RIVERS
1. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 34. 1883. 2. Ont. Fr. Exp. Sta. Rpt. 6:22 fig. 1899. 3. Del. Sta. Rpt. 13:106. 1901. 4. Can. Hort. 25:464. 1902. 5. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:354. 1903.
Early Rivers. 6. Jour. Hort. N. S. 17:38, 58. 1869. 7. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 1st App. 120, 121. 1872. 8. Gard. Chron. 1262. 1872. 9. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 28. 1875. 10. Hogg Fruit Man. 445. 1884. 11. Rev. Hort. 388. 1890. 12. Cat. Cong. Pom. France 98 fig. 1906.
Rivers' Frühe. 13. Lauche Deut. Pom. VI: No. 9, Pl. 1882.
Précoce Rivers. 14. Baltet Cult. Fr. 239 fig. 138. 1908.
Rivers and one other, Salwey, are the only foreign peaches now commonly cultivated in America. The peach, of all tree-fruits, best proves the general rule that American varieties of fruits are best adapted to American conditions. Perhaps to Rivers may be added three or four more exotic peaches which are now and then planted in this country but all are passing out so rapidly that we shall soon be standing on a basis in peach-growing which is wholly American. Earliness and high quality of fruit keep Rivers alive in private places in America. No one would think of planting it in a commercial orchard because of its small fruit, tender skin and flesh which show every bruise, and its susceptibility to brown-rot. It is a white-fleshed freestone, tender, juicy and with an exceedingly rich, sugary flavor with a savoring smack of the nectarine. This variety stands almost alone in beauty of flesh which is white to the stone, translucent and more or less mottled and interspersed with white veins. At its best the fruits are rather large and quite handsome as they grow in America, but even so they are but a shadow of the peach described under this name in European fruit-books. The trees are fairly satisfactory in all essential characters.
Rivers originated with Thomas Rivers, Sawbridgeworth, England, about 1865 as a seedling of Early Silver. Soon after its introduction in England it was brought to America. The American Pomological Society listed the variety in its fruit-catalog in 1875 as Early Rivers but in 1883 changed the name to Rivers though it is still popularly known as Early Rivers.
RIVERS
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, with inclination to droop, round-topped, hardy, productive; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth, dark reddish-brown overspread with light ash-gray; branchlets long, with internodes olive-green overlaid with thin brownish-red, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous, large and small lenticels.
Leaves five and three-fourths inches long, one and five-eighths inches wide, folded upward and somewhat recurved, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thin, leathery, dark green, smooth or sometimes rugose; lower surface grayish-green, not pubescent, with a prominent midrib; apex acuminate; margin finely serrate, tipped with fine, reddish-brown glands; petiole one-fourth inch long, with one to six reniform, greenish-yellow glands variable in position.
Flower-buds large, long, conical, heavily pubescent, appressed; season of bloom early; flowers pink, one and one-half inches across, often in pairs; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube dull reddish-green, light yellow within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes short, narrow, acute to obtuse, glabrous within, heavily pubescent without; petals round-ovate, bluntly notched near the base, tapering to long, narrow claws occasionally with a reddish base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent at the ovary, equal to the stamens in length.
Fruit matures early; two and three-eighths inches long, two and one-fourth inches wide, round-oval, compressed, with unequal halves; cavity shallow, contracted, irregular, abrupt; suture medium to shallow; apex roundish, somewhat mucronate; color creamy-white, blushed with red; pubescence short, heavy; skin thick but tender, adherent to the pulp; flesh white, translucent, veined, juicy, melting, sweet or mildly sprightly; good in quality; stone nearly free, one and five-sixteenths inches long, one inch wide, oval, plump, bulged on one side, light colored, short-pointed at the apex, with grooved surfaces; ventral suture very deeply grooved along the sides, narrow, winged; dorsal suture grooved, more or less winged.