STOCKS AND THE PROPAGATION OF PEACHES

The peach-tree, in common with all other fruit-trees, is a consort of two individuals—a named variety budded on an unnamed seedling. So far, the industry has been carried on with little or no regard to the effects the seedling may have on the variety to which it is budded, yet there can be no doubt but that the fruiting top is influenced by the stock upon which it is worked. The present nursery practice is to buy peach-pits, whatsoever they may be, at the lowest price, sow them in nursery rows and at the proper time bud to named varieties. Time was, in the East at least, when the pits came from the run-wild peaches of the southern states from which grew vigorous, healthy and fairly uniform seedlings but it is to be feared that most of the pits, the country over, now come from the canneries and from varieties so diverse in vigor, habit and season that the resulting seedlings are variable and must make variable the trees grown upon them. It is greatly to be regretted that the practice of growing peach stock from southern wild seed has been departed from though even a better practice might be to grow trees from some vigorous variety or, possibly, a different species, as Prunus davidiana, which is now largely used in China.

Prunus davidiana has, as we have stated in discussing the species, been tried very widely in the United States and seems to have many excellent qualities for a stock. The seedlings are vigorous, healthy, hardy, bud readily and the seeds keep well and sprout very uniformly so that usually there is a good stand. Perhaps the character that commends it most highly at present, however, is the hardiness of the species. It is proving hardy in colder regions than those where the peach is now a commercial crop, so that, wherever this fruit as now grown is at the mercy of the winter, Prunus davidiana is a promising substitute for the hit-and-miss stocks now used. The drawbacks to the use of the Chinese species are that it does not bear fruits of any value whatsoever so that the crop would have to be grown for the pits alone and, because of very early blossoming, the trees bear only in most favored situations as regards spring frosts.

Peach-on-peach is now the rule in eastern America but in Europe, and to a lesser extent on the Pacific slope, several other species are used. Thus, the hard-shelled Sweet Almond has long been used in Europe and is found to make a hardy, strong stock in dry soils in California. The Damson and St. Julian plums have been used with varying satisfaction in moist and heavy soils in America; and in Europe, these, with the Muscle and Pear plums, are common stocks for the peach. Peaches are dwarfed somewhat by all plum-stocks. The Myrobalan plum, very commonly used for nearly all cultivated plums, was at one time recommended for the peach but turned out to be very unsatisfactory and is now practically never used. The nectarine, Peento and Honey peaches are budded upon seedling peaches.

A stock greatly desired in peach-growing is one that will dwarf the tree sufficiently so that winter-protection for buds and wood is practicable. The late E. S. Goff of Wisconsin tried for some years to find such a stock. He reports257 working several hundred buds on the dwarf Flowering-Almond without a single union. Better success attended efforts with the peach on the dwarf Sand Cherry, Prunus besseyii, of the Rocky Mountains. Of the results, as he dismisses the flowering-almond, he says:

"I next tried a form of the Sand Cherry, grown from pits procured in western Iowa. This shrub is quite dwarf, attaining a height of only two or three feet. With this stock I have been more successful. I inserted a few buds in it in 1893, and while I had less expectation of success than with the Flowering Almond, I succeeded much better. The Peach grew vigorously on this stock, and by the second year had attained the height of about five feet. The past season, although the best growing season we have had for some years, the Peach-trees on this stock have scarcely increased in height. They have branched rather thickly, and at present are well filled with flower-buds, from which I infer that they will probably not grow larger than they now are. At this height the trees are readily protected by digging away sufficient earth from the roots, so that the trunk may be bent down readily, when the whole is covered with earth. The trees blossomed the past spring and set some fruit, though the fruit failed to mature."

In the same report, Professor Goff mentions trying Prunus subcordata and a dwarf form of Prunus maritima as stocks for the peach but with what success does not appear. Dwarf stocks for peaches offer an invitation to experiment which it is hoped some one will accept. Such an experiment requires little more than land, time and material, for it is one of those cases in which nothing succeeds like success and nothing fails like failure so that he who runs would be able to read.

Tied up with stocks is another problem. Much is being said about the necessity of selecting buds from trees having certain characters best developed—as vigor or productiveness; large, handsome or well-flavored fruits; or immunity to some disease. As yet there is no body of facts to substantiate the claims of those who maintain that fruits can be improved by bud-selection nor does present knowledge suggest that such a procedure is a means of fruit-improvement. Quite to the contrary the histories of varieties of peaches, as they may be read in this text, suggest that, "Like begets like," while in the light of science a plant propagated by buds is essentially complete in its heredity. Yet the whole question is still an open one and fruit-growers are waiting to know whether putting buds through the sieve of selection is worth while. The advocates of improving orchards by bud-selection say little, however, about selecting stocks. There is nothing more certain than that the stock greatly influences the character of the tree. The modifications so brought about probably appear and disappear with the individual—at least we should be the last in the world to hold that peaches could be permanently modified by the stocks. The point is, if buds are selected for the tops, the stocks should be selected also. To do otherwise is to imitate the ostrich—head in the sand, body exposed.

The peach is easy to propagate. Let it be said before going into the matter, however, that practically all of the trees in the peach-orchards in New York were grown in nurseries and that it is probably best to let the propagation of trees continue a business for the specialist. Still, it is well that the grower know in a general way the operations in the propagation of the peach-tree. We wish, too, to put on record the nursery methods used in propagating this fruit at this period in the history of the peach.

In planting peach-pits, art imitates and quickens nature. In nature the seeds are self-sown as they ripen, the succulent coat keeping the hard envelope containing the kernel from becoming stony so that the young plant bursts forth at the proper season. But in cleaning and drying seeds for sale and transportation, they become hard and dry and must be subjected to somewhat special treatment before planting. In mild climates the pits are soaked or kept moist in sand, earth or other medium until softened and are then planted in the fall in rows where the trees are to be grown. In cold climates the stones are subjected to freezing, thereby cracking them, after which the kernels are sown in the spring. To freeze, the seeds are placed in strata with moist sand, saw-dust, straw or other material supplying an abundance of moisture, and exposed to the freezing weather of winter which usually frees the kernel from its envelope. The kernels are then sifted from the stones and sand and sowed in rows four feet apart. Pits which the frost does not open must be cracked by hand, though this tedious operation is usually omitted by large nurseries.

