CHAPTER IV
PEACH-GROWING IN NEW YORK

The history of the peach, whether narrative or natural, shows that this fruit succeeds commercially only in restricted areas under special soil and climatic conditions. In the United States, as we have seen, the peach-industry has sprung up in a dozen or more distinct geographical regions, three of which are in New York. In discussing peach-growing in New York we must, first, determine the boundaries of its peach-regions; second, show the relative importance of the peach-industry in each; and, third, note the determinants that make favored parts of the State peach-regions.

The three main peach-areas in New York are the Hudson River Valley, the shore of Lake Ontario and the lands surrounding the Finger Lakes. The relative importance of these areas is shown by the number of trees in the regions. More than half of the peach-trees in New York are along the south shore of Lake Ontario, the total number in bearing for the region in 1909 being 1,271,514. The two counties of the State leading in number of trees are in this belt, Niagara with 591,350 and Monroe with 339,375, while of the other three in the belt there are 166,584 in Wayne, 157,934 in Orleans and 16,271 in Oswego. The Hudson River Valley district is second in importance, with a total of 679,662 trees, of which Ulster County, ranking third in the State, has 313,971, and Orange, with fourth rank, has 212,879, while Dutchess has 63,741, Columbia 51,818, Rockland 21,081 and Westchester 16,172. The Finger Lakes region, with a much smaller area of suitable land, has but 322,179 trees, of which Seneca County has 81,440, Ontario 56,495, Schuyler 51,993, Yates 48,350, Tompkins 34,090 and Livingston, a little to the west of this region proper, 19,251.

Long Island, once the seat of a considerable peach-industry, now has but 34,348 trees, 30,333 in Suffolk County and 4,015 in Nassau. There is a large area on the shore of Lake Erie suitable for peaches but land here is mainly planted with grapes; yet Chautauqua County has 32,377 and Erie 10,987 trees. Beside these main and subsidiary peach-regions there are many localities in which peaches are grown for local markets or home use. Peach statistics for the State emphasize strikingly the fact that the peach is a specialist's crop and that it can be grown only in special environments. Thus, compare the figures given for peach-growing counties with these: In two counties in New York there is not a peach-tree; in six counties there are less than twenty-five trees each; in twenty-two counties there are fewer than five hundred trees or less than five acres in any one; of the sixty-one counties in the State, only twenty-four average more than one hundred acres planted to peaches and but six have more than a thousand acres. There are still, however, acres beyond calculation, fecund for peaches, many lying fallow, upon which peaches can be grown when the markets warrant.

The acreage for the State and its peach-regions may be determined, approximately, by dividing the number of trees by 100. In 1909 there were 2,457,187 bearing trees and 2,216,907 trees not of bearing age, a total of 4,674,094 trees covering 46,740 acres in the State. At this writing, 1916, the acreage is larger. In 1909, along the Ontario Shore there were 12,715 acres planted to bearing peaches; in the Hudson Valley, 6,796; about the Finger Lakes, 3,221; on Long Island, 343; on the shores of Lake Erie, 433. These figures for districts cover bearing trees only, but holding the proportion the same for the districts as for the State, the total acreage for each district should be doubled for 1909 and, we are sure, much more than doubled for 1916. The statement that the number of bearing trees has doubled in the past five years is supported by figures furnished me by F. S. Welsh,254 Agriculturist of the New York Central Railroad Company. The New York Central handles at least 95 per centum of the peaches grown in New York and shipped to the markets; in 1910 this railroad handled 1,341 carloads of peaches, 4,419 carloads in 1915.

New York ranks third among the states of the Union in the production of peaches, the value of the crop being but a little less than that of Georgia though only about half as much as that of California. The number of bearing trees and the yield in bushels of fruit are given in the census report of 1910 so that the average production per bearing tree in the several peach-belts of the country may be computed, throwing light on the condition of the orchards in the different regions. California leads with an average production of 37.8 quarts per tree; New York follows with 22.6 quarts; after which comes Michigan with 18.5; Pennsylvania, 13.7; New Jersey, 11.6; Ohio, 10.5; Georgia, 7.7; and Delaware, which must have had an off year in 1909, but 5 quarts.

