CHILI
1. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 21. 1897. 2. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:340. 1903.
Hill's Chili 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 184, 211. 1856. 4. Elliott Fr. Book 298. 1859. 5. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 2nd App. 142, 143. 1872. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 28. 1873. 7. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 483, 484. 1873.
Sugar. 8. Gard. Mon. 11:148. 1869.
Stanley Late. 9. Ibid. 14:347. 1872. 10. Mich. Sta. Sp. Bul. 44:62. 1910.
Jenny Lind. 11. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 116. 1872.
Cass. 12. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 14, 15. 1899.
Chili, long familiar to the older generation of peach-growers as Hill's Chili, is now waning in popularity though for nearly a century it was one of the mainstays of peach-growing, having been widely and commonly planted in commercial orchards the country over. Chili, in its day, was one of the notable culinary peaches, being especially desirable for canning and curing because of its firm, dry, but well-flavored flesh, and, besides, it ripened late in the season when cool weather gave storage conditions and made culinary work more agreeable to housewives. The peaches are not at all attractive in size, color or shape, are quite too dry of flesh to eat with pleasure out of hand and are made even less agreeable to sight and taste by pubescence so heavy as to be woolly. The trees of Chili are about all that could be desired, for, while of but medium size, they are vigorous, very hardy, long-lived and, barring injury from cold or frost, are annually fruitful, though the variety has the fault of ripening its crop unevenly—an asset in home orchards, a liability in commercial plantings.
Chili came into cultivation early in the Nineteenth Century, the first tree probably having appeared in the orchard of Deacon Pitman Wilcox, Chili, Monroe County, New York. It comes almost true to seed and several seedlings have sprung up which are almost indistinguishable from it. Among these are Sugar, Stanley Late, Jenny Lind and Cass. Chili was mentioned by the American Pomological Society in 1856 as a worthy sort under the name "Hill's Chili"; placed under this name on the fruit list in 1873; and changed to Chili in 1897.
CHILI
Tree medium in size, compact, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, productive; trunk thick, shaggy; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown covered with light ash-gray; branchlets unusually long, with spur-like branches near the tips, dark reddish-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with conspicuous, raised lenticels.
Leaves folded upward and recurved, six inches long, one and one-half inches wide, long-oval to obovate-lanceolate, thin; upper surface dark, dull olive-green, smooth; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, with two to seven small, usually reniform, reddish-brown glands mostly on the petiole.
Flower-buds small, short, obtuse, plump, pubescent, nearly free; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers pink, one and one-half inches across, well distributed; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube red at the base, orange-colored within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes short, medium to broad, obtuse, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals oval, faintly notched near the base, tapering to short claws of medium width, tinged with red at the base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent near the base, longer than the stamens.
Fruit late; two and one-half inches long, two and one-fourth inches wide, oblong-conic, somewhat angular, compressed, with unequal halves; cavity uneven, shallow, medium to wide, contracted, abrupt or flaring, the skin tender and tearing easily; suture shallow, sometimes extending beyond the apex; apex slightly pointed; color greenish-yellow changing to orange-yellow, with a dark red blush, splashed and mottled with red; pubescence long, thick, coarse; skin thin, tough, separates from the pulp; flesh stained red at the pit, yellowish, dry, stringy, firm but tender, mild but sprightly; good in quality; stone free, one and one-half inches long, fifteen-sixteenths inch wide, flattened wedge-like at the base, oval to obovate, winged, usually without bulge, long-pointed at the apex, with pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply furrowed, wide; dorsal suture deeply grooved.