PREFACE
The present volume is the fifth in the plan of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station to make a more or less complete record of all of the different fruits grown in this region. This work differs from the preceding fruit-books but little or not at all in nature and purposes, yet a statement of its contents, even though it be almost identical with that in the prefaces of the preceding volumes, is necessary for those who may not have the other books and may be a convenience to those who have all of the series.
The title implies that The Peaches of New York is written for the confines of a state; but all varieties of the peach grown in North America, as well as many known only in other continents, Europe especially, have been considered, under the supposition that all might be grown in New York and are therefore of interest to the peach-growers of the State. Broadly speaking, then, the design is to make the book as complete a record as possible of the development of the peach, wherever grown, up to this time.
The book contains: An account of the history and uses of the peach; a discussion of the botanical characters of the species of cultivated peaches; an account of the peach-regions and of peach-growing in New York with the most important statistics relating to this fruit; and, lastly and in greatest detail, the synonymy, bibliography, economic status, and full descriptions of all the most important cultivated peaches, with briefer notices of varieties of minor importance and of those appearing in peach-literature which are now no longer grown. In foot-notes running through the text, biographical sketches are published of the persons who have done most in America toward improving the peach. Incidentally, all that was thought would be helpful in breeding peaches was included. So, too, whatever appeared to be of interest to students of ecology has been given a place.
As in the preceding books, color-plates occupy prominent places in this volume. Pains and expense have not been spared in the attempt to make the plates the best possible with the present knowledge of reproduction in colors. All who have seen the plates in this and the first four fruit-books of the series will agree that the reproductions of peaches are more accurate than those of the apples, grapes, plums or cherries, and yet these are not as exact as might be wished. Although most carefully selected, an illustration of one or two fruits does not give an adequate picture of a variety. Neither does the camera take colors quite as the eye sees them nor can the plate-maker quite reproduce what the camera takes. The illustrations are of life-size as the peaches grow on the grounds of this Station and represent specimens of average size and color. The fruits, as shown in the plates, look small for the reason that a flat picture of a round object minifies size.
In all of these fruit-books it has been difficult to decide what varieties merit color-plates and full descriptions. Briefly, the choice of sorts to be illustrated and described in detail has been determined by the following considerations: (1) By the value of the variety for home or commercial orchards; (2) the probable value if the peach is a new sort on probation; (3) its desirability as a parent in breeding new peaches or to show combinations of varieties, to illustrate new characters, or to show the range in variation—in a word to enlighten the peach-breeder; (4) not a few varieties are described and illustrated to show the trend of peach-evolution—for their historical value; (5) to show relationships of varieties.
The peach is profoundly influenced by soil, climate and culture, and a discussion of its status is not complete without taking full account of the environment in which it is growing. For this reason, chiefly, the peach-regions and peach-growing in New York are discussed as fully as space permits. This part of the book is designed, also, to serve the prospective peach-planter in this State in the selection of locations and soils and in the culture of the peach. Since the cultivation of any plant changes from year to year, though, experiment station bulletins and circulars and treatises on the culture of the peach should supply growers of this fruit with better information on the year-to-year management of the peach-plantation.
The botany of the peach, as compared with its congeners, the plum and the cherry, is simple, indeed, and is well agreed upon by botanical writers, so that this book may be said to be almost wholly a horticultural one. Yet the few pages devoted to the botany of the peach may make plainer, to the horticulturist at least, the botany of this fruit.
The chief contribution The Peaches of New York makes to pomology is in the descriptions of varieties it contains. All who grow or use peaches are dependent on descriptions of fruit and tree for the identification of varieties. From a well-written description one should get an exact mental picture of the fruit—we try to present such a pen-picture. With a few exceptions the descriptions of major varieties have been made from peaches growing on the Station grounds, though in many cases fruits from several localities have been compared with those grown at home.