Perhaps it is worth while putting on record an opinion as to the status of peach-growing in the State at present, 1916. The acreage is certainly the greatest yet planted in the State—as has been said nearly or quite double the number of trees bearing in 1909 which the last census gives as 1,014,110. Certainly, too, orchards were never as well cared for as now. Yet the percentage of unprofitable peach-orchards in the State is high—at least fifty per centum—for which several causes can be named; as, competition and over-production with consequent low prices, poor distribution, a series of seasons with much winter-killing, and a succession of cold, wet springs. These are episodes in the industry hard to overcome. Of the avoidable causes of the present high percentage of unprofitable orchards perhaps the most common is the attempt to do too much whereby many eventually come to bankruptcy. Another reason for the many unprofitable orchards of the present is that the peach is a favorite fruit for beginners. Profits in peach-growing are often luring, the peach is an attractive fruit, it seems easy to grow and the fruit-grower plants, to learn by experience that peach-growing is not, as so often pictured, a pleasant and profitable avocation but a most exacting vocation.

Why is the peach so localistic? In particular, what has set the bounds of the three restricted peach-areas in New York? To some extent, of course, man-governed agencies have determined where peaches may or may not be grown in the State. Peaches must move quickly and the carriers must not dip too deeply in the grower's pockets; therefore markets must not be too distant and transportation must be cheap and efficient. Again, peach-growing is a fine art and becomes thus a specialist's business that must be learned in the peach-orchard; therefore, even if soil and climate be favorable, the industry lags if it lacks leaders to teach and to set the pace in orcharding. But, outranking by far the agencies depending on man, are natural conditions, two of which, climate and soil, predetermined where peach-industries were to stand in New York.

CLIMATE

When are plant and climate truly congenial? Perhaps the best test is the degree to which the plant spontaneously accommodates itself to all climatic conditions. Thus, the peach is ideally suited to climates in which it maintains itself without the aid of man. The peach is perfectly at home, then, in America only where it runs wild,—in parts of the South. In the North, East and the far West, peaches seldom grow spontaneously; and the cold of winter, the frosts of spring and the drouths of summer, in these regions, yearly remind us that notwithstanding the generations the tree has been grown in America it is still a stranger in a foreign country—an exotic from warm and sunlit Mid-Asia. Yet with a little help from man the peach takes kindly to many climates in which it does not grow spontaneously. Under what climatic conditions does the peach grow spontaneously? And under what climatic conditions can the peach be grown with the aid of man as a commercial success? These questions can be best answered by discussing the two constituents of climate, temperature and rainfall, in relation to the peach.

Of the several phases of temperature only extremes in cold are determinants in peach-growing in New York. The peach stands for all that is tender and effeminate in a fruit-tree and fares so ill in winter's cold that the limits of peach-culture are set in all northern states by the winter climate. The undomesticated peach is at the mercy of the winter wherever the temperature falls below zero and seldom grows spontaneously where the mercury drops even to this point. By selecting hardy varieties and following careful cultural methods, however, peaches may be grown profitably in climates where it is occasionally as cold as ten degrees below zero. An isothermal line passing through points in New York where the thermometer marks -10° in an occasional winter sets the limits of peach-growing in New York. The red line in the accompanying map shows the territory in which peach-growing is reasonably safe in New York while the green line shows the outside limits of the industry as determined by cold.

Even in the favored peach-regions of New York, winter-injury is a matter of vital importance to the peach-industry and growers seek means to avoid or check it. The problem is not an insurmountable one, for here and there are orchards and varieties which suffer little injury though possibly adjoining others in which trees or buds are wholly or partially killed. There must be reasons for the injury in the one and not in the other. These, the New York Agricultural Experiment Station made an attempt to discover a few years ago in letters addressed to the peach-growers of the State.255 From the information received, and that gained by observation, we may lay down the following propositions regarding hardiness of the peach in New York.

First.—The soil has much influence on hardiness. The peach must have a warm, dry soil to secure the hardiness inherent in the species. Only in such a soil can trees make a strong, firm, well-matured growth, which is conducive to hardiness. Bottom-heat seems especially necessary to secure a growth that will withstand cold and for this reason gravelly and stony soils, since they hold heat well, make good peach-lands. So, too, a gravelly subsoil seems to provide the proper root-environment for the peach-tree and if this be present it matters little, so far as hardiness is concerned, whether it be overlaid with sand, gravel, loam, a light clay or combinations of these.

