HALE EARLY
1. Mag. Hort. 27:65, 66. 1861. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 78. 1862. 3. Gard. Mon. 5:68, 69, 198, 277, 278. 1863. 4. Horticulturist 18:63, 64, 197, 198, 242, 243 fig., 244. 1863. 5. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 615. 1869. 6. Horticulturist 27:23, 304. 1872. 7. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 37. 1909.
Précoce de Hale. 8. Mas Le Verger 7:193, 194, fig. 95. 1866-73.
Hale. 9. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 44. 1891. 10. Mich. Sta. Bul. 169:215. 1899.
In the middle of the last century, Hale Early was considered the best peach of its season for home and market. Even now it has several characters to recommend it; as, large, vigorous, hardy, healthy, productive trees, fruits handsome in color, uniform in size and shape, with flesh more than ordinarily free from the stone for an early peach, fair quality for the season and extreme earliness. The chief fault is that the peaches run small in size, scarcely exceeding large marbles, which they resemble in roundness. The variety must be grown in the best of peach-lands, heavily thinned, and the trees severely pruned. The peaches, besides being small, are very susceptible to brown-rot. Nowhere very commonly planted, the variety is still widely distributed, a fact, in view of the competition with many early peaches, which speaks well for a peach introduced more than fifty years ago. It is interesting to note that Hale Early was introduced into Europe many years ago and that European pomologists still speak highly of it.
Hale Early grew from a seed planted in 1850 by a German named Moas at Randolph, Portage County, Ohio. A few years later the attention of a Mr. Hale, Summit County, Ohio, was called to the seedling and he, impressed with its earliness, began to propagate it. About 1859 the variety was introduced by Hale and Jewett, nurserymen in Summit County, as Hale's Early German. In some localities it became known as Early German but finally the name Hale's Early was adopted. It was so listed in the American Pomological Society's fruit-catalog in 1862 but in 1891 the name was changed to Hale so to remain until 1909 when it appeared in the Society's catalog as Hale Early. The adoption of the last name is warranted, possibly, from the fact that another peach named Hale existed several years before the origin of the present sort.
HALE EARLY
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, variable in productiveness; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown mingled with ash-gray; branchlets long, dark pinkish-red with a trace of olive-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with rather few large, conspicuous lenticels.
Leaves flat or curled downward, six and one-fourth inches long, one and one-fourth inches wide, long-oval to obovate-lanceolate, thin, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, often in two series, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, glandless or with one to four small, globose, reddish-brown glands usually at the base of the blade.
Flower-buds conical or pointed, plump, pubescent, usually free; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers dark pink at the center, with lighter pink toward the margin and with streaks of light pink along the veins, one and one-half inches across, usually single; pedicels short, glabrous, green, with a few reddish dots; calyx-tube dull green mottled with red, with varying shades of orange within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes broad, usually obtuse, pubescent within and without, with longer hairs along the edges, erect; petals round or inclined to oval, entire, notched on both sides near the claws which are short, broad and tinged with red near the base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil finely pubescent at the ovary, longer than the stamens.
Fruit matures early; one and three-fourths inches long, one and seven-eighths inches wide, round, slightly compressed, with unequal halves; cavity regular, medium to deep, wide, flaring; suture shallow, with a slight bulge near the apex; apex roundish or flattened, ending abruptly in a short, sharp, recurved point; color creamy-white, with an attractive blush extending over one-half of the surface; pubescence short, thick; skin tough, free; flesh white, juicy, tender, sweet, with some astringency; good in quality; stone semi-free, one and five-sixteenths inches long, fifteen-sixteenths inch wide, ovate or oval, plump, with a short-pointed apex, surfaces marked by short grooves; ventral suture deep along the sides, narrow; dorsal suture deeply grooved, winged.