EARLY CRAWFORD
1. Kenrick Am. Orch. 184. 1841. 2. Hovey Fr. Am. 1:29, 30, Pl. 1851. 3. Waugh Am. Peach Orch. 201. 1913.
Crawford's Early Melocoton. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 490. 1845. 5. Mas Le Verger 7:45, 46, fig. 21. 1866-73.
Crawford's Early. 6. Elliott Fr. Book 272, 273. 1854. 7. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 211. 1856. 8. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 42, 43. 1856. 9. Leroy Dict. Pom. 6:104 fig. 105. 1879. 10. Fulton Peach Cult. 192, 193. 1908.
Willermoz. 11. Carrière Var. Pêchers 76, 77. 1867. 12. Pom. France 6: No. 10, Pl. 10. 1869. 13. Lauche Deut. Pom. VI: No. 22, Pl. 1882. 14. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 418. 1889.
Unproductiveness and uncertainty in bearing keep Early Crawford from being the most commonly grown early, yellow-fleshed peach in America. In its season, when well grown, it is unapproachable in quality by any other peach and is scarcely equalled by any other of any season. The peach has all of the characters that gratify the taste—richness of flavor, pleasant aroma, tender flesh and abundant juice. Besides being one of the very best in quality it is one of the handsomest peaches. Unfortunately, this Station is one of the many places in which Early Crawford is not at home and the accompanying illustration is far from doing the variety justice in size, shape or color. At their best, the fruits are larger, more rotund and more richly colored than shown in The Peaches of New York. In soils to which it is well adapted the peach is large, often very large, roundish-oblong, slightly compressed, distinguished by its broad, deep cavity, rich red in the sun, splashed and mottled with darker red, and golden yellow in the shade. The flesh is a beautiful, marbled yellow, rayed with red at the pit and perfectly free from the stone. The trees are all that could be desired in health, vigor, size and shape but are unproductive and uncertain and tardy in bearing. Yet with these faults Early Crawford, for at least a half-century, was the leading market peach of its season giving way finally to white-fleshed sorts of the Belle, Carman and Greensboro type. Fast passing from commercial importance, Early Crawford ought long to be grown in home plantations because of the beauty and unexcelled quality of the fruit.
Early Crawford came into existence in the orchard of William Crawford, Middletown, New Jersey, early in the Nineteenth Century. Its merits were first set forth by William Kenrick in the American Orchardist in 1832. The variety in some manner found its way to Europe and came into the hands of Ferdinand Gaillard, a nurseryman at Brignais, Rhone, France, but without a name. Gaillard, believing it to be a new sort, gave it the name Willermoz in honor of M. Willermoz, Secretary of the Pomological Congress of France. Later, French pomologists decided that Gaillard's peach and Early Crawford were identical. The American Pomological Society put this peach on its fruit-list in 1856 under the name Crawford's Early. The name has several times been varied but today the variety is listed as Early Crawford.
EARLY CRAWFORD
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, round-topped, often unproductive; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown very lightly tinged with ash-gray; branchlets with internodes of medium length, pinkish-red intermingled with darker red, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous large and small, conspicuous, raised lenticels.
Leaves six and three-fourths inches long, one and one-half inches wide, folded upward and recurved, oval to obovate-lanceolate, medium in thickness, leathery; upper surface dark green, usually smooth except along the prominent midrib; lower surface light grayish-green; margin finely serrate, often in two series, tipped with very fine, reddish-brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, glandless or with one to five small, globose, greenish-yellow glands variable in position.
Flower-buds conical, heavily pubescent, free; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers pale pink, less than one inch across, well distributed; pedicels very short, thick, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange-colored within, obconic; calyx-lobes short, medium to narrow, acute, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals oval, broadly notched near the base, tapering to broad claws red at the base; filaments one-fourth inch long, equal to the petals in length; pistil often longer than the stamens.
Fruit matures in early mid-season; two and one-half inches long, two and nine-sixteenths inches wide, round-oval or cordate, bulged near the apex, compressed, with unequal halves; cavity deep, wide, abrupt; suture shallow, becoming deeper near the apex; apex variable in shape, often with a swollen, elongated tip; color golden-yellow, blushed with dark red, splashed and mottled with deeper red; pubescence thick; skin separates from the pulp; flesh deep yellow, rayed with red near the pit, juicy, tender, pleasantly sprightly, highly flavored; very good in quality; stone free, one and one-half inches long, one inch wide, oval or ovate, bulged along one side, medium plump, with small, shallow pits in the surfaces; ventral suture deeply furrowed along the sides, medium in width, winged; dorsal suture grooved, slightly winged.
EARLY YORK
1. Kenrick Am. Orch. 220. 1832. 2. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 475, 476. 1845. 3. Horticulturist 2:399. 1847-48. 4. Proc. Nat. Con. Fr. Gr. 37, 38, 51. 1848. 5. Hovey Fr. Am. 1:45, Pl. 1851. 6. Elliott Fr. Book 273. 1854. 7. Hooper W. Fr. Book 221. 1857. 8. Mag. Hort. 23:518. 1857. 9. Flor. & Pom. 24, Pl. 1862. 10. Hogg Fruit Man. 446. 1884. 11. Fulton Peach Cult. 184. 1908.
Serrate Early York. 12. Thomas Am. Fruit Cult. 290 fig. 1849. 13. U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 334. 1856.
York Précoce. 14. Mas Le Verger 7:115, 116, fig. 56. 1866-73. 15. Leroy Dict. Pom. 6:308, 309 fig., 310. 1879.
Early York is entitled to a place among the leading varieties of peaches only because of the part it played in the beginning of the peach-industry in America. As the history which follows shows, it was one of the first named varieties to be grown in this country. It is of more than passing interest, too, because it is one of the few sorts with glandless leaves. The fruits of Early York are insignificant, though the color-plate hardly does the variety justice, but the vigorous, healthy, compact trees have much to recommend them so that the variety might be used as a stepping-stone in improving tree-characters of peaches.