Second.—The amount of moisture in the soil in the winter affects the hardiness of the peach. Either extreme of moisture, excessive wetness or excessive dryness, gives favorable conditions for winter-killing. A wet soil freezes deeply and trees standing in it are sappy throughout the winter. Cold, alternating with warm weather, or accompanied with dry winds, causes excessive evaporation from trees and if the soil be so dry as not to furnish moisture to replace the water evaporated, winter-injury ensues. When twigs and buds shrivel in winter, whether from lack of water or lack of maturity, winter-injury almost invariably follows.

Third.—Fertilizers may have a helpful or a harmful effect as regards hardiness of tree. When fertilizers cause a heavy, rank, soft growth, they undoubtedly make the trees more susceptible to winter-injury. On the other hand, trees suffer as much or more from cold if underfed than if overfed. Nothing is more certain than that vigorous growth in early summer can be made of great service in counteracting cold and that half-starved trees, or those which have been allowed to bear too heavily, suffer most from freezing.

Fourth.—Cover-crops protect trees from cold. Case after case can be cited of orchards with cover-crops surviving a cold winter when nearby orchards without the muffler of vegetation, leaves and snow were killed. Possibly the cover-crop is the most effective treatment of the peach-orchard to avoid winter-killing, acting as a cover to protect the roots from cold, causing the trees to ripen their wood quickly and thoroughly and assisting in regulating the supply of moisture.

Fifth.—Low-headed trees suffer less in both trunks and branches from winter-injury than high-headed trees. Buds, however, often survive on the higher branches and not on the lower ones. The low-headed trees are less injured probably because the wood loses less moisture by the evaporation from the effects of winds than do high-headed trees; because the trunk at least is better protected from the sun and hence suffers less from sunscald, one of the effects of freezing and thawing; and because, for some reason or other, low-headed trees seem to be more vigorous than high-headed trees.

Sixth.—Wind-breaks furnish small protection against cold to either trees or buds. The value of a wind-break depends largely upon the topography of the land. A wind-break so planted as wholly to check currents of air is detrimental so far as cold is concerned; so planted as to deflect the current of air they may become of value in keeping off frosts. More often than not, however, they seriously check atmospheric drainage and the damage by frost is greater.

Seventh.—Young peach-trees suffer more than old trees, probably because the young trees do not mature their wood as well as the older ones. There are, however, many exceptions to the statement that young trees are less hardy to cold than old ones. Old trees are often forced to produce large quantities of new wood susceptible to winter-killing, while, on the other hand, the superabundant growth of young trees can be kept down by orchard-treatment. Old trees possessing low vitality are less hardy than vigorous, young trees. Thus, trees suffering from the ravages of borers, leaf-curl or other fungus troubles suffer most from cold. While young trees are more susceptible to freezing than old ones, yet they are much more likely to recover, if recovery be possible, and their return to a normal condition is more rapid.

Eighth.—What degree of cold will kill peach-trees? Twenty degrees below zero under the best of conditions kills the peach. Depending upon the condition in which the trees begin the winter, however, the trees may be killed by any temperature between zero and -20°. The following are the conditions unfavorable to withstanding cold, in about the order of importance: Immaturity of wood; lack of protection of roots by snow or cover-crop; poor drainage; overbearing in the preceding year; lack of vitality from ravages of insects, or fungi or from infertility of soil; susceptibility of variety to cold.

Ninth.—What degree of cold will kill peach-buds? Much depends upon the condition of the buds. Fifteen degrees below zero seems to be the limit that peach-buds can stand even when all conditions are favorable. The chief factors influencing tenderness of buds are maturity of buds, variety, and the time at which buds finish their resting period.

Tenth.—Small-growing varieties with compact heads are hardier than the free-growing sorts with large heads. The following varieties are named as compact in growth and hence hardier than the average: Chili, Crosby, Gold Drop, Barnard, Kalamazoo, Triumph, Wager and Fitzgerald.

Eleventh.—In New York the varieties Crosby, Chili, Stevens, Gold Drop and Elberta are named as most hardy in wood. As most tender in wood Early Crawford, Late Crawford, Chairs, St. John and Niagara are named. Crosby, Chili, Triumph, Gold Drop, Stevens and Kalamazoo are most hardy in bud. Early Crawford, Late Crawford, Chairs, Reeves and Elberta are most tender in bud.