The seeds are planted in a rich, well-drained soil, preferably a light loam with good bottom. By late mid-summer in New York the stocks are ready to bud, though often the operation extends into September. The peach is universally budded in America, grafting being most difficult, though trees can be grown from root-cuttings. The method of budding is the common T, or shield-bud. The buds "take" in a week or two, but remain dormant until the next spring when the top of the stock above the bud is removed to give the cion right of way. At one year from the bud, two years from the seed, in northern climates, the trees are ready to be transplanted in the orchard. In the South and on the Pacific Slope, budding may be done in June, thereby saving a season. These "June buds," however, excepting under the most favorable conditions, in the East at least, are weaklings not nearly so desirable as "summer buds." Occasionally, more particularly in California, summer-budded stocks are planted in the fall or the next spring as "dormant buds." In New York, trees older than one year from the bud are seldom worth planting though occasionally it is necessary to save stocks until their second season before budding.

In budding, the bud-sticks are cut as needed, after which the leaves are trimmed leaving about a quarter of an inch of the stem as a handle to the bud. After trimming, the sticks are wrapped in damp burlap and are taken to the field—once dried, they are worthless. The buds at the end of the bud-stick are discarded, the plump, hard buds near the middle of the stick being the most vigorous. At the point where the bud is to be inserted a T-shaped incision is made, the transverse cut being secured by a rocking motion of the knife and the vertical one by lightly drawing the knife upward from a point about an inch below the first cut. Before removing the knife a slight twist of the blade loosens the edges better to receive the bud.

The bud is cut from below upward with a drawing motion of the knife. Nearly the entire thickness of the bark is cut at the point of the bud so that it will not crumple when inserted into the stock. Almost no wood is taken with the bud but on the other hand the bud must not be so thin that the soft growing tissue between the bark and wood is injured. The bud is taken between the thumb and forefinger and lifted free from the wood. With the leaf-stem as a handle the bud is inserted into the T-shaped incision and pushed down until its "heel" is flush with the transverse cut. Waxing is not necessary but the bud must be securely tied.

For this purpose raffia is now almost universally used. It is cut into lengths of eighteen or twenty inches and moistened to make it soft and pliable. The strand is first brought firmly across the upper end of the bud to keep it from working out. Beginning then at the bottom of the slit, the raffia is wound smoothly upward covering everything but the "eye" and is tied in a single square knot. This winding must be tight to hold the bud immovably in place. In from two to four weeks, depending on the growth of the stock, the raffia should be cut to prevent its girdling the tree.

In the nursery trade, peach-trees are graded according to caliper or according to height—rarely both since there is a very definite relation between the two. The common sizes by caliper, or diameter of the trunk, are five-, seven- or nine-sixteenths of an inch. According to height, the grades are "three to four foot," "four to five foot," or "five to seven foot." The medium-sized grade is usually the best since fewer trees die in transplanting, they are much easier to handle and, more important, provide a better opportunity for the grower to form the head as he wants it. The smallest grade often has many stunted trees. A first-class tree is free from insects and fungi or the effects of either. Other things being equal, a short, stocky tree is better than a tall, spindling one; one with many branches better than one with few. The best stamp on a peach-tree, however, is a well-developed root-system—many-branched, well-distributed, fibrous, fresh roots. Practically all peach-trees in New York are dug in the fall and kept in storage through the winter.

THE PEACH-ORCHARD AND ITS CARE

The peach-orchard is the consummation of modern fruit-growing. It is more than a plantation of peach-trees, for it personifies ideals and reflects the personality of the owner. A glance at a peach-orchard and one knows whether the proprietor is lazy or industrious, slovenly or orderly, procrastinating or prompt. An orchard of dingy, unhappy peach-trees is an odious sight in the eyes of a good fruit-grower accustomed to nurturing and fondling his own trees. Tenants seldom succeed in peach-growing. Here is a case in which Cato, the sturdy old Roman farmer, is surely right: "The face of the master is good for the land." The peach in our climate is least able of all fruits to subsist without the aid of man. The best trees in the best soil, if neglected, have a short, miserable and profitless existence. These considerations, then, must bring us to the conclusion that growing peaches differs somewhat from growing other fruits. If not more difficult it is at least a finer and more delicate affair in which the laborer and craftsman working by rule give way to men of higher degree who put thought, intelligence and taste into their work.

New York is very fortunate in having much land in all of its peach-districts that is easily prepared for planting. Growers are not called upon to profane the peach by planting it in a field of boulders as in New England nor amongst stumps as in some southern peach-regions. Growers in the State long ago learned that it is an up-hill task to grow the peach in land not thoroughly fitted at the start. Usually the land is prepared a year in advance by putting in a hoed crop, after which it is plowed deeply in the fall, pulverized thoroughly in the spring and then planted as promptly as possible. Fall-planting is not practicable because of severe losses following from winter-killing.

The peach-orchard is usually laid out in meridians and parallels in New York at intervals of 18 by 18 or 20 by 20 feet, the former requiring 134 and the latter 108 trees. The topography of the land sometimes gives preference to the triangular system of setting and rich soils or large growing varieties indicate greater distance while poor soils and small trees suggest closer planting. One thing certain, it is poor orcharding to set the trees too closely. Peaches picked in the pleached alleys of a closely set orchard are few, small and poor in quality. Pride in appearance and convenience in working the trees make perfect alignment imperative. The peach readily self-pollinates so that interplanting varieties is not practiced, but, rather, for convenience in harvesting, varieties are set in solid blocks, growers seldom, nowadays, planting more than three or four sorts. Laying out the land, digging holes, trimming roots, setting trees are all kindergarten operations in fruit-growing, well understood by any one qualified to go into peach-growing.

As to varieties, Elberta is now the mainstay of all the peach-districts, coming in as the mid-season crop. Greensboro, Carman, Champion, and Belle, all white-fleshed; and St. John, Fitzgerald, Niagara and Early Crawford, all yellow-fleshed, the two series named in order of ripening, are standard varieties preceding Elberta in the markets. Standard sorts following are, Oldmixon Free, the only white-fleshed sort, and Crosby, Late Crawford, Kalamazoo, Chili, Smock and Salwey, these also named in order of maturity. A large number of new varieties are on probation in the State of which Arp, Lola, Edgemont, Rochester, J. H. Hale and Frances are now most conspicuous. The peach-flora changes rapidly and many of these favorites of today will be the cast-offs of tomorrow.

