cn)e national 1Rurser)pmaiu 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated. 
Vol. XIX. ROCHESTER, N. Y.. AUGUST, 1911 No. 8 
PEACHES AND PEACH CULTURE 
Principles of Peach Orcharding Outlined. The Peach a Profitable Crop 
The peach is an introduced fruit in this country. True it 
is that it came almost with the first colonists, and that in 
parts of the country where its home conditions are approx¬ 
imated, it is, to all intents and purposes, a native. The 
Spaniards undoubtedly brought this fruit to the Florida 
peninsula at a very early date, and it is just p)ossible that 
the Indians carried it north to the Atlantic States, and intro¬ 
duced it in the peninsular region prior to the colonizing 
efforts of the New Englanders. Peach orchards are record¬ 
ed as having been found in Pennsylvania at such an early 
date that they can hardly be credited to the colonists of the 
William Penn period. 
However this all may 
be, the peach has spread 
its dominion throughout 
a great stretch of coun¬ 
try, running as far north 
as the forty-first parallel 
of latitude, and as far 
south as the thirtieth 
parallel. Of course, this 
statement needs modifi¬ 
cation when we take in¬ 
to consideration the pos¬ 
sibilities of peach grow¬ 
ing in British Columbia, 
all of which lies north of 
the forty-eighth parallel 
of north latitude. But 
here the whole region is 
under the influence of the 
Japan current and mari¬ 
time factors which modi¬ 
fy the climate to a 
marked degree. 
The native home of the peach is credited to Persia and 
China. The large number of our older varieties come from 
Persia, while some of our more important commercial kinds 
are of Chinese origin. 
RACEvS OF PEACHEvS . 
It is possible to group peaches according to characteristics 
of fruit, twig and leaf. Pursuing a method of this kind, Mr. 
R. H. Price, in a special report of the American Pomological 
Society, describes five races of peaches. These are briefly 
as follows: 
I. Prunus Persica, variety platycarpa, of the French po- 
mologist DeCaisne. To this group belongs the Peen-to 
race, which was introduced by the late P. J. Berckmans of 
Augusta, Georgia, as far back as 1869. Mr. Berckmans se¬ 
cured it from Australia, but it is to be traced to China. This 
type bears ])eculiarly flattened fruit, with whitish skin, fre¬ 
quently mottled with carmine, white flesh, sweetish in flavor, 
but of rather peculiar taste. The Peen-to peaeh has little 
or no value except near the sea-coast, where other types are 
likely to fail. Among the seedlings of this strain which give 
promise are Angel and Waldo. Both have been grown to 
some extent in the Gulf region. This strain of peaches has 
been described in detail in Bulletin No. 62 of the Florida 
Experiment Station. 
Race 2 has been called 
the South China strain. 
The winter buds of this 
type are very prominent. 
They are dark red and 
stand out strikingly from 
the twig. The leaves are 
small, somewhat trough¬ 
shaped, the blossoms are 
large and profuse, and 
are markedly resistant 
to cold. This strain was 
imported from China by 
the late eminent pomolo- 
gist, Charles Downing, 
about 1850. It was in¬ 
troduced by P. J. Berck¬ 
mans in 1858. The 
leading variety of the 
type is Honey. The 
name Honey has been 
applied because of its 
peculiar honey-like flavor. The fruit is rather small, slightly 
oval, and somewhat flattenedj[laterally. The striking char¬ 
acter of the fruit is its long, recurv-ed apex. Other varieties 
produced in this country are Pallos, Climax, Coleman, and 
Early China. 
Race 3, Spanish. This represents a somewhat ill- defined 
group supposed to have been introduced by the early Span¬ 
ish settlers. The tree attains large size. The leaves are 
small, flat, and cling to the tree late in the fall. The fruit 
ripens very late and is usually covered with a profuse coat of 
down. The color is yellow, and the quality is relatively low. 
Showing the low headed tree 
