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THE

CULTURE AND DISEASES

OF

THE PEACH;

A COMPLETE TREATISE
FOR THE
USE OF PEACH GROWERS AND GARDENERS,
OF
PENNSYLVANIA,
AND ALL
DISTRICTS AFFECTED BY THE ‘“ YELLOWS,”
AND ‘

OTHER DISEASES OF THE TREE.

———————__~+#2e___—_—_-
Las ! “
“Q 3 BY JOHN RUTTER,

West Chester, Pa.

Ex-President of the Chester County Horticultural Society and
Honorary Member of the Penn nia
Fruit Growers’ Sogetyoy of :

R
iu COPYRIGY + iN
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=0AS3S ¢

lek tagl SATURDAY NIGHT OFFICE,
1880.

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HG ‘according to act of Goniiees | in the yess i
» MORN RUTTER co .. ae cs
in the Oe of the Librarian of Congress at Wa
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ipa eran Lat

a

INTRODUCTORY.

os

A desire to see the great State of Pennsyl-
vania, and more especially its rich and fertile
districts east of the mountains, engaged in the
cultivation of the Peach, and supplying the
markets of its cities with this luscious fruit,
instead of spending thousands of dollars an-
nually for the benefit of the peach growers of
Delaware and Maryland, is the impulse that
prompted me to write the following pages, and
to present them to the public.

It is well known that the Peach would be
extensively cultivated in this State, did not the
fatal disease, the Yellows, prevent its success-
ful cultivation. My long experience in the cul-
tivation of this fruit gives me the passport toa
correct knowledge of this disease, and how to

lv

prevent it. In these pages will be found the
results of my experience, and the description
of successful manipulation of the peach orchard
to combat its diseases.

If these instructions are followed out by our
farmers and fruit growers generally, the day is
not far distant when Eastern Pennsylvania will
supply the markets of Philadelphia and New
York with better peaches than now come from
the celebrated peach districts of Delaware and
Maryland.

JOHN RUTTER.

West Cuester, March 1, 1880.

THE PEACH AND ITS DISEASES.

—_—0———

IT is universally admitted that the Peach is
regarded as the most delicious, popular, and highly
esteemed of all the summer and fall fruits grown
within the limits of our temporate climate and par-
ticularly within the Middle States. It was intro
duced by the early settlers of the country at different
places and at different periods, from 1650 to 1680,
taking rank with the apple and the small fruits
around the rustic habitations, adding its rich tribute
to the scanty luxuries of these heroic pioneers in
our American forests. Keeping pace with the suc-
cessive settlements of the country, by the hardy
adventurers of almost every nation, it became in-
dispensible to the garden and orchard—these Edens
of their primitive homes. The tree grew in the
newly upturned virgin soil of the country in great
vigor and fruitfulness, from Massachusetts to the
extreme settlements in the South, giving the most
unmistakable evidence of its adaptability to the soil
and climate of its new location, reveling for the time
under the shelter and protection of the forests, and

6 THE PEACH

free from all insect depredations or injury from
disease, and rivaling in growth and productiveness
the famed orchards of Persia and China, the reputed
countries of its birth.

Such is its great excellence from improved va-
rieties now cultivated and known to the country,
and as exposed in our markets daily through the
season of its maturity,that we can scarcely be
charged with undue enthusiasm in rating the su-
perior qualities of the Peach—its lusciousness of
taste and great beauty of color—by uniting in our
praise with the old Pomologists “that it excels all
other fruits of the earth,” It has been aptly said
that no fruit this side of Paradise has ever rivaled
it, and as a wholesome fruit of the season it has the
highest character from the medical profession. Half
acentury ago the expression was often quoted “ that
a basket of healthy ripe Peaches in the market was
worth more than a pound of calomel in the shop,
and that it robbed the doctor of a patient and the
druggist of a prescription.” In its adaptability to
the soil and climate of the United States the Peach
is assigned the widest range of any other fruit, and
such is the estimation in which it is everywhere
held, that even in countries beyond its climatic limits
of open culture, it finds a place in the orchard house
forced under glass or on the trellis against a south.
ern wall, under the care and skill of the expert
gardener, and isconsidered the greatest luxury of the
season. So well is this fruit known throughout the