In the early life of the orchard, until bearing is well established, an inter-crop is a valuable asset in New York peach-orchards; on the other hand, planted in bearing orchards, any other crop than the peach is a heavy liability. While inter-cropping is not peculiar to New York orchards it is probably more practiced in this State than in any other. Few, indeed, are the plantations in this region that do not sustain themselves for the first three or four years of their existence on the crops grown between the trees. These are, or should be, hoed crops like potatoes, cabbage, beans and cannery crops. He is a sloven, indeed, who would crop his peach-orchard with grass or grain. Along the Hudson, small-fruits are looked upon as permissible, but are everywhere discountenanced in western New York.

Occasionally the peach itself is planted as an inter-crop in apple-orchards. The custom has little to recommend it and is not as common now as it was a few years ago. The objection to the peach as a catch-crop in the apple-orchard is that serious complications arise in orchard-operations, the two fruits often requiring quite different treatment in their care and, in spraying the apple, the peach is almost certain to be more or less injured.

In the matter of cultivation, peach-growers are not in the fog that envelopes and befuddles apple-growers in New York. The peach so luxuriates under thorough cultivation and, on the other hand, the jaundiced leaves and hectic flush of the fruit speak so plainly of evil days when the trees are in sod or unbroken ground that cultivation is universal. Cultivation, as practiced by the best growers, consists of plowing the land in the spring and then frequently stirring the soil until late July or early August. The tools are as diverse as the kinds of soil. Whatever the details, the surface must be kept level, covered with a dust-mulch and free from weeds. In soils that are light, therefore hungry and thirsty, cultivation in the best orchards is almost continuous. To do full duty in such a soil many men cultivate weekly. Disking is sometimes substituted for plowing but this is usually poor policy for the plow buries the mummied peaches that drop in every orchard to scatter countless myriads of spores of brown-rot and so perpetuate this plague of the peach-grower. Winter retreats so sullenly in New York that it is sometimes difficult to find time and weather for early spring plowing so that increasing numbers of peach-growers are plowing their orchards in the fall.

The cover-crop follows the last cultivation. There is a growing suspicion in the State that the value of cover-crops in orchards has been magnified. Comparative tests do not show that trees or small-fruits respond to cover-cropping to as great an extent as from theory one might expect them to do. Thus, in several experiments being conducted by this Station, apples and grapes give no very appreciable response to the various cover-crops—at least pay but doubtfully for the expense of seed and seeding. While there are no very satisfactory experiments to confirm the assumption, it would seem, however, that the peach of all fruits would be most benefitted by cover-crops. It is patent to all who have had orchard-experience that land is in better tilth when some green crop is turned under in fall or spring; so, too, all know that a cover-crop sowed in mid-summer causes the peach to mature its wood and thus go into the winter in better condition; it is not unreasonable to assume, though it is impossible to secure reliable experimental data to confirm the belief, that cover-crops protect the roots of peaches from winter-killing. Leaving out, then, the doubtful value of the cover-crop in furnishing plant-food to the peach, at least three sufficient reasons make it a necessary adjunct of a peach-orchard.

Several cover-crops are now in general use in the peach-orchards of New York, in order of frequency of use about as follows: Clover, vetch, oats, barley, cow-horn turnip, rape, rye, buckwheat. Combination cover-crops are less popular than formerly, cost of seed being the deterrent. Yet many years of experience at this Station and wide observation in the State, unsubstantiated, however, by any experimental work, lead to the conclusion that some combination of a leguminous and a non-leguminous crop makes the most satisfactory cover-crop for the peach. A half-bushel of oats or barley plus twenty pounds of winter vetch or twelve pounds of red clover is possibly the most satisfactory of all cover-crops for this fruit in New York. Occasionally a change from oats to barley, and clover to vetch should be made and once in four or five years rape or cow-horn turnip should be worked into the rotation.

In the matter of fertilizers, the peach-grower early learns humility. He is no sooner certain that his trees must be fertilized and that he has at last hit upon the right formula than his check plats or his neighbor's orchard convince him that he is not getting the worth of his money in fertilizers. In eastern New York, peach-orchards are very generally fertilized and rather heavily, the amounts and formulas being nearly as diverse as the men applying them. In western New York, commercial fertilizers are comparatively little used in peach-orchards. Experiments in fertilizing peaches in progress at this Station are inconclusive and there is nothing to offer from the work here as to what the peach needs in the way of plant-food. In the present state of our knowledge, about the best the peach-grower can do is to assume that, if his trees are vigorous, bearing well and making a fair amount of growth, they need no additional plant-food. If they are not in the condition described, look to the drainage, tillage and health of the trees first and the more expensive and less certain fertilization afterward. More and more, in western New York at least, growers are carrying on simple experiments to obtain positive evidence as to what elements of plant-food their trees need.

The following is an example of such an experiment: (1) Acid phosphate to give about 50 lbs. of phosphoric acid to the acre; (2) phosphate as above and muriate of potash to give 100 lbs. of potash to the acre; (3) phosphate and muriate as above and nitrate of soda and dried blood to give 50 lbs. of nitrogen per acre; (4) six tons of stable manure is applied on a fourth plat; (5) a similar plat is left unfertilized for a check.

No fallacy dies harder than that fertilizers will cure yellows. Nitrate of soda is a great rejuvenator of trees suffering from yellows brought on by sod or lack of tillage but no fact in peach-orcharding has been more thoroughly demonstrated than that neither this fertilizer nor any other will in the least benefit trees suffering from true yellows or from the somewhat similar trouble, little-peach.

Of all fruit-trees, pruning is most used with the peach in regulating the development of the tree. In its early years, we may almost say that the peach "lives by the knife." At all stages of growth the vigorous use of the knife is indispensable in keeping the peach in proper bounds, and yet, rather paradoxically, knife and saw must be used sometime or other in the life of every peach-orchard to stimulate growth or at least to force out new growths. Indispensable as a certain amount of pruning is in training the peach, there is no question in the minds of those who have studied the subject but that it is much more often overdone than underdone. There are no fixed rules in pruning peaches and to discuss in full the diverse theories and practices is not within the range of this exposition. All that can be attempted is briefly to set down what the present practices are in the State.

