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Texas
has numerous ancient oaks and other varieties of trees that have been
around for a long time, but peach trees are a different story.
More formally known as Prunus persica, peach trees are not indigenous
to the Lone Star state. They are believed to have originated in China,
migrating from there along the trade routes to Persia (Iran) and from
the Middle East to North Africa and Europe. As America began to be
colonized, Europeans brought peach seedlings with them.
Though peaches are found around the world, they nevertheless are picky
about where they will grow. They do best in sandy soil and climates
with the right number of freezing days.
The commercial hot spots in Texas, which
ranks ninth in the nation in production of peaches, are the Hill
Country, particularly Gillespie
and surrounding counties, East
Texas around Smith
County and Northwest
Texas, centered in Montague
and adjoining counties.
Stonewall calls itself the Peach Capital of Texas.
The 4,000 or so acres of peach trees in the Hill
Country produce about a third of the state’s peach crop each year. |
Wherever
they grow, if a peach tree reaches 30, it has lived an unusually long
life. Indeed, most peach trees seldom make it past their first decade
of existence.
That’s what made the peach tree outside the old stone structure in
Burnet at
the site of Fort Croghan so unusual. No one could remember how long
it had stood there, but every summer, it still bore tasty if somewhat
tart peaches.
The famed Second Dragoons established the fort in 1849 to protect
the area from hostile Indians. After the military abandoned the post
overlooking Hamilton Creek in 1853, settlers moved into some of the
old government structures, including the small rock building where
the peach tree still flourished in the early 1960s.
Some said whoever had lived there must have planted the tree. Others
said its proximity to the entrance of the structure indicated someone
might simply have discarded a moist peach seed that took root and
flourished on its own.
However it came to be at Fort Croghan, the fruit tree had been there
for a good while.
I first saw the tree, and tasted its fruit, in the summer of 1963.
A precocious teenager as interested in Texas history as girls and
cars, I attended (thanks to my late mother, who drove me there) the
annual meeting of the Burnet County Historical Society.
They met at the old fort every year for a potluck picnic topped off
with a cobbler made by Mrs. L.C. Ross from the peach tree that grew
at the fort.
She had been president of the society in 1960, they year the group
began working to restore the old fort. While at the site that year,
she told me later, she picked the choicest peaches from the tree “before
the squirrels and birds got to them.” She baked them in a cobbler
and a tradition had begun.
The
longevity of that Fort Croghan peach tree is all the more unusual
considering the care a peach tree normally requires. It has to be
pruned after the first hard freeze in the fall, a process that must
continue through early spring when the trees bloom. Since the trees
normally produce more fruit than they can ripen, they have to been
thinned of fruit to keep peaches spaced six to eight inches apart.
Too, a peach tree takes a lot of water, weeding, and insect and disease
control. Another venerable peach tree once grew in Lampasas
County. In the early 1930s, a tree belonging to L.W. McCrea measured
six feet in circumference. At the time (1934) it was considered one
of the oldest peach trees in Texas. McCrea
said his family planted the tree in the late 1860s or early 1870s.
A
few years after enjoying my first Croghan Cobbler, I was with my granddad
when he stopped to buy some peaches at a roadside stand between Fredericksburg
and Stonewall.
When we walked in the tent, two women about my granddad’s age sat
happily gossiping away in German. As granddad selected a basket of
peaches, they continued their conversation, secure in their belief
that the older man and teenage boy – obviously tourists -- knew nothing
of the language they spoke.
What they did not know was that my granddad’s last name was Wilke.
His grandfather, Herman Wilke, had settled in Fredericksburg
in 1850. Granddad grew up hearing German spoken and all those years
later, still knew a little.
As we walked away, the women resumed their German discussion. Suddenly,
acting as if he’d almost forgotten his manners, Granddad stopped and
turned toward the gossips.
“Danke schon,” he said with a smile. Realizing he must have understood
what they had been talking about, the women froze worse than a peach
orchard hit by a late-March norther. |
Mrs. Ross’
Croghan Cobbler recipe
Boil a quart of
peeled and cut peaches until tender.
Add:
1 ˝ cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
˝ tablespoon nutmeg
˝ stick butter or margarine
Crust:
˝ cup water
7/8 cup lard or oil
Pinch of salt and enough flour to make stiff dough.
Roll out on floured board, cut dough in strips and lay over half the
fruit in a shallow baking dish or pan. Add the rest of the peaches
and another layer of dough.
Bake at 425 degrees until bubbly with a brown crust.
Invite author of this column to sample it.
© Mike Cox
"Texas Tales"
August 21, 2008 column |
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