pedicels 

 very short, thick, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange-colored within, cam- 

 panulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes narrow, acute, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals 

 oval, broadly notched, tapering to claws red at the base; filaments three-eighths inch 

 long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent at the ovary, longer than the stamens. 



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

 wide, oval, bulged near the apex, sometimes conical, compressed, with unequal halves; 

 cavity flaring or abrupt, often mottled with red and with tender skin; suture a line, 

 becoming deeper toward the tip; apex roundish or pointed, usually with a mamelon, 

 recurved tip; color orange- yellow, blushed and mottled with dark red; pubescence thick, 

 long and fine; skin thin, tough, separates from the pulp; flesh yellow, faintly stained mth 