In transplanting, the peach suffers severe root-pruning, an operation that it does not bear well. Thus deprived of its roots, the young tree must have its top correspondingly diminished. Two practices are in vogue in New York in this curtailment of the top as the trees go from the nursery to the orchard. The most common practice is to cut the young tree back to a whip and then shorten-in the whip. New branches spring freely from this bare stub but these do not always come where they are wanted and often the new wood comes only from the stock. These objections to pruning to a whip have brought about a modification in which the branches are cut back to stubs of two or three buds. In a series of experiments now in progress on the Station grounds it seems certain that the second method is better than the first.

Two forms of top are open to choice—the vase-form, or open-centered tree, and the globe-form, or close-centered tree. In the first the framework of the tree consists of a short trunk, surmounted by four or five main branches ascending obliquely. In the second the trunk is continued above the branches, forming the center of the tree, and, later being headed in, a globe-like head is formed. In New York the vase-form is nearly always chosen. In neither case is the task difficult since the peach springs almost at once into tree-form with a full complement of branches. Beginning with the second year the main branches are shortened back from one-third to one-half their growth, if heading back seem necessary, cutting to upper and inner buds so that the oblique ascending vase-form is maintained. The pruning of the third season is much the same, except that some of the interior branches should be removed to open up the heads to air and sunshine. The third season's pruning is repeated from year to year, having in mind that the slow-growing, hardy, productive sorts can be pruned much more severely than the free-growing, tender kinds. Open forks are a serious menace and are carefully avoided to lessen the danger of splitting when branches are heavily laden. About the most common mistake is that of cutting out too much wood, thereby inducing so heavy a growth in the parts that remain that winter-killing takes place; at best it makes necessary continued heavy pruning for several seasons to keep the trees in manageable size and shape.

Heading-in as described in the foregoing paragraphs is necessary because the peach bears the bulk of its crop high up on its branches, which are often broken by the weight so that after a bountiful harvest the orchard looks as if a cyclone had swept through it. As the limbs lengthen, too, it becomes increasingly difficult to pick the peaches. Even with annual heading-in the bearing wood eventually gets too far from the ground and the grower may have to resort to decapitating the trees—an operation commonly known by the inapt term "dehorning." When old trees are thus to be rejuvenated the limbs are sawed off during the dormant season to within two feet or thereabouts of the trunk. The tree will then form a new head which will in a season or two set fruit-buds and bear a crop. The orchard may thus very often be renewed or even re-renewed, lengthening its life by several seasons. In thus decapitating trees, however, one season is always lost, sometimes two, and the writer questions if it is not better to give the peach a "merry life and a short one" rather than resort to decapitation to prolong its days. Most growers may well throw dehorning into the rubbish-heap of the not-worth-while.

Occasionally one sees in the State orchards in which the top is sheared to a level plane. This shearing follows a fashion, now happily going out, as it cannot come from any well-thought-out design. It takes but a moment's study of the sheared tree to see the faults of the method. Strong shoots are cut back too much, weak ones not enough; superfluous shoots are not removed but, to the contrary, multiplied as in shearing a hedge. Heading-in some or all of the shoots may be very necessary but shearing to a line—never.

Summer-pruning is not practiced in New York peach-orchards. No doubt every grower, however, as he goes about among his trees in the growing season cuts back a branch outstripping its neighbors, removes an occasional unruly member or one out of place, pinches here and rubs there, better to train his trees to the ideal he has in mind. Certainly no harm is done by such summer-pruning when the trees are strong and vigorous.

This record of pruning practices in New York cannot be closed without stating that there are growers who do not prune—not only through neglect but as a matter of principle. Chiefly, these are men more accustomed to the other tree-fruits—most of which make a fair showing without pruning—than to the peach. The peach can go a few years unpruned without becoming an abnormal orchard-specimen but left to itself to the prime of life without the reinvigorating and form-giving knife a peach-orchard becomes a woeful spectacle. The limbs crowd, choke and kill each other, except the strongest or those most fortunately placed, which push aloft, bearing at their extremities sparse-foliaged, parasol-like canopies of jaundiced foliage which furnish no protection from the blaze of the sun to the bare, bark-burned, gum-covered trunk and branches. The tree-tops are populous with dead and dying twigs and do not furnish sufficient nutriment for the normal development of fruit or tree. These unpruned peach-orchards, come to old age, are the saddest sights of the country. After the first few crops, when the flush of vigor has passed, they cannot be profitable and it would seem the sooner the axe lays them low the better for the owner. Not to prune the peach is consummate neglect.

Peaches are thinned to improve the fruit that remains, to save the vigor of the tree, and destroy insect- or disease-infected fruits. Commendable as these objects are, the practice is all too seldom observed in New York. The objections are scarcity and high cost of labor. Still the best growers always thin, doing the work soon after the summer drop which usually occurs six to eight weeks after the blossoming-time and just as the pits in the embryonic fruits begin to harden. It requires good judgment to tell at the time of thinning what will prove superfluity at the harvest. Vigor of tree, variety, fertility and moisture in the soil, the season, diseases and insects, all must be considered. The common advice is to thin the fruits so that they will not be nearer together than from four to six inches but the skillful growers adjust the size of the crop to the orchard and seasonal conditions. Thinning really begins, it should be said, in the winter when the trees are dormant and redundant branches and superfluous wood on the parts remaining are cut out. By delaying winter-pruning until danger of winter-killing is passed many growers save labor in summer-thinning, since, as early as this, fruit-prospects are fore-shadowed.

It is interesting to record that peach-orchards are never top-grafted in New York though it seems to be a matter of rather frequent practice in the South and far West. There are plenty of occasions for working over peach-trees in this State; as, when poor varieties are substituted, or in changes in fashion in peaches, or on finding a variety poorly adapted to orchard-conditions. But under any of these unfortunate circumstances in New York the axe and the grub-hoe make way for a new planting rather than trust to the skill of the grafter. Old peach-trees can, of course, be either budded over or grafted over to a new variety but we take it that a century of experience has demonstrated that changing the whole tree is better than changing the top.

