Foster is another very good peach of the Crawford type and at one
time was widely grown in all northern peach-regions. It is so similar
to Late Crawford that even experienced growers can hardly tell them
apart. Those who grow the two in the same orchard find the essential
differences to be: Foster is the larger peach, is more rotund, somewhat
more flattened at the base, is a little earlier, possibly handsomer
and is even of better quality than Late Crawford; the trees of Foster,
however, are hardly as productive as those of either of the two
unproductive Crawfords. This unproductiveness is the fault that keeps
the variety in the background as a commercial peach. The variety is
well worth planting in any home orchard.
Foster originated about 1857 with J. T. Foster, Medford, Massachusetts,
from the stone of a peach purchased by him in a Boston market. It
was awarded a place on the American Pomological Society's list of
recommended fruits in 1869.
[Illustration: FOSTER]
Tree very large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, variable
in productiveness; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth,
reddish-brown intermingled with light ash-gray; branchlets
spur-like, long, dark pinkish-red mingled with olive-green,
glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous large and small
lenticels raised at the base.
Leaves six inches long, one and three-eighths inches wide,
folded upward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, intermediate
in thickness, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth
becoming rugose near the midrib; lower surface grayish-green;
margin finely serrate, tipped with small glands; petiole
seven-sixteenths inch long, with one to four small globose
glands variable in color and position; flower-buds somewhat
tender, conical or pointed, pubescent, free; blossoms appear in
mid-season.
Fruit matures in mid-season; two and seven-sixteenths inches
long, more than two and one-half inches wide, round-cordate,
often bulged at one side, compressed, with unequal sides;
cavity deep, wide, flaring or somewhat abrupt, often splashed
with red; suture shallow, becoming deeper at both apex and
cavity and extending slightly beyond the point; apex roundish
or pointed, with a recurved, mamelon or occasionally mucronate
tip; color deep yellow overspread with dark red, with a few
splashes or stripes of red; pubescence long, thick; skin thick,
tough, separates from the pulp when fully ripe; flesh deep
yellow, faintly stained with red near the pit, juicy, coarse
and stringy, firm but tender, sweet, mild, spicy; very good in
quality; stone free.
GENERAL LEE
=1.= _Gard. Mon._ =29=:271. 1887. =2.= _Am. Pom. Soc. Cat._ 30.
1889. =3.= Budd-Hansen _Am. Hort. Man._ =2=:346. 1903.
_R. E. Lee._ =4.= _Ga. Hort. Soc. Rpt._ 21. 1877. =5.= _Gard.
Mon._ =27=:275. 1885. =6.= _Ga. Sta. Bul._ =42=:240. 1898.
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