Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-04-19
THE OLD SPANISH PEACHES.

Some months ago we had this same sub
ject before the readers of this department
of The GAZETTE, but it strikes US that the
subject is one not easily worn threadbare
especially so far as it relates to Texas. We
have the old Spanish peaches here, or
odd seedlings as we call them, but they
are rapidly on the decline in point of repre-
sentatiOn. In old times they bore an album
dance of fruit, such as it was and they are
still doing the same thing where found in
their original purity. The present season
viii be a good one in which to study them,
and that study ought to be carefully made
in all older settled sections of the state.
Where we find them bearing well and Civ
ing fruit Of reasonably fair quality We
ought 10 select the best trees to be propa-
gated from both, by budding and by plant
ing seeds. 1t is not the fact of its being a
Seeding that makes the tree hardy. \
budded tree from hardy strain will prob
ably be just as hardy as the parent seeding.
The object of planting the seeds at all would
lie in the hope of obtaining better variety
than the original
The old Spanish peaches also have a foot
ing in Florida as well as Texas, but, as
with US, they are rapidly disappearing. \
Mariana, Fla, correspondent of the Flori4a
Farmer and Fruit Grower says Of them
that before the war they We're found in
that state by hundreds and thousands.
They were both healthy and fruitful.
Springing from whatever unknown origin
;sl, SL ba
grown to be part of the real estate of
Florida, just as the old mission grape and
the club-wheat are of California. They
served 4 valuable purpose, for they bore
fruit True, that fruit was not of as high
quality Us some that is raised nowadays,
or not raised, it would be equally as truth
full to say, for some OF the peaches now on
the list for Florida have been so sublimated
by refinement that they are no longer able
to produce fruit of any kind.
During the war the old Seeding strains
We're turned over to neglect, and for some
time after the war was ended little effort
was made to replace them, for people were
put TO their wits ends to procure the COM
mon necessaries of life. But in the course
of time Northern settlers or Georgians and
CaroEnians began to come in, and they
brought with them their 'improved' bud
ded peaches; the old natives were put
aside And from that day. says the writer,
dates the period of uncertainty and unfruit-
fitness of the Florida peach
The old seeding clingstone Tor 'press"
as the F'oridians called it,, and the free
stone Tor ''clear-seed'), continues the cor
respondent, may not have been 50 juicy and
certainly not so large as some of the mon
strous Chinese clings now in vogue; but
they had a rich and meaty quality which
gave them a substantial value. An indif-
ferenty good peach every year is better
than the most exquisite budded peach once
in three or four years; and they were not
indiferently good; they were often of
very fair quality.
The crying need Of Florida, and especially
Northern Florida where frost is so preva-
lent, is not so much an early peach to ship
(once in six years., but a hardy, seeding,
mid-season peach to can and TO evaporate
The latter may not present the glittering
bait which the former does-often only to
prove 4 snare and q delusion-but it has
solid qualities which will one day rank II
with the great horticultural staples of
Florida.
All of which applies to Texas equally as
well as to Florida