SCHUMAKER
1. Gard. Mon. 22:276. 1880. 2. W. N. Y. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 115. 1880. 3. Gard. Mon. 25:111 fig. 1883. 4. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 314, 315. 1889. 5. R. I. Sta. Bul. 7:41. 1890. 6. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:356. 1903.
Shoemaker's Seedling. 7. Cult. & Count. Gent. 41:631. 1876.
Schumaker, now grown only in western New York and Pennsylvania, for a long time was described as the earliest of the white-fleshed, clingstone peaches. There are other peaches as early but, on the Station grounds, this is the best flavored of the early peaches. Moreover, when fully ripe it is almost a freestone. It is a handsome peach in color and shape but the fruits are too small though this can be remedied in part by thinning. The trees are large, hardy, vigorous and productive to a fault. With all of these good qualities, the wonder is that Schumaker is not more popular as a commercial variety to open the season but for some reason peach-growers are not pleased with it—probably because of the small size of the peaches. For a peach of its season, Schumaker is remarkably free from brown-rot. Nurserymen often substitute Alexander for this variety and vice versa.
This variety originated as a seedling with Michael Schumaker, Fairview, Erie County, Pennsylvania. Its parentage is unknown. It fruited for the first time in 1877 and was for a few years grown commercially but its popularity has long been on the wane.
SCHUMAKER
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, becoming drooping, open-topped, productive; trunk thick, smooth; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown tinged with light ash-gray; branchlets long, pinkish-red with but a trace of green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with large, conspicuous, raised lenticels.
Leaves six and one-half inches long, one and five-eighths inches wide, variable in position, oval to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dull, dark green, smooth; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole seven-sixteenths inch long, glandless or with one to four small, globose, reddish-brown glands variable in position.
Flower-buds hardy, pubescent, conical or pointed, plump, usually free; blossoms appear early; flowers one and one-half inches across, pink; pedicels very short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green at the base, greenish-yellow within, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes short, acute, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals oval to ovate, tapering to claws sometimes red at the base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent at the base, as long as the stamens.
Fruit matures very early; about two and one-eighth inches in diameter, round, compressed, with unequal halves; cavity deep, flaring; suture shallow; apex ending in a recurved, mucronate tip but variable; color creamy-white, heavily blushed and often mottled with dark red; pubescence short, thick; skin thin, tender, separates from the pulp when fully ripe; flesh white, very juicy, stringy, tender, sweet, aromatic, highly flavored; very good in quality; stone clinging, becoming semi-cling when fully mature, one and one-fourth inches long, three-fourths inch wide, oval, plump, inconspicuously winged, with corrugated surfaces.