The average date at which the last killing frost occurs in the spring also determines the limit in latitude or altitude at which the peach can be grown. Even in the favored peach-regions of New York, records bring out the fact that killing frosts must be expected occasionally to destroy the peach-crop and there are few years indeed in which frost does not take heavy toll in the State as a whole. In the twenty-five year period beginning with 1881 and ending with 1905, the peach-crop was destroyed or seriously injured over a large part of New York in thirteen seasons.256 Little or nothing is done in New York to protect the peach from frosts. Truth is, not much can be done. Whitewashing trees delays blooming time and in some seasons might prevent injury from late frosts but it is too uncertain and too costly to be worth putting in practice. Wind-breaks as often favor the frost as the tree. Smudging is too expensive for the extensive system of peach-orcharding practiced in the East. Failure due to frost may be expected, then, when the commonly recognized precautions in selecting frost-proof sites are not recognized.

The limits of peach-culture in New York are also determined by early fall frosts and by the length of the growing season, though both are less important than the winter-climate and late frosts in the spring. The peach-grower must be able to synchronize three of these phases of climate, spring frosts, fall frosts and length of summer season, with the blooming and ripening of peaches,—to do which he must have weather data and the dates of blooming and ripening of varieties of peaches. The necessary data as to the average dates of spring and fall frosts and the length of the growing season can be obtained from the nearest local weather bureau and in the accompanying table the blooming and ripening seasons of 181 varieties of peaches grown at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station are given for the years 1910 to 1914. Blooming and ripening dates vary in the several peach-regions in the State so that to make use of the data from this Station consideration must be given to the latitude, altitude and local environment of the peach-orchard.

The latitude of the Smith Astronomical Observatory, a quarter of a mile from the Station orchards, is 42° 52' 46.2"; the altitude of the orchards is from five hundred to five hundred and twenty-five feet above the sea level. The soil is a loamy but rather cold clay; the orchards lie about a mile west of Seneca Lake, a body of water forty miles in length and from one to three and one-half miles in width and more than six hundred feet deep. The lake has frozen over but a few times since the region was settled, over a hundred years ago, and has a very beneficial influence on the adjacent country in lessening the cold of winter and the heat of summer and in preventing early blooming.

The blooming period is that of full bloom. The data were taken from trees grown under normal conditions as to pruning, distance apart, and as to all other factors which might influence the blooming period. There is a variation of several days between the time of full bloom of the different varieties of peaches. These differences can be utilized in selecting sorts to avoid injury from frost.

The peach seldom suffers from hot weather in New York. The fruit is sometimes injured in the full blaze of the sun but the foliage usually furnishes ample protection against such injury. On the other hand, for a finely finished product the peach must have an unclouded sun and ample air, these conditions giving high color and full flavor.

The peach requires less moisture than most other fruits—its original home was on the desert's edge in Asia. In New York the rainfall is usually quite sufficient in all peach-regions for this crop, the exception being, possibly, in the southern part of the Central Lakes region, where, in the lands adapted to the peach, the soil is often thin and drought, season after season, lays heavily on the land. The peach in New York more often suffers from too much rain than too little. Cold, wet weather in blooming time is the fruit-grower's vernal bane in this State and rain not infrequently prevents a set of peaches even in localities where the spring rainfall is light. Monthly and seasonal "means" of precipitation, especially of the month of May, are of considerable importance in determining the desirability of a locality for peaches.

There are several other phases of climate usually of but local application which sometimes become of vital importance to the peach-grower and must receive attention in selecting an orchard-site. The direction, force and frequency of prevailing winds during the blooming and ripening periods; the liability to hail storms; the amount of cloudiness in the summer months; the nature and degree of seasonal variations; the degree of humidity of the atmosphere as related to fungus diseases, especially the dreaded brown-rot; and the frequency of drouths are all problems to be solved before planting the peach.

SOILS FOR PEACHES

After climate, soil has been the next most potent natural influence in determining the location of the peach-regions of the State and of individual orchards in the several regions. The peach, of all fruits, is most particular as to soils; though, and this seems not generally understood, the physical condition of the land is quite as important as the kind of soil. That is, the peach grows well on a rather wide range of soils if the land be well drained, well aerated and if it hold heat. All subsequent treatment fails, whatever the soil, if the root-run be impeded by water or lack of air and if there be not the stimulus of considerable bottom-heat. These physical conditions modify greatly what is to be said in the next paragraph in regard to the kind of soil.

