GEORGE IV
1. Mas Le Verger 7:49, 50, fig. 23. 1866-73. 2. Leroy Dict. Pom. 6:129 fig. 1879. 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 37. 1909. 4. Waugh Am. Peach Orch. 202. 1913.
George the Fourth. 5. Lond. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 6:413. 1826. 6. Pom. Mag. 3:105. Pl. 1830. 7. Prince Pom. Man. 1:192, 193. 1831. 8. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 478. 1845. 9. Mag. Hort. 13:120, 121, 122. 1847. 10. Proc. Nat. Con. Fr. Gr. 38, 51. 1848. 11. Carrière Var. Pêchers 70. 1867. 12. Hogg Fruit Man. 447. 1884. 13. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:346. 1903.
Once one of the mainstays of American peach-growing, George IV is now of but historical interest. This variety was one of the first named American peaches and had the honor of being placed on the recommended list of fruits at the first meeting of the National Convention of Fruit-Growers, an organization which became the American Pomological Society, in 1848. George IV is not worth planting now and is illustrated and described in The Peaches of New York only that fruit-growers may note progress in the development of peaches. It is interesting to note that this old American peach is still widely grown in Europe.
George IV has been confused with several other sorts, particularly Morris Red. Prince, in the Magazine of Horticulture, writes that Morris Red is an old Red Rareripe brought to America from Europe by Huguenot emigrants and that George IV came from buds of the original tree of this variety. The consensus of opinion, however, among those who early knew both peaches, is that Morris Red and George IV are distinct and that both are of American origin. George IV, the best authorities say, sprang up as a chance seedling, about 1821, in the garden of a Mr. Gill, Broad Street, New York City. After fruiting, the variety rapidly grew in favor and within a few years was everywhere grown in eastern America. Taken to Europe, it soon became one of the standard European peaches. From the first it was on the list in the American Pomological Society's fruit-catalog but was dropped in 1897 to be replaced in 1909. We doubt if it now deserves to be recommended on any list of fruits.
GEORGE IV
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, unproductive; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown covered with light ash-gray; branchlets dark red, with faint traces of green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous, small lenticels.
Leaves seven inches long, one and five-eighths inches wide, folded upward and recurved, oval to obovate-lanceolate, rather thick, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth except near the midrib; lower surface grayish-green; margin sharply serrate, red; petiole three-eighths inch long, glandless or with one to three small, globose, reddish-brown glands usually at the base of the blade.
Flower-buds short, obtuse, plump, heavily pubescent, appressed; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers pale pink, with white centers and edged with darker pink, nearly one inch across; pedicels nearly sessile; calyx-tube reddish-green, light yellow within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes medium in length and width, obtuse or acute, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals roundish-oval, tapering to claws red at the base; filaments one-fourth inch long, equal to the petals in length; pistil longer than the stamens.
Fruit matures in mid-season; two and five-sixteenths inches long, two and seven-sixteenths inches wide, roundish-oblate, bulged near the apex, oblique, with unequal sides; cavity slightly contracted, deep, wide, abrupt, with tender skin; suture shallow, becoming deeper at both apex and cavity and faintly showing beyond the tip; apex roundish, with a mucronate tip; color greenish-white changing to creamy-white, with a pink blush and sometimes with faint mottlings of red; pubescence short, thick, fine; skin thin, tough, variable in adherence to the pulp; flesh whitish, deeply tinged with red near the pit, juicy, stringy, tender, mild, pleasantly flavored; good in quality; stone semi-free to free, one and one-eighth inches long, three-fourths inch thick, roundish-oval, very plump, flattened at the base, tapering to a short, rounded point, with grooved surfaces; ventral suture winged, rather narrow; dorsal suture grooved.