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.

The fruits, it must be said at once, have been described with other ends in view than identification. Chief of these is the effort to set forth the elementary characters, or unit-characters, of the peach. It is now certain that the characters of plants are independent entities thrown into various relationships with each other in individual plants. On this conception of unit-characters the improvement of plants is founded. An important part of the work in describing fruits has been to discover what seem to be unit-characters in peaches, thereby aiding in building a foundation in breeding peaches. To improve the peach we must combine the characters of species and varieties; we must know what these are before we can rearrange them in an improved peach.

In the marked attention paid to the improvement of plants, following the work of Mendel and others, the peach is bound to receive consideration. Never was information more needed in regard to the processes that have brought peaches from their primitive condition to their present perfection. We have done our utmost to give all that could be learned of the origin and history of varieties with the hope that such knowledge may be helpful to those who are trying to improve the peach.

We wish again to call attention to the great value of definite knowledge regarding the soils, climates and other environmental conditions under which species and varieties of fruits thrive. It is obvious to all thinking pomologists and biologists that, when the ecological conditions under which the several fruits and their many varieties are grown can be accurately specified, valuable generalizations can be made regarding life-zones and plant-distribution. In The Peaches of New York, as in the preceding books, we state as accurately as possible the regions in which and the conditions under which, species and varieties of the peach are successfully grown.

So few species have been considered in The Peaches of New York that we have had no need to refer to codes of botanical nomenclature. In the use of horticultural names, lacking a better code, we have kept before us the revised rules of the American Pomological Society though in many cases we have not seen fit to follow these rules as the changes required by their strict observance would augment rather than diminish confusion.

The references given are those that have been used in ascertaining the history and the economic status or in verifying the description of the variety that follows. All of the synonyms created by pomologists to whose works we have had access have been noted but in no case have we published synonyms quoted by other writers. The work of reading references and seeking out synonyms is a tremendous one, involving nearly three years' work for several persons. We hope that this work sets straight in high degree the great confusion in the names of peaches, but that we, no matter how painstaking, could bring perfection out of chaos, no one could expect.

Again we call attention to the biographical sketches found in the foot-notes. Some men in every profession surpass their fellows in true greatness. Such men there are in pomology, and a knowledge of their career is indispensable to a full comprehension of the industry of growing fruit. In the conquest of America we have honored, so far, only the men who have expressed their energy in conquering the mines, the forests, the fisheries and to a small degree those who have developed the soils; we have shamefully neglected the great men who have developed our native fruits and vegetables and adapted to the conditions of the New World the agricultural products of the Old World. The brief biographical sketches in these fruit-books are written in an effort to give in some measure the credit and honor due to those who have improved fruits.

In the preparation of The Peaches of New York, besides those whose names appear on the title page, I am indebted to R. D. Anthony, for reading proof; to the Station editor, F. H. Hall, for his assistance; to the Zeese-Wilkinson Company, New York City, for the beautiful color-plates of peaches; and to the J. B. Lyon Company, Albany, New York, for good workmanship in printing the book.

U. P. HEDRICK,
Horticulturist, New York Agricultural Experiment Station.