HARVESTING, MARKETING AND PROFITS

The beginning of the Twentieth Century is marked as a period in which commercial affairs in agriculture are being more highly developed than ever before. Temporarily, the idea of making two blades of grass grow where one grew before is eclipsed by the idea that success in agriculture is quite as much dependent on business management as on large production. We need, then, in The Peaches of New York to set down as precisely as possible, as a record of the times, the business side of peach-growing. This we conceive, so far as the fruit-grower is concerned, consists of matters having to do with growing, picking, grading, packing, cooling and shipping, while the affairs of the several go-betweens from producer to consumer belong to merchanting rather than orcharding. Not that the grower is without interest in the selling of his products—far from it. There is no better ballast to keep the fruit-dealer steady than knowledge of all of his dealings on the part of the fruit-grower.

Among Caucasians green peaches have a bad reputation. Adage, prose and poetry bear witness that any curtailment of the sun's maturing function in this fruit is going against nature and makes an altogether unwholesome product. But in China and Japan the peach is habitually eaten green and hard. Fungi play such havoc with peaches in Oriental countries that the fruit must be devoured green or the crop is lost. A green peach is quite as palatable, nutritious and wholesome as a green olive. The ripe product of the one is just as superior to the green as is the other. All this not to point a moral or adorn a tale but to bring out the fact that the green peach is an edible fruit and that the annual performance of health inspectors in all large markets in condemning carloads of green peaches as unfit for food while green olives, apples, pears, plums, cherries and grapes pass muster, is an unjust discrimination against the peach. The peach is, of course, best when ripe, soft, melting and luscious, but so are all other fruits and all should be accorded the same treatment by consumers and health inspectors.

The peach in western countries is picked for market when it has attained full size and is passing from the hard state of the green peach to the softer mature condition. The picker tells by eye and by pressure of the peach between thumb and finger when a peach is ready for picking. White-fleshed peaches are green in color when picked but turn to greenish-white or yellowish-white as maturity proceeds; yellow-fleshed turn from yellowish-green to lemon or orange-yellow. The full flavor of the ripe peach develops only when the fruit ripens on the tree but ripe fruit cannot be shipped and peaches are therefore picked at the stage in advance of full maturity that will permit them to reach the market at maturity—one or two days in New York, six or seven in California. Peach-picking is a delicate business for it is equally disastrous to gather the crop before it is ripe enough or to delay a day or two too long.

Few picking appliances are needed for the peach in New York since the trees are trained so low most of the fruit can be picked from the ground or from a short step-ladder. The knack of peach-picking consists of tipping the fruit sidewise with a light twist which releases it from the branch without the bruise of a direct pull. The care in handling depends largely on the temperament of the picker—a coarse, careless ruffian cannot handle the tender-fleshed peach with the consideration it deserves. Women are much employed in picking peaches. Two systems of managing pickers are in vogue: They are employed by the day in charge of a competent foreman; or the picker is supplied with tickets or tally cards and is paid by the basket. The day-system is commonest and most satisfactory. When peach-picking is in full swing a man can pick 100 half-bushel baskets in a day of sorts like Elberta in which the fruits ripen at the same time, but the quantity grows smaller and smaller as the varieties decrease in size and increase in length of ripening-time. Peaches are usually graded and packed indoors, being brought under cover in special picking receptacles into which the fruit is put as it comes from the tree. Packing indoors is a comparatively modern innovation, the method a decade or two ago being to pack in the field as is occasionally done now, more especially for local markets.

Grading peaches is still a matter of local or personal practice in New York as it is the country over. No state seems yet to have regulated by law the grading of peaches, as several have done with the apple. The need is quite as great for such laws for one fruit as for the other, and no doubt grading peaches in New York will soon be regulated by the strong arm of the law as is grading apples. The essentials in good grading as now practiced are fair or large size for the variety, high and characteristic color, uniformity in size and color, freedom from bruises and insect and fungus injuries, and full and characteristic flavor for the variety. Peaches vary much in shape and pubescence depending on soil and climate—so much that through variations in these characters the identity of varieties is sometimes lost—but grading is not yet sufficiently refined to take note of either character. Good growers sort into at least three grades, counting culls.

Not solely as a matter of record but to inspire further progress as well, we record the fact that New York is behind the times in the package used in sending peaches to market. The antiquated Delaware package, a truncated cone holding a third- or a half-bushel, is now the most popular package with growers. This package is a poor carrier, clumsy and easily tipped over, its sides are so thin that the fruit bruises, it is easily opened by thieves and it is unattractive. The reason for its popularity among growers may be guessed when its sole merit is named—peaches need less sorting and are easily packed in this Delaware package. The grand jury of consumers, the country over, has declared for a smaller package for dessert peaches than the Delaware truncated cone and a larger one for culinary peaches. Better in every way, and more and more used by growers in the State are the several sizes of climax baskets. The best of all peach-packages, the Georgia carrier, is just coming into use in New York. It is a crate holding six four-quart till-baskets. These till-baskets are dainty and attractive, fulfilling well the adage "good goods come in small packages." The Georgia carrier is conceded by all to hold the palm of merit for long-distance shipments of dessert peaches. The bushel and half-bushel, round-bottom, farm type, the substantial cover supported by a stout peg between cover and bottom, are being more and more used for shipping the home canning supply. In western New York the bushel basket, if not now, promises soon to be the most popular of all peach-packages.

Our common commercial container, the Delaware basket, is seldom a packed package. The peaches are turned in, assorted somewhat as to size, and the top layer faced with the red cheek up. The climax basket requires more care in packing. The fruit must be arranged in layers and tiers according to the size of peach and basket. Skill and not a little ingenuity are displayed in packing the dainty till-baskets for the Georgia carrier, all depending on the size, uniformity and shape of the peach. The peaches are placed in rows and tiers which regularly alternate and cover much as in a box of packed apples. The peach-harvest in New York usually comes in pleasant weather so that the packing house is generally but a screen from the blaze of the sun, put up in the orchard. The packages, both before and after filling, are, of course, kept clean and dry under permanent cover.

