ALTON
1. Ill. Hort Soc. Rpt. 181. 1898. 2. Rural N. Y. 60:726, 774. 1901. 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 35. 1909. 4. N. Y. State Fr. Gr. Assoc. Rpt. 21. 1912.
Minnie. 5. Mich. Sta. Bul. 118:30. 1895. 6. Tex. Sta. Bul. 39:813. 1896. 7. Ill. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 53. 1896. 8. Mich. Sta. Bul. 169:220. 1899. 9. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:351, 352. 1903.
Alton is everywhere held in high esteem as an early mid-season, white-fleshed, semi-free peach. It merits the esteem bestowed upon it by virtue of large size, handsome appearance and high quality of the peaches and hardiness and productiveness in the trees. It ripens a little earlier than Champion, long the favorite white-fleshed peach of its season, does not rot so readily when brown-rot is rife and hangs longer on the tree in good condition. It is not, however, quite so choicely good in quality as Champion, nor, on the Station grounds at least, are the trees quite as productive. Other faults of Alton are that leaf-curl takes heavy toll on unsprayed trees, the blossoms open so early as often to be caught by spring frosts, and the peaches show great variation in size and shape and even in texture and flavor. The accompanying cut shows the beauty of the outside but unfortunately on the grounds of this Station the variety is almost a clingstone so that the stone could not be separated to permit photographing the creamy-white flesh, red at pit, and, all in all, most tempting to the eye. Alton seems to be most at home in the Middle West and South and is not a familiar inhabitant of eastern orchards as a commercial product.
This variety originated with T. V. Munson, Denison, Texas, a quarter-century ago and was introduced by him under the name Minnie. By some it is supposed to have come from Alton, Illinois, and to have been introduced as Emma but this is an error. Munson's Minnie was tested at the Illinois Experiment Station from which place Stark Brothers Nursery Company, Louisiana, Missouri, received it and propagated it under the name Alton. In 1909 the American Pomological Society placed the variety upon its list of fruits as Alton, a name which usage makes preferable to the first one, Minnie.
ALTON
Tree large, vigorous, spreading, hardy, medium in productiveness; trunk very stocky; branches thick, reddish-bronze overlaid with light ash-gray; branchlets slender, long, olive-green mingled with dull red, smooth, glabrous, with many small, inconspicuous lenticels.
Leaves six and one-fourth inches long, one and three-fourths inches wide, folded upward, oval-lanceolate, broad; upper surface dark green, rugose at the base; lower surface light grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with dark glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, with two to four reniform glands, greenish-yellow, tipped with dull red, variable in position.
Flower-buds small, short, conical, usually appressed, heavily pubescent; season of bloom early; flowers pale pink, nearly two inches across; borne usually singly; pedicels very short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube dull reddish-green, tinged with greenish-yellow within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes acute to slightly obtuse, glabrous within, heavily pubescent without; petals roundish-oval, with blunt apex, frequently notched near the base, tapering to narrow claws; filaments one-half inch long; pistil pubescent at the ovary, as long as the stamens.
Fruit matures in early mid-season; two and five-sixteenths inches long, two and five-eighths inches thick, round-oblate, slightly compressed, with unequal halves; cavity abrupt or slightly flaring; suture of medium depth; apex roundish, mucronate; color creamy-white overspread with dull red, dotted and splashed with carmine; pubescence thin, short; skin tough, adhering slightly to the pulp; flesh white, juicy, stringy, tender, pleasantly subacid; fair in quality; stone semi-cling, one and three-eighths inches long, seven-eighths inch wide, obovate, plump at the apex, winged near the base, with pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply grooved along the sides, narrow; dorsal suture deeply grooved.