In New York the peach thrives best on a light, free-working sandy or gravelly loam but there are many good peach-orchards in gravelly and stony clays—gravel and stone furnishing drainage and aeration and holding heat. Perhaps, in this State, the light types of soil are too often chosen on the theory that the peach will grow on any light, sandy soil. Not so, for the peach will not grow on wind-blown, water-washed sands; on sand banks, in sand pits, on quicksands, on old sandbars or on pure quartz sands, though it is to be found planted on all of these. Nor will the peach flourish on sandy soils at all unless there be a fair admixture of clay and decomposed vegetable matter and the whole underlain at a depth of not more than three or four feet with a clay subsoil or stone which must have natural drainage. The clay subsoil must not come nearer to the surface than ten or twelve inches while bed rock ought not, at the very least, be nearer than twenty inches. So qualified, sandy soils are ideal soils for peaches in New York. Some of the best peach-lands in the State are exceedingly stony, the stones being no detriment except in making the land difficult to till.

The peach is conspicuous among fruits for its ability to nourish itself where the food supply is meagre—indeed it is the richest resource of fruit-growers on soils deficient in the most important elements of plant-food. This does not mean that peach-soils are cheap soils. Few other crops thrive on peach-soils, which make them of little value except for this fruit, but good peach-soils are so scarce that once their adaptabilities are discovered they are seldom cheap. Peach-soils, as a rule, are but moderately fertile. When too fertile, especially when rich in nitrogen, the foliage is dense, the wood-growth is great, the season's wood does not mature, the set of fruit is small, and the peaches lack size, color and flavor. But if not rich, never poor. On a good peach-soil the trees should make a relatively small, compact growth of firm wood which each season ripens thoroughly; and, barring accidents, they should be annually fruitful of large, highly-colored, well-flavored, properly-shaped peaches covered with sparse and short pubescence. The fertilization of peach-soils is to be considered in a separate topic.

We have been generalizing as to the adaptabilities of peaches to soils. Peach-growing, through keen competition and the great pleasure that a finely finished product gives the grower, has become a fine art. Now, in the refinement of the industry, generalizations as to peach-soils are not sufficient. Growers must find out what particular varieties grow best in their particular soil. To be sure, there are cosmopolitan varieties, Elberta for example, which thrive in a diversity of soils, but, for most part, each distinct variety or type of varieties has special soil preferences the discovery of which has often made a man a successful peach-grower. The peculiarities which adapt a soil to a variety are not analyzable but appear to peach-growers through intuition or experiment.

Some fruits are made to grow in uncongenial soils by working them on stocks adapted to the soil. Thus, the peach may be worked on plum-stocks for heavy, clay soils. Little, however, has been done in forcing the peach to adapt itself to a soil by consorting varieties and stocks. There is no doubt, however, but that much may be done when the adaptabilities of cions to stocks and stocks to soil are better known.

LOCATIONS AND SITES FOR PEACH-ORCHARDS

That peach-growing is not capable of equal development in all of the agricultural regions of the country and State appears in page after page of the history of this fruit. Climate and soil, as we have tried to show, are the great determinants of the large geographical peach-areas but beside these there are several other factors influencing the formation of peach-growing communities; as, transportation facilities, markets, labor, ability to make and dispose of by-products, selling organizations, local climate and so on. The economic factors just mentioned, as they apply to the establishment of peach-belts, have received sufficient notice in the history of the peach-industry in the United States, but these, together with several natural factors, need a few words in their local application to individual plantations under the head of locations and sites for peach-orchards—the location having to do with the general surroundings and the site with the particular piece of land to be planted.

The dominant considerations in placing commercial peach-orchards in the peach-zones in New York seem now to be economic ones. Natural conditions are so favorable in any of the recognized peach-districts of the State and obstacles so easily overcome by those who possess common knowledge of peach-growing, that a crop comes almost as a gift from nature. Natural advantages are more common than man-made ones; so that suitable locations are mostly to be sought for in the centers of peach-growing near a shipping point where the haul is short, the freight service prompt, regular, efficient, with low freight rates and refrigerator service, where labor is abundant, and, lastly and very important, where the markets are so placed that they are not controlled by growers in regions more advantageously situated.

