Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, productive; trunk stocky, smooth; branches thick, smooth; branchlets medium in thickness, purplish-red mingled with brown.
Leaves large, obovate, medium in thickness; upper surface yellowish-green, somewhat wrinkled; margin crenate; glands globose.
Flower-buds half-hardy, medium in size; flowers appear in mid-season, small, dark pink, well distributed, single; pedicels short, somewhat slender; petals ovate, entire; filaments long, sometimes longer than the petals.
Fruit matures in late mid-season; large, irregular, roundish-ovate, truncate at the base, with unequal halves; cavity rather deep, medium to narrow, regular, abrupt; suture shallow; apex mucronate; color light yellow or orange-yellow, with a bronze blush often deepening to an attractive carmine blush; pubescence short, medium in thickness; skin thick, somewhat tough, separates from the pulp; flesh yellow, stained red at the pit, very juicy, slightly coarse and stringy, meaty, mild subacid or sprightly; very good in quality; stone free, large, oval, plump, pointed, with corrugated surfaces.
ELBERTA
1. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 66. 1881. 2. Am. Gard. 9:391 fig. 1888. 3. Can. Hort. 11:281, 282. 1888. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 30. 1889. 5. U. S. D. A. Rpt. 382, Pl. 1. 1891. 6. Can. Hort. 17:305, Pl. 1894. 7. Mo. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 272, 273. 1896. 8. Tex. Sta. Bul. 39:807 fig. 1896. 9. Can. Hort. 23:131, 132, fig. 1769. 1900. 10. Del. Sta. Rpt. 13:97 fig. 98. 1900. 11. Rural N. Y. 60:54, 1901. 12. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:343, 344 fig. 1903.
Elberta leads all other peaches in number of trees in New York and in America. It is, too, the most popular of all peaches in the markets. A study of the variety, though it reveals some shortcomings, justifies its popularity with orchardists and marketmen. The preeminently meritorious character of Elberta is its freedom from local prejudices of either soil or climate—it is the cosmopolite of cultivated peaches. Thus, Elberta is grown with profit in every peach-growing state in the Union and in nearly all, if not all, is grown in greater quantities than any other market peach. The second character which commends Elberta to those in the business of peach-growing is fruitfulness—barring frosts or freezes the trees load themselves with fruit year in and year out. Added to these two great points of superiority are ability to withstand, in fair measure at least, the ravages of both insects and fungi, large size, vigor, early bearing and longevity in tree, and large, handsome, well-flavored fruits which ship and keep remarkably well.
Elberta, however, is not without faults and serious ones. The trees are not as hardy in either wood or blossom as might be wished. In northern regions peaches of the Crosby, Chili, Smock and Wager type stand winter freezes and spring frosts much better. The blossoms open rather too early in New York. The peaches also fall short in quality. They lack the richness of the Crawfords and the sweetness of the white-fleshed Champion type. Moreover, the pronounced bitter tang, even when the peaches are fully ripe, is disagreeable to some. Picked green and allowed to ripen in the markets, Elberta is scarcely edible by those who know good peaches. The stone is large but is usually wholly free from the flesh. With these faults, the dominance of Elberta is not wholly desirable as growers have a feeling of sufficiency with the one variety and consumers are forced to put up with a peach none too high in quality. Still, since no other variety is so reliable for the trade, this, by the way, being about the only variety suitable for export by reason of shipping qualities, Elberta promises long to continue its commercial supremacy.
Elberta was grown by Samuel H. Rumph, Marshallville, Georgia, from a seed of Chinese Cling planted in the fall of 1870. The Chinese Cling tree stood near Early and Late Crawford trees and trees of Oldmixon Free and Oldmixon Cling. Mr. Rumph believed that the Chinese Cling blossom which produced Elberta was fertilized by pollen from Early Crawford. The seedling was named Elberta in honor of Mr. Rumph's wife, Clara Elberta Rumph. An interesting coincidence connected with the origin of Elberta is that another stone from the same Chinese Cling tree was given to L. A. Rumph and from this grew Belle, the splendid white-fleshed, freestone peach. Nurserymen and growers frequently produce strains of Elberta which they think superior to the older sort but the several strains which have been tested on the grounds of this Station have not proved to differ a whit from the old variety. From the number of so-called "Early Elbertas" and "Late Elbertas" it may be suspected that occasionally Elberta, because of some local condition, ripens its fruit prematurely, or that ripening may be delayed; when removed from the particular local environment, ripening time seems to occur normally. Elberta was placed on the American Pomological Society's fruit-list in 1889.
ELBERTA
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, dense-topped, hardy, very productive; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown intermingled with light ash-gray; branchlets with tendency to rebranch, with long internodes, olive-green lightly overspread with dark red, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous lenticels variable in size.
Leaves six and three-fourths inches long, one and three-fourths inches wide, oval to obovate-lanceolate; upper surface dull, dark olive-green, mottled and somewhat rugose; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely to coarsely serrate, often in two series, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, with one to six reniform, greenish-yellow glands medium in size and variable in position.
Flower-buds large, pubescent, conical or obtuse, plump, appressed; flowers appear in mid-season; blossoms light pink near the center, darker pink toward the edges, one and one-fourth inches across; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange-colored within, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes acute, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals oval to ovate, bluntly notched near the base, tapering to broad, short claws red at the base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent at the ovary, longer than the stamens.
Fruit matures in mid-season; two and three-fourths inches long, two and one-half inches wide, roundish-oblong or cordate, compressed, usually with a slight bulge at one side; cavity deep, abrupt to flaring, often mottled with red; suture shallow, deepening toward the apex; apex roundish, with a mamelon or pointed tip; color greenish-yellow changing to orange-yellow, from one-fourth to three-fourths overspread with red and with much mottling extending sometimes over nearly the entire surface; pubescence thick and coarse; skin thick, tough, separates from the pulp; flesh yellow, stained with red near the pit, juicy, stringy, firm but tender, sweet or subacid, mild; good in quality; stone free, one and eleven-sixteenths inches long, one and one-sixteenth inches wide, broadly ovate, varying from flat to plump, sharp-pointed, decidedly bulged on one side, with pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply furrowed along the sides, narrow, winged; dorsal suture deeply grooved, strongly winged.