The peach is so handsome and delectable, for that matter so pleasing to all of the senses, that every fruit-grower takes special pride in a finely-finished product going to market and more often than with any other fruit advertises his wares with a label. These show original ownership, where grown, often the variety, always the grade and usually advertise the whole farm and its product. Some growers have their labels registered in the United States Patent Office.

New York peach-growers profit more and more from cold-storage. Peaches can be kept for a few weeks in storage at the freezing point or just above but they soon lose texture and flavor on coming out and cannot compete with fresh peaches which reach the markets every day from some source from May until November. Precooling before shipment, now but coming into practice, is of inestimable value in the heat of the summer. The fruit is quickly packed and then cooled to 40° F. in a central station or by forcing cold air through loaded cars, and then goes under refrigeration to destination. In eastern New York peaches go mostly to New York City by night-boat but refrigerator service is an absolute necessity for western New York and has been very generally installed by the railroads of the region. The precooling station is to be the next step in advance.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE NEW YORK PEACH-CROP

In the past the great problems of peach-growers, as of those who grow other agricultural products, have been cultural in their essential character. Attention to problems of distribution have had to do with the opening up of new regions of production—the expansion of the agricultural domain; with developing means of transportation—railroad lines, steamboat service, canals; and in developing centers of consumption in the cities and towns which have been springing up everywhere in the habitable parts of America. Until recent years, little has been done in studying the commercial disposition of agricultural products. Now, however, studies are being made everywhere of the distributive systems by which products get to market and to determine what share of the consumer's price should go to the producer and what to the distributor. Everywhere the importance of these economic studies is recognized and no producer sees more clearly than the New York peach-grower the need of improvement in handling products to distribute risks, reduce risks, decrease the numbers in the vast armies of middlemen and in every way improve defective distribution. But these questions belong to specialists—economists. We wish here only to furnish a few fundamental data which may be of use to all concerned in the distribution of the peach-crop.

In the economic study of the peach-industry in the State it is essential to know the volume of the product in the State; what proportion of the total different sections produce; how the crop is distributed in consumption; and the movement of the peach-crop from competing peach-states. These data we undertake to furnish for the year 1915, a normal peach-year, taking the figures from the transportation lines handling peaches in New York so far as obtainable. The volume of the product for western New York is shown by figures taken from the New York Central Railroad258 and the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Peaches were shipped from towns as follows:

These figures include plums but the shipment of plums in 1915 was so insignificant as to be negligible and more than offset by shipments of peaches not accounted for by the carriers named.

In addition to the above the American Express Company took out of this territory about 175 cars, mostly in less than car-lot shipments.

Accurate figures could not be obtained from the Hudson River Valley and Long Island shipping points as so much of the fruit is shipped by water, but, basing the yield in 1915 on the census reports of 1909 as to yields and number of trees as compared with similar data for these years from western New York, a rough approximation of the number of carloads in eastern New York is 600. From reports received from the chief Hudson River navigation lines it would seem that they probably carried about one hundred carloads.

Practically all of the 600 carloads grown in eastern New York were consigned to New York City or nearby towns. From the above table we may assume that about 5000 carloads were produced in the rest of the State and we are fortunate in having a record as to where 4419 of these were consigned. The New York Central Railroad distributed the number of carloads named as follows:259

Analyzing these figures we find that the 4,419 carloads reached 339 destinations grouped as follows:260

The nine cities which took over one-half of the crop are:

While these nine cities took over one-half the 1915 peach-crop, twenty-one cities took 3,018 carloads. In addition to those already named, these cities are as follows:

COSTS IN GROWING PEACHES

Peach-growing is a game of chance from start to finish; advantages and disadvantages in location are exceedingly changeable; risks to tree and crop attendant on weather are many; the trees are beset on all sides by diseases and parasites for two of which in New York, yellows and little-peach, there is no preventive, antidote nor alleviation; transportation is perilous, competition keen, and markets fitful. Add variability in investment and the difficulties in calculating profits in peach-growing are apparent. On the other hand, keeping accounts in peach-growing is not as difficult and complicated as in growing other fruits. The peach is not as long-lived, barring accidents the trees bear more regularly, the crop is quickly disposed of, orchard-operations among growers are more uniform, and, no doubt, the very fact that the peach partakes so much of speculation makes growers a little keener on striking balances at the end of the season. At any rate there is a great body of material in the reports of the horticultural societies in New York on costs in peach-growing and from these data, together with notes taken for several years, we venture to estimate the present costs per acre of the several items entering into peach-production. To attempt to go further and calculate profits, with all of the inconstant factors of yields and markets, would be guessing pure and simple.

Let us consider the cost of production in a ten-acre orchard. This unit is now, however, rather too small, for more and more growers are giving up general farming, finding peach-growing an exacting, full-time vocation. Often enough it is successfully combined with the growing of other fruits, but less and less so with the growing of farm-crops. The first item in cost of production is interest on investment. What value is to be placed on a New York peach-orchard?

The value must be calculated from the cost of land and trees and the labor and the deferred dividends until the orchard comes into profitable bearing. Selling price is never a safe gauge with the peach, sales usually being made under conditions more abnormal than in almost any other phase of farming and showing great variability in every locality. Suppose we place the value at $400 per acre, a sum sufficiently high to cover, besides the cost of the orchard, the overhead expenses of houses and barns that would fall to ten acres of a New York farm. Interest now runs at five percentum so that the first expense item is $20.00 per acre on investment. Assessment rates on land so valued would bring taxes up to $1.00 per acre.

The equipment needed to care for a peach-orchard is quite uniform the State over and the cost of the several items varies scarcely at all, so that a very close approximation may be made of the total cost. The items run about as follows: Team and harness at present price, $500; spraying outfit, $250; wagon, plow, harrow, ladders, crates, pruning tools, etc., $250; total, $1,000. These figures are below the mark rather than above but the instances are few in which the equipment itemized would be used exclusively for a ten-acre peach-orchard; in fact, with this equipment thirty acres could be cared for. It is not total cost, however, but depreciation and interest on money with which we are concerned. Setting these at 20 percentum, we have $20.00 per acre to charge to maintenance of equipment.