Advantages offered by local markets now determine the placing of a good many peach-orchards in New York. A location where there is a good local market and at the same time ample facilities for shipping to distant markets is ideal, for it enables the grower to dispose of over-ripe and second-rate peaches that otherwise go to the dump. The local consumer, however, usually suffers. Prosperous towns and cities have added much to the prosperity of nearby peach-districts in this State but generally these local markets have not received the attention from growers they deserve. The product sent to the local markets is usually much poorer than that shipped to a distance. On the other hand, growers maintain that customers in towns in the peach-belts will not pay for good fruit.

Nowhere are the favorable influences of water more admirably illustrated than in the peach-orchards of New York, all of the peach-districts being bounded on one or more sides by bodies of water. The great majority of the orchards are planted on the shores of one of the two Great Lakes, slope toward one of the several Finger Lakes, or are near flowing water in the Hudson. The equalizing effects of bodies of water on temperature—warmer winters and cooler summers—and the effects of the air-currents from bodies of water are so well known that comment is not necessary. It is worth while noting, however, the distance to which the benign influences of water are felt in the New York peach-districts. In the Hudson Valley the peach can be grown only a-mile or two from the river with safety from frosts and freezes. With few exceptions, the peach-orchards about the Central Lakes overlook the water. On the Great Lakes peach-plantations are found from one to six or eight miles from the water, depending upon the height of the land, and the amount and direction of the slope.

Usually the peach-plantations are some distance above the lakes or river, generally from one hundred to three hundred feet. When the altitude is much higher, immunity from frost and winter freezes ceases, probably because the atmosphere is rarer and no doubt drier so that heat radiates from the land rapidly inducing frostiness rather than frostlessness. As the height increases, too, the sweep of the wind increases. But still, one is often surprised to find vigorous orchards perched high above the water, the sport of every wind, so that altitude in peach-growing must be determined by experiment.

The site, as we choose to consider it, is the situation with especial regard to the particular plot of ground set aside for the peach-orchard—altitude, soil, slope, exposure, local climate and all of the natural factors which favor peach-growing. All these have been touched upon in their relation to peach-districts and locations within the districts but we need to particularize a little more closely to show how some of these factors affect individual orchards.

The best peach-orchards in New York are invariably higher than the surrounding country, such orchards having the two great advantages of soil-drainage and atmospheric drainage. Rolling land seems not to be at all essential, for many splendid plantations are on flat lands which, however, in all cases have an elevation on one or more boundaries above the surrounding country. The more pronounced the elevation, within limits, the better, though sharp declines of a few feet, ten or fifteen, serve for small orchards as do gentle slopes of slightly higher elevation. Ideal spots where the peach never fails are found in bits of tillable land, usually too small for large commercial ventures, in the rough and steep gulches running down from the highlands to the lakes, occasionally on the Ontario and Erie shores, but more often in the more broken country about the Finger Lakes. In such cases the rigors of seasons are seldom felt. We do not recall seeing a single successful peach-orchard in the State shut in on all sides by higher land—frosts and freezes would soon play havoc in such a situation.

The exposure of a peach-plantation is, without doubt, a matter of some importance in choosing a site but the value of particular exposures to avoid frosts and secure early, late, or highly colored fruits has been greatly over-emphasized by horticultural writers if New York orchards be taken as criteria. The theory is most plausible. It runs, in brief: Northward slopes are best for peaches in frosty regions since on such slopes plants remain dormant longest thereby often escaping spring frosts. Southward slopes should be selected for early varieties, the sun and warmth of such an exposure supposedly hastening the ripening time. Now the facts are, as we observe them, the peach blossoms with the first burst of spring warmth whether the slope face north or south; and whether north or south makes little difference in ripening because the intense heat of our New York summers submerges slight differences appearing early in the season because of exposure. About all that shows in the matter of exposure for peach-orchards, in this State is that the best slopes are toward the water to secure the effects that dictate the location of orchards near water.

One comes across many peach-orchards in New York in the shelter of high hills or heavy forests for which the trees usually show gratitude in vigor and fruitfulness, provided hill or wood does not shade the orchard too much. Hills and woods provide desirable shelter only when so situated as to protect against winter winds and summer storms. A most remarkable example of winter protection by a forest was to be seen a few years ago on the somewhat noted fruit-farm of Mr. Grant Hitchings near South Onondaga where peaches are at the limit as regards temperature. Here was a peach-orchard half of which was terribly injured by winter-killing and the other half, protected by a forest a quarter-mile away, was wholly unhurt. Yet windbreaks have seldom proved satisfactory, usually developing as many or more disadvantages than advantages.