This book explores the significance of the peach as a cultural icon and viable commodity in the American South.

William Thomas Okie is Assistant Professor at Kennesaw State University, Georgia, where he teaches American history, food history, and history education. Trained in environmental and agricultural history at the University of Georgia, he has produced work that has won prizes from the Society of American Historians, the Southern Historical Association, and the Agricultural History Society. He has written for the journal Agricultural History and the Southern Foodways Alliance's quarterly, Gravy.

1. A wilderness of peach trees; 2. The baron of pears; 3. Elberta, you're a peach; 4. A Connecticut Yankee in King Cotton's court; 5. Rot and glut; 6. Blossoms and hams; 7. Under the trees.