Though Captain Ede has been under cultivation forty-six years it
has but recently come into prominence and seems now to find favor
quite generally as a money-making peach. Those who recommend it
say that the trees are vigorous, heavy bearers and that the crop is
uniform and always fair, smooth and without culls. The crop matures
in a short time, ships well and is in demand in the markets either
as a dessert peach or for culinary purposes. On the Station grounds,
Captain Ede comes up to the reputation given it in all respects
excepting productiveness--here it is a shy bearer. The peaches, as the
color-plate shows, are beautiful, the flavor is subacid but rich, with
a distinct smack of the almond. Captain Ede ripens with Early Crawford,
a week or ten days before Elberta. The tree, as it grows here, can
hardly be distinguished from that of Elberta. We should unhesitatingly
recommend Captain Ede to New York peach-growers, were it not for the
fear that it does not accommodate itself to a diversity of soils and
climates. It does rather better farther south.
Captain Ede originated in 1870 as a seedling in the door-yard of
Captain Henry Ede, Cobden, Illinois. Later, it was introduced by George
Gould and Son, Villa Ridge, Illinois. The parentage of the variety is
unknown. By some, Chinese Cling is supposed to have been one of the
parents and others give the same credit to Honest John. The American
Pomological Society added Captain Ede to its fruit-list in 1909.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN EDE]
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, not always
productive; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown
overspread with very light ash-gray; branchlets slender,
olive-green more or less overspread with dark red, smooth,
glabrous, with numerous large or very small, inconspicuous
lenticels.
Leaves five and three-fourths inches long, one and one-half
inches wide, folded upward, oval to obovate-lanceolate; upper
surface dark green, smooth; lower surface light grayish-green;
margin finely serrate, tipped with dark red glands;
petiole one-fourth inch long, with two to six, reniform,
greenish-yellow glands medium in size and variable in position.
Flower-buds large, long, oblong-conic, plump, usually
appressed; blossoms open very late; flowers three-fourths
inch across, dark pink; pedicels short, glabrous, pale
green; calyx-tube dull, dotted reddish-green, orange-red
within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes short, broad,
obtuse, glabrous within, heavily pubescent without; petals
roundish-ovate, notched near the base, tapering to short,
narrow, white claws; filaments one-fourth inch long, equal to
the petals in length; pistil pubescent toward the base, equal
to the stamens in length.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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