ADMIRAL DEWEY
1. Ga. Sta. Bul. 42:232. 1898. 2. Mich. Sta. Sp. Bul. 30:14. 1905. 3. Albertson-Hobbs Cat. 29. 1906.
Admiral. 4. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:335. 1903.
Dewey. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 36. 1909. 6. Waugh Am. Peach Orch. 201. 1913.
Perhaps the peach most of all desired nowadays by peach-growers is a very early, yellow-fleshed freestone. For years Admiral Dewey and Triumph, both seedlings of Alexander, have been grown to fill this place and both, in the main, fail. Admiral Dewey, while early, yellow in flesh and good in quality, is not always a freestone and has several other defects which make it nearly worthless as a commercial fruit. Thus, though the trees are very productive, the peaches run small, are so heavily pubescent as to be unattractive, are very susceptible to brown-rot and are often disfigured with the peach-scab. The trees, too, suffer much from leaf-curl. With Alexander as the parent, the trees should be hardy, and from behavior elsewhere, must be so rated; but they have not proved exceptionally so on our grounds. While nowhere largely planted, Admiral Dewey is often set, as no doubt it should be, for an early peach in the home orchard. Of the two early sorts, this variety stands shipment rather better than Triumph. The varieties are of about the same season, both coming a week or thereabouts later than the well-known Alexander.
Admiral Dewey was grown from a seed of Alexander by J. D. Husted, Vineyard, Georgia, in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century. It was introduced in 1899 by Mr. Husted and has since been grown commercially east and west, north and south. The American Pomological Society placed the variety on its fruit-list in 1909 as Dewey but the full name bestowed to commemorate the great Admiral should, we think, be retained.
ADMIRAL DEWEY
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, very productive; trunk thick, smooth; branches stocky, reddish-brown mingled with light ash-gray; branchlets slender, long, olive-green overspread with dark red, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous lenticels, raised near the base.
Leaves six inches long, one and one-half inches wide, folded upward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thin; upper surface olive-green, smooth except near the midrib; lower surface light grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole one-fourth inch long, with one to seven large, reniform, greenish-yellow glands variable in position.
Flower-buds small, short, conical, pubescent, plump, free; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers pink, one and one-half inches across, well distributed, usually in twos; pedicels short, thick, glabrous, green; calyx-tube dull reddish-green, orange-colored within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes short, broad, obtuse, glabrous within, slightly pubescent without; petals round-ovate, tapering to short, broad claws red at the base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent at the ovary, equal to the stamens in length.
Fruit matures early; two and one-fourth inches long, two and one-half inches wide, round-oblate, slightly compressed; cavity deep, wide, abrupt, with tender skin; suture shallow, becoming deeper at the extremities; apex roundish or flattened, with mucronate tip variable in size; color deep orange-yellow, blushed with dark red, indistinctly splashed and mottled; pubescence heavy; skin thin, tender, adherent to the pulp; flesh yellow, tinged with red near the pit, juicy, stringy, tender, melting, sweet but sprightly; good in quality; stone semi-free to free, one and one-fourth inches long, seven-eighths inch wide, oval to obovate, flattened at the base, tapering to a short point, with grooved surfaces; ventral suture deeply grooved along the sides, wide; dorsal suture a deep, wide groove.