BELLE
1. Ga. Sta. Bul. 42:233. 1898. 2. Am. Gard. 21:852. 1900. 3. Ga. Sta. Rpt. 13:308. 1900. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 35. 1909.
Belle of Georgia. 5. Am. Gard. 17:67. 1896. 6. Ohio Sta. Bul. 170:172, 173 fig. 1906.
Georgia. 7. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 33. 1899. 8. Del. Sta. Rpt. 13:99, 100 fig. 5. 1901.
Belle elicits praise from all who know it because of the great beauty of its fruits. At its best it is one of the glories of the peach-orchard, the fruits being large, trim in contour, creamy-white, with a beautiful crimson cheek—truly voluptuous in form and color. The color-plate—made in a poor season—falls far short of doing the fruits justice in size and art cannot depict the soft tints of red and cream which make Belle so beautiful. The fruits are as enticing to the eye inwardly as outwardly, the white flesh being delicately marbled, tinted with red at the pit and the flesh and pit usually part cleanly. Unfortunately, appearance misrepresents quality; for the variety, while good, falls short in flavor, and the flesh is stringy so that it must be rated as not above the average for its type. The trees are large, open-headed, a little straggling, fast-growing and hardy, though, like most of its type, easy prey to leaf-curl. Belle prefers a southern climate and in the South is often a good commercial sort but in New York is grown only for local markets and home use, hardly equalling Champion as a white-fleshed peach for distant markets.
Belle came from a seed of Chinese Cling planted in 1870 by L. A. Rumph, Marshallville, Georgia. The other parent is unknown but it is supposed to have been Oldmixon Free, a tree of which stood near the Chinese Cling tree. The variety came to notice about the same time as Elberta and has been thought by some to be a seedling of Elberta. The American Pomological Society listed Belle in its catalog in 1899 as Georgia but in 1909 changed the name to Belle and it is so designated in horticultural treatises but popularly it is "Belle of Georgia."
BELLE
Tree large, vigorous, spreading, open-topped, hardy, very productive; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown covered with light ash-gray; branchlets thick, medium to long, olive-green overlaid with dark red, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous, rather small lenticels.
Leaves five and one-half inches long, one and one-half inches wide, folded upward, oblong-lanceolate, somewhat leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth; lower surface light grayish-green; margin coarsely serrate, tipped with dark red glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, with two to six large, reniform or globose, greenish-yellow glands variable in position.
Flower-buds large, long, oval, very plump, strongly pubescent, usually appressed; blooming season early; flowers pale pink but deeper in color along the edges, one and three-eighths inches across, often in twos; pedicels long, thick; calyx-tube dull reddish-green, yellowish within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes medium in length and width, acute to obtuse, glabrous within, heavily pubescent without; petals roundish-oval, tapering to short, broad claws red at the base; filaments nearly one-half inch long; pistil pubescent at the ovary, longer than the stamens.
Fruit matures in mid-season; two and one-sixteenth inches long, two and one-eighth inches wide, roundish-oval, often bulged near the apex, somewhat compressed, with halves nearly equal; cavity abrupt or somewhat flaring, red, with tender skin; suture shallow, deepening toward the apex; apex roundish to slightly pointed, with a mucronate tip; color greenish-white changing to creamy-white, blushed with red, with faint stripes and splashes of darker red, mottled; pubescence short, fine, rather thick; skin thin, tender, adherent to the pulp; flesh white, tinged with red at the pit and with radiating rays of red, juicy, stringy, tender, sweet, mild; good in quality; stone semi-free to free, one and one-eighth inches long, thirteen-sixteenths inch wide, oval, bulged near the apex, blunt at the base, with short, sharp point at the apex, with deeply-pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply furrowed along the sides, wide; dorsal suture a narrow groove.