The following description is compiled: tree large, vigorous, productive; fruit mid-season; large, roundish or slightly elongated, with prominent suture, yellow, blushed with red, overspread with thin bloom; flesh yellow, sweet, pleasant, slightly musky; good; stone small, free.
ARCH DUKE
ARCH DUKE
Prunus domestica
1. Hogg Fruit Man. 684. 1884. 2. Ont. Fr. Gr. Assoc. Rpt. 35. 1891. 3. U. S. D. A. Pom. Rpt. 45. 1895. 4. W. N. Y. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 42:83. 1897. 5. Cornell Sta. Bul. 131:182. 1897. 6. Mich. Sta. Bul. 169:241, 242. 1899. 7. Ibid. 187:77, 78. 1901. 8. Waugh Plum Cult. 95. 1901. 9. Thompson Gard. Ass’t 4:156 1901. 10. Ohio Sta. Bul. 162:242, 243 fig., 254, 255. 1905.
Late Diamond 1.
Arch Duke ought to become one of the leading plums for the market in New York. The qualities which fit it for a high place among commercial varieties are: large size, handsome color—a rich, dark purple with thick bloom—and firmness of flesh and skin so that it both keeps and ships well. The accompanying color-plate does not do the variety justice, either in beauty, color or size of fruit. Arch Duke compared with Grand Duke, known by all plum-growers, is nearly as large, neck thicker, the same color, bloom heavier, quality higher, flesh firmer, stone free and ripens earlier. The tree-characters, like the fruit-characters, are all good. While this variety is suitable for both home and market use it appears after a thorough test in many parts of the State for nearly twenty years to be especially well adapted for a market fruit.
Arch Duke was raised by Thomas Rivers, Sawbridgeworth, England, from seed of De Montfort, and was sent out in 1883. It was first noted in America by the Ontario Fruit Growers’ Association in 1891 and was imported into the United States by S. D. Willard[205] of Geneva, New York, about 1892.