Late Crawford was raised by William Crawford, Middletown, New Jersey, at least a hundred years ago, the exact date of origin, as well as its parentage, being unknown. The variety was first brought to notice by William Kenrick, Newton, Massachusetts, who described it in the _American Orchardist_ under the name Crawford's Superb Malacatune. No doubt it has a worthy line of ancestors in the old seedling orchards of the early colonists, the fact that it is the founder of a race indicating long-continued reproduction from seeds with little interposition of budding. At the National Convention of Fruit-Growers held in 1848, Late Crawford was placed in the list of recommended fruits and since that time has held a place on the fruit-list of the American Pomological Society. It was first listed as Crawford's Late; later as Crawford's Late Melocoton and now appears as Late Crawford in accordance with the Society's rules of nomenclature. [Illustration: LATE CRAWFORD] Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, open-topped, not very productive; trunk stocky, smooth; branches thick, smooth, reddish-brown mingled with light ash-gray; branchlets long, somewhat twiggy, dark reddish-brown overlaid with olive-green, smooth, glabrous, with conspicuous, numerous, small, raised lenticels. Leaves six and seven-eighths inches long, one and three-fourths inches wide, folded upward and curled downward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thick, leathery; upper surface dark olive-green, smooth becoming rugose along the midrib; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole one-half inch long, with one to six small, globose, reddish-brown glands variable in position. Flower-buds tender, large, above medium in length, obtuse or conical, plump, very pubescent, appressed or free; blossoms open in mid-season; flowers one and one-eighth inches across, pink, well distributed; pedicels short, medium to slender, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange-colored within, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes medium to broad, obtuse, glabrous within, pubescent without, becoming heavily pubescent near the edges; petals oval to ovate, notched at the base, tapering to narrow claws which are reddish at the base; filaments seven-sixteenths inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent near the base, longer than the stamens.