FOSTER
1. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 32. 1869. 2. Am. Hort. Ann. 82 fig. 39. 1870. 3. Gard. Mon. 12:371. 1870. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 1st App. 121. 1872. 5. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 32, 260. 1874. 6. Cult. & Count. Gent. 44:678. 1879. 7. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:345. 1903. 8. Waugh Am. Peach Orch. 202. 1913.
Foster's Seedling. 9. Am. Jour. Hort. 2:277 fig. 1867.
Foster is another very good peach of the Crawford type and at one time was widely grown in all northern peach-regions. It is so similar to Late Crawford that even experienced growers can hardly tell them apart. Those who grow the two in the same orchard find the essential differences to be: Foster is the larger peach, is more rotund, somewhat more flattened at the base, is a little earlier, possibly handsomer and is even of better quality than Late Crawford; the trees of Foster, however, are hardly as productive as those of either of the two unproductive Crawfords. This unproductiveness is the fault that keeps the variety in the background as a commercial peach. The variety is well worth planting in any home orchard.
Foster originated about 1857 with J. T. Foster, Medford, Massachusetts, from the stone of a peach purchased by him in a Boston market. It was awarded a place on the American Pomological Society's list of recommended fruits in 1869.
FOSTER
Tree very large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, variable in productiveness; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown intermingled with light ash-gray; branchlets spur-like, long, dark pinkish-red mingled with olive-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous large and small lenticels raised at the base.
Leaves six inches long, one and three-eighths inches wide, folded upward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, intermediate in thickness, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth becoming rugose near the midrib; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with small glands; petiole seven-sixteenths inch long, with one to four small globose glands variable in color and position; flower-buds somewhat tender, conical or pointed, pubescent, free; blossoms appear in mid-season.
Fruit matures in mid-season; two and seven-sixteenths inches long, more than two and one-half inches wide, round-cordate, often bulged at one side, compressed, with unequal sides; cavity deep, wide, flaring or somewhat abrupt, often splashed with red; suture shallow, becoming deeper at both apex and cavity and extending slightly beyond the point; apex roundish or pointed, with a recurved, mamelon or occasionally mucronate tip; color deep yellow overspread with dark red, with a few splashes or stripes of red; pubescence long, thick; skin thick, tough, separates from the pulp when fully ripe; flesh deep yellow, faintly stained with red near the pit, juicy, coarse and stringy, firm but tender, sweet, mild, spicy; very good in quality; stone free.