AND ITS DISEASE. 7
country and especially in Pennsylvania, that it
would be but a repetition of what we already know
to go into any detail of its history, other than in
connection with the injuries and diseases to which
it is subject, and particularly as affecting us here
in Pennsylvania, within reach of the markets of
Philadelphia and New York. In this connection I
use the words INJURIES and DISEASES, as it is gen”
erally believed that the peach tree is specia'ly sub’
ject to injuries and diseases over and above all other
varieties of fruit trees common to our gardens and
orchards. In removing this delusion I am pleased
to be able to say—that from my experience in the
cultivation of this fruit in Pennsylvania, Delaware
and Maryland, which has been quite extensive, and
from my personal observations over a region ex-
tending, from New York to Florida—which obser-
vations have neither been casual nor limited in al]
this range of a varied soil and climate—I have seen
and learned of but one disease destructive to the
tree, and that is the specific disease termed the
‘‘ yellows,” and one as fatal to the Peach as yellow
fever is to the human race, calling for a specific
remedy or prevertative to arrest its progress. All
other causes affecting the peach tree are but slightly
injurious and of but little account, and are found
prevailing as well in what is considered the healthy
peach districts in Southern Maryland, and further
south, where the tree now stands in thrifty growth
and productiveness, having attained a size of from

8 THE PEACH

one to two feet and over in diameter, and an age
of from fifty to one hundred years. The injuries
caused by the Peach borer and small insects that
infest the bark and the leaves are mythical in com-
parison with the “ yellows,” a disease from which
it has been said nonesurvive. The borer for along
time was considered the active agent in causing the
yellows. This opinion however has been long since
exploded. His sharp cutting mandibles are as clear
of communicating disease as the clean steel of the
sharp instrument that follows him with unerring
fatality to his rather insecure quarters at the root of
the tree. The borer has been long enough the scape
goat for the true “murderer,” and although he is
a most. audacious sneak thief to the peach orchard,
he carries no contagion or infection with him in his
depredations in supplying his wants and gratifying
his appetite. He makes no effort to escape our
vigilance, but is always found at the scene of his
depredations, and is as easily captured in Pennsyl-
vania asin the great peach centres in Delaware and
Maryland, the fields of his greatest success. In
healthy and unhealthy districts as well as in healthy
and unhealthy trees the borer is found and no place
escapes him. He has no Hast, no West, no North
no South—he is the autocrat of his empire eating
out the substance of his people.

We will here for the present knowing his haunts
and how to counteract and prevent his depredations
leave him and turn our attention to the greater evil

AND ITS DISEASE. 9

which prevails in the EKastern, Western and North.
ern States, and see what the scientific detectives
have done and are now doing to discover the cause
of the great ravages he has made in the peach
orchard.

In placing this enemy in the category of those
diseases which have been and continue to be so de-
fiant to the advances of scientific investigation, let
us still apply a due portion of attention in this di-
rection in our comparisoa of the ravages of diseases
that are counterpart to this one in animal life; such
for example, as the pleuro-pneumonia in cattle,
trichina in pork, rot and scab in sheep, rabies in
that intolerable nuisance the doz, pleurisy and the
hundred diseases the horse is subject to, and all the
complicated ills of the human system where so
many malign causes are constantly at work, baffling
ages of professional research, and out of it all there
come to us only palliatives and seldom any specific
cures as a grand result in discovery.

Our Pomological writers in succession for the last
half century, have gravely informed us that the
Peach tree is short-lived in the North—a fact of
which we all have been fully aware under its treat-
ment with only a few exceptions against the pro-
verbial rule, and our memory fails to carry us back
to a different state of affairs. Inthe South however
we find the reverse; and such too was the case in
the North, for a century and more, after the intro-
duction of the Peach into this country, and even

10 THE PEACH |

now in healthy districts it grows to an old age, re-
taining its thriftiness for fifty and a hundred years,
thus virtually giving it the character of a longlived
tree. These facts alone fully demonstrate that the
cause producing the change to a dwarfed size and
short life, