HEATH CLING
1. Prince Treat. Fr. Trees 17. 1820. 2. Kenrick Am. Orch. 234. 1832. 3. Proc. Nat. Con. Fr. Gr. 51. 1848. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 78. 1862. 5. Fulton Peach Cult. 197, 198. 1908.
Heath. 6. Coxe Cult. Fr. Trees 228. 1817. 7. Lond. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 97. 1831. 8. Prince Pom. Man. 2:29, 30. 1832. 9. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 494, 495. 1845. 10. Floy-Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 187, 188. 1846. 11. Elliott Fr. Book 274, 275. 1854. 12. Mas Le Verger 7:207, 208, fig. 102. 1866-73. 13. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 37. 1909.
White English. 14. Horticulturist N. S. 7:178, 179. 1857.
Heath Cling is unquestionably the oldest named American peach now under cultivation. Its antiquity constitutes about its only claim to recognition though for its tree-characters and for at least one fruit-character it ought to be retained for breeding. Few varieties have larger, healthier, hardier trees than Heath Cling, the fact that the oldest of our peaches has from the first retained these characters in pristine vigor confuting the notion that varieties degenerate. In the descriptions of Chinese peaches in Chapter 1, we read of winter peaches—sorts that could be kept for three or four months after picking. Of all American peaches, Heath Cling, possibly, most nearly approaches these Chinese winter peaches. It has been known to keep in good condition from October to December. Its quality, at best, is good but often it runs poor. Well grown, the peach has a sweet, rich, vinous taste but the flesh adheres so tightly to the stone that it is not pleasant eating out of hand though splendid cooked, preserved or pickled, the stone in culinary operations imparting a pleasant flavor of peach-pit bitterness. It is the best of all peaches to preserve or pickle whole. The color-plate shows the blushed sides of Heath Cling and therefore too much red for typical specimens of this variety.
Just how old Heath Cling is no one knows but it probably was grown in the colonies before the Revolution. Two accounts are given of its origin. According to one it originated with Daniel Heath of Maryland from a pit brought from the Mediterranean. Another is that the honor of originating this peach belongs in the Prince family and that the first William Prince discovered the variety growing wild on the farm of Judge Willet, Flushing, New York. The Princes, according to this account, gave it the name Heath because it was found on a barren heath. It seems fairly well established that the variety was in the Prince orchards before the Revolutionary War whether or not it was found and named by them.
HEATH CLING
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, unproductive; trunk shaggy; branches stocky, reddish-brown covered with light ash-gray; branchlets long, dark red intermingled with olive-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous, large, raised lenticels.
Leaves six and one-fourth inches long, one and one-half inches wide, folded upward, recurving, oval to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dark green, rugose; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole one-half inch long, with two to seven small, mostly reniform, reddish-brown glands usually at the base of the leaf.
Flower-buds tender, medium to small, short, conical or pointed, plump, pubescent, free; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers a faded pink, white at the center of the petals, about three-fourths inch across; pedicels short, medium to thick, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green; calyx-lobes short, broad, obtuse, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals roundish-oval, tapering to short, broad claws occasionally with a red base; filaments one-fourth inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent near the base, longer than the stamens.
Fruit matures very late; two and one-eighth inches long, two and one-fourth inches wide, round-oval, compressed and somewhat angular, with unequal sides; cavity variable in depth and width, abrupt or flaring; suture shallow, extending beyond the apex; apex ending in a swollen, pointed tip; color creamy-white, blushed with red, splashed and mottled with darker red; pubescence short, thick, fine; skin thin, adhering to the pulp; flesh white, juicy, firm and meaty but tender, sweet or somewhat sprightly; good in quality; stone clinging, one and one-fourth inches long, seven-eighths inch wide, oval, plump, flattened and pointed toward the base, tapering to a short point at the apex, with dark brown, grooved surfaces; ventral suture deep along the sides, thick, furrowed; dorsal suture grooved.