CHILI
1. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 21. 1897. 2. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:340. 1903.
Hill's Chili 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 184, 211. 1856. 4. Elliott Fr. Book 298. 1859. 5. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 2nd App. 142, 143. 1872. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 28. 1873. 7. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 483, 484. 1873.
Sugar. 8. Gard. Mon. 11:148. 1869.
Stanley Late. 9. Ibid. 14:347. 1872. 10. Mich. Sta. Sp. Bul. 44:62. 1910.
Jenny Lind. 11. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 116. 1872.
Cass. 12. Mich. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 14, 15. 1899.
Chili, long familiar to the older generation of peach-growers as Hill's Chili, is now waning in popularity though for nearly a century it was one of the mainstays of peach-growing, having been widely and commonly planted in commercial orchards the country over. Chili, in its day, was one of the notable culinary peaches, being especially desirable for canning and curing because of its firm, dry, but well-flavored flesh, and, besides, it ripened late in the season when cool weather gave storage conditions and made culinary work more agreeable to housewives. The peaches are not at all attractive in size, color or shape, are quite too dry of flesh to eat with pleasure out of hand and are made even less agreeable to sight and taste by pubescence so heavy as to be woolly. The trees of Chili are about all that could be desired, for, while of but medium size, they are vigorous, very hardy, long-lived and, barring injury from cold or frost, are annually fruitful, though the variety has the fault of ripening its crop unevenly—an asset in home orchards, a liability in commercial plantings.
Chili came into cultivation early in the Nineteenth Century, the first tree probably having appeared in the orchard of Deacon Pitman Wilcox, Chili, Monroe County, New York. It comes almost true to seed and several seedlings have sprung up which are almost indistinguishable from it. Among these are Sugar, Stanley Late, Jenny Lind and Cass. Chili was mentioned by the American Pomological Society in 1856 as a worthy sort under the name "Hill's Chili"; placed under this name on the fruit list in 1873; and changed to Chili in 1897.
CHILI
Tree medium in size, compact, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, productive; trunk thick, shaggy; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown covered with light ash-gray; branchlets unusually long, with spur-like branches near the tips, dark reddish-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with conspicuous, raised lenticels.
Leaves folded upward and recurved, six inches long, one and one-half inches wide, long-oval to obovate-lanceolate, thin; upper surface dark, dull olive-green, smooth; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, with two to seven small, usually reniform, reddish-brown glands mostly on the petiole.
Flower-buds small, short, obtuse, plump, pubescent, nearly free; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers pink, one and one-half inches across, well distributed; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube red at the base, orange-colored within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes short, medium to broad, obtuse, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals oval, faintly notched near the base, tapering to short claws of medium width, tinged with red at the base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent near the base, longer than the stamens.
Fruit late; two and one-half inches long, two and one-fourth inches wide, oblong-conic, somewhat angular, compressed, with unequal halves; cavity uneven, shallow, medium to wide, contracted, abrupt or flaring, the skin tender and tearing easily; suture shallow, sometimes extending beyond the apex; apex slightly pointed; color greenish-yellow changing to orange-yellow, with a dark red blush, splashed and mottled with red; pubescence long, thick, coarse; skin thin, tough, separates from the pulp; flesh stained red at the pit, yellowish, dry, stringy, firm but tender, mild but sprightly; good in quality; stone free, one and one-half inches long, fifteen-sixteenths inch wide, flattened wedge-like at the base, oval to obovate, winged, usually without bulge, long-pointed at the apex, with pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply furrowed, wide; dorsal suture deeply grooved.
CHINESE CLING
1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 636. 1857. 2. Horticulturist 14:107. 1859. 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 18. 1871. 4. Del. Sta. Rpt. 13:85, 86, 95, 107, fig. 4. 1901.
Shanghae. 5. Mag. Hort. 17:464. 1851. 6. Gard. Chron. 693. 1852. 7. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 641. 1857.
Chinese Peach. 8. Horticulturist N. S. 3:286, 472. 1853.
Shanghai. 9. Hogg Fruit Man. 231. 1866.
De Chang-Hai. 10. Mas Le Verger 7:211, 212, fig. 104. 1866-73.
Chinese Cling holds a high place in the esteem of American pomologists for its intrinsic value, because it was the first peach in one of the main stems of the peach-family to come to America, and because it is the parent, or one of the parents, of a great number of the best white-fleshed peaches grown in this country. The variety is not now remarkable for either fruit- or tree-characters, being surpassed in both by many of its offspring, except, possibly, in quality. The flavor is delicious, being finely balanced between sweetness and sourness, with sweet predominating, and with a most distinct, curious and pleasant taste of the almond. The fruits are too tender for shipment and very subject to brown-rot. The trees are weak-growers, shy-bearers, tender to cold and susceptible to leaf-curl. Chinese Cling created a sensation in pomology when it was brought to America because it was very different from any other peach then here and was superior to any other in several characters. Its seedlings quickly came into prominence with the result that possibly a hundred or more of the varieties named in The Peaches of New York have descended from it. The attempt to hold it and its seedlings in a distinct group fails, as we have tried to show in discussing groups of peaches, because through hybridization they are hopelessly confused with other stocks. The color-plate is an excellent illustration of Chinese Cling.