Year in and year out, tillage is the most costly ingredient in the making of a good peach-orchard. It consists of plowing once a year, fall or spring, and harrowing on the average at least ten times a season. High cost of labor brings this item up to $10.00 per acre which includes seeding the cover-crop but not the cost of seed, for which an additional charge of $2.50 must be made for a combination crop of red clover and oats or of vetch and barley.

It would seem easiest of all to ascertain the cost of fertilizers for the peach but the practices are so diverse and fertilizers are applied so irregularly by those who use them at all that the data at hand are almost worthless. Those who plow under cover-crops regularly, spend little for fertilizers; an occasional dressing of stable manure answers for fertilization with many; still more, so uncertain of results as to feel they are "buying a pig in the poke," spend nothing for fertilizers. We shall enter a charge of $5.00 per acre for fertilizers though this is without question above the average even if only successful orchards be considered.

A more certain charge is that for pruning. The problems in pruning are more of the mind than the hand and once the work is laid out it goes along rapidly. An acre-average of $3.00 is sufficient to cover the expense of pruning and thinning may be done, year in and year out, at the same cost.

The peach-orchard is customarily sprayed but once in New York, an application of the lime-sulphur wash being made to prevent leaf-curl and to destroy San Jose scale. The cost of this single spray cannot be more than $4.00 per acre but to this must be added a charge for protection against mice and rabbits, destruction of borers and cutting out trees infected with yellows or little-peach, averaging, all told, at least $8.00 for keeping under pests.

The services of a peach-grower are worth more than the time of the men who do the actual labor. It is but fair, then, that an allowance be made for superintending the work. Since a competent orchardist can superintend a farm enterprise of several times the magnitude of a ten-acre orchard, but part can be allowed for superintendence, $300 for the season being a fair price, or $30.00 per acre.

Picking, grading, packing and hauling are all operations that cost no two men the same for any one. Without attempting to segregate these items an approximation of the total cost of all, based on a considerable amount of data, is $30.00 per acre. This sum does not include the cost of packages.

This brings us to a summary of the cost sheet in growing the average acre of peaches:

Pushing this calculation further, the cost per tree runs at $1.32¹/₂, there being 100 trees to the acre in the average orchard in the State. Peach-growers expect 150 bushels per acre during the bearing time of the peach, and dividing 132.50 by 150 we have 88¹/₃ cents as the average cost, exclusive of the package, per bushel of peaches in New York. In this calculation it is assumed that the peach comes in profitable bearing at five years after setting and that the orchard is on the home stretch in the fifteenth lap, giving ten bearing seasons, at least three of which will be fruitless.

Peach-growers to whom this cost sheet has been submitted say 88 cents is too high a cost for producing a bushel of peaches but asked to consider the several items agree that most of them are too low. No doubt few who figure the cost of production include the item of superintendency which increases the cost for each bushel 20 cents. So, too, the average yield given is considered high. Granting that they may be high, all of the figures are permitted to stand, on the theory that the yield bears a close relationship to the expense of production—increased costs stand for increased yields. In tabulations of this kind much is usually made of the cost of bringing the orchard in bearing. In this calculation the high charge of investment goes to cover the cost of the first five years, the period of incubation, so to speak, and it is certain that this, with the sale of inter-crops, covers all expenditures for the first five years.

DISEASES OF THE PEACH

The peach is attacked by a half-score or more diseases in New York, two of which, yellows and little-peach, have this fruit quite at their mercy, there being no preventive, antidote, nor means of alleviation for either. Two other diseases, brown-rot and leaf-curl, are always present and often bring disaster, their virulency depending on locality, season, weather and variety, but both are amenable to treatment and at most destroy only foliage and fruit, while yellows and little-peach take their toll in trees. The several other diseases to be discussed are either easily controlled or are of minor importance.

Yellows is a malignant disease or condition of the peach, very contagious, usually virulent, of which we know neither cause, origin nor cure. We know only its unmistakable symptoms, its terrible consequences. The history of yellows, the circumstances of its coming and its effects have been given in a foregoing chapter so that we need to discuss now only the symptoms and means of preventing the direct results of the disease.

In its later stages the symptoms are characteristic enough and cannot be confounded with those of any other malady or condition of the tree. The marks of yellows are: (1) Premature ripening of the fruit accompanied by red blotches over the surface and red streaks running through the flesh; (2) premature unfolding of leaf-buds into willowy growths of tips and the production of shoots upon the trunk or main branches with growths developing into bunchy tufts of yellow or reddish foliage; (3) total discoloration of the foliage.

Prematureness in ripening varies from a few days to several weeks; the earlier it occurs, the smaller the fruit. When diseased fruit ripens near the normal season the peaches may be full size, showy to voluptuousness and marked outwardly only by the hectic red of the disease. The taste indicates the disease—in insipid, mawkish or bitter specimens which show the red color and undersize of prematured peaches. During the first season prematured fruit may show only on particular branches or even on a single shoot which may not differ in appearance from other parts of the tree. Prematureness, unaccompanied by other symptoms of yellows, may be due to borers, drought, neglect, girdling or similar causes.

The second symptom is the opening of winter-buds out of season. This usually occurs a year later than the appearance of prematured, red-colored fruits. The buds may push forth shortly after they have formed in mid-summer while the tree-top is still bearing its fruit and foliage or they may delay until the next spring, to appear a few days in advance of normal leafing-time. Very often these buds begin growth in the autumn after healthy leaves have fallen. Such diseased buds may develop on tips of branches, especially water-sprouts, but feeble, sickly shoots due to the disease usually appear in considerable numbers on main limbs and on the trunk, no doubt under the influence of the yellows on old resting buds buried deep in the bark of the wood. Sometimes these yellow shoots are unbranched but oftener they are much branched and frequently but bunchy tufts of foliage, stems slender, leaves pale green, small, narrow and standing out stiffly at nearly right angles to the stems.

In the final stage of the disease the trees assume the yellowish leaves which give name to the trouble, though sometimes the yellow is tinged with red. Yellows is an unfortunate name since so many other troubles of the peach cause the foliage to take on the jaundiced appearance of this disease. The third stage marks the beginning of the end—sometimes three years, sometimes five or six, but always death sooner or later, there being no instance on record of a diseased tree having been cured.

This, in brief, is the usual course of yellows, but it follows no invariable rule in its development. Yellows is known to be spread as a contagion by affected buds in nursery stock, by nursery-trees, by orchard-trees, and may even be communicated by pits from affected trees. That it must be caused or transmitted in still other ways is apparent to all who have had experience with the disease. It seems not, however, to linger in the soil, for trees may be set in the very spots from whence diseased plants have been removed without danger to the newcomer. "War to the knife and the knife to the hilt"—absolute extermination, root and branch, by ax and fire, is the only known method of subduing yellows.

Little-peach is possibly a variant of peach-yellows or, at least, is very similar in nature. It seems to have been described first in Michigan in the early nineties of the last century but had attacked orchards in New York before that time so that it is now impossible to say where it first appeared. Be that as it may, the disease is not now the exclusive possession of either state but in the twenty years of its history has become as widely distributed as yellows, covering about the same territory, and seems now to be equally destructive. Outwardly the disease differs from yellows chiefly: (1) In delayed rather than premature ripening of the under-sized fruits of little-peach; (2) the leaves usually show more green than in yellows and show a decided tendency to droop or roll; (3) little-peach, as a rule, appears later in the season than yellows; (4) the characteristic, sickly, wiry shoots of yellows are seldom present in little-peach. Little-peach is kept at bay, as in yellows, by extermination of affected trees.

Rosette, though distinct in most of its symptoms from yellows and little-peach, is clearly similar in nature, is just as virulent and contagious, is communicated in the same ways and requires the same treatment. On trees affected with rosette the fruits shrivel and drop and tufts or rosettes of leaves develop freely. Rosette is not found in New York nor north of the Potomac and hence is of but passing interest to peach-growers in this State.

Brown-rot (Sclerotinia fructigena (Persoon) Schroeter), known also as fruit-mold and ripe-rot, attacks flowers and shoots of the peach, but is most conspicuous on the ripe or ripening fruits. Here its presence is quickly detected by a dark discoloration of the skin which is afterwards partly or wholly covered with pustule-like aggregations of gray spores. The decayed fruits fall to the ground or more often hang to the tree, becoming shriveled mummies, each mummy being a storehouse of fungus threads and spores from which infestation spreads to the next crop. The rot spreads with surprising rapidity on the fruits in warm, damp weather either before the fruit is picked or in baskets while being shipped or stored. Preventive remedies have so far met with but indifferent success; probably the best method of control is to destroy the mummy-like fruits and all other sources of infection either by picking them from the trees, or much better by plowing them under deeply. Even so it is impossible to exterminate all of the countless myriads of brown-rot spores. Spraying with the self-boiled lime-sulphur mixture three times at intervals of three weeks, beginning as the calyxes drop, is the appointed preventive but the results are uncertain, as this is one of the diseases in which it is difficult to touch the spot in spraying. Varieties of peaches show various degrees of susceptibility to brown-rot.

Peach leaf-curl (Exoascus deformans (Berk.) Fuckel) is the best-known and probably the most prevalent fungus disease of the peach in New York. The disease appears in early spring as the leaves unfold and continues until warm, dry, summer weather prevails. The name describes the disease so that all may know it—the leaves curl, then become puckered, distorted and much thickened, turn from normal green to yellow, tinged with red, and finally fall. In severe cases the trees may be defoliated, though a second covering of leaves almost always comes out. Leaf-curl is most prevalent and most virulent in cool, moist weather. The disease is easily controlled by spraying with lime-sulphur, bordeaux mixture or any other good fungicide applied while the trees are dormant.

In common with other species of Prunus the foliage of peaches is attacked by several fungi which produce diseased spots on the leaves, the dead areas usually dropping out leaving holes as if punctured by shot, giving the names "shot-hole fungus," "leaf-spot" and "leaf-blight." Two fungi are in the main responsible for these leaf-troubles, Cylindrosporium padi Karsten and Cercospora circumscissa Saccardo. The ravages of these fungi are prevented by the use of the self-boiled lime-sulphur mixture. With these, as with other fungi, cultivation has a salutary effect as it destroys diseased leaves which harbor the fungi during their resting period and keeps the trees vigorous enough to resist the fungi.

Peach-scab (Cladosporium carpophilum Thüm.) is a common and destructive fungus in peach-growing districts on the Atlantic seaboard and is found rather frequently in New York but seldom does much injury in the State. It appears in sooty, black spots and blotches on the surface of the peach, causing atrophy and hardening of the parts affected which, in severe cases, crack badly. Twigs and leaves may be affected. White-fleshed sorts suffer most and are ruined for the market even in mild attacks. Self-boiled lime and sulphur, if it does not wholly prevent infections, at least alleviates the trouble.

Peach-growers in New York are much plagued by a mildew yet suffer small loss from it, though the disease greatly injures peach-foliage in some regions. The delicate, white or grayish powder, giving the name "powdery mildew," consists of the spores and mycelium of a fungus (Sphærotheca pannosa (Wallroth) Léveillé) which attacks the leaves of several species of Prunus causing them to curl and crinkle and sometimes to drop. It occurs most often when there are sudden changes in temperature. When treatment is necessary, the self-boiled lime-sulphur mixture is used.

In common with all tree-fruits, the peach is attacked by crown-gall (Bacterium tumefaciens Smith and Townsend). In New York crown-gall seldom greatly injures old trees but nursery plants are sometimes girdled by the galls, seriously injuring them. Badly diseased young plants, therefore, should not be planted. The galls are tumor-like structures, usually at the juncture of top and root, which vary from the size of a pea to that of a large egg, forming at maturity rough, knotty, dark-colored masses. Neither preventive nor cure is known. Planting diseased trees is not a safe practice, nor should the peach be set in ground known to have recently had trees badly infected. The raspberry is a common carrier of crown-gall and should not be planted as an inter-crop in a peach-orchard.

The peach suffers more or less from an excessive flow of gum. This gumming is usually a secondary effect of injuries caused by fungi, bacteria, insects, frost, sunscald, and mechanical agencies. There is a good deal of difference in the susceptibilities of varieties to this trouble, sorts having hard wood suffering less than those having soft wood. There is less gumming, too, on trees in soils favoring the maturity of wood, under conditions where sun and frost are not injurious, and, obviously, in orchards where by good care the primary causes of the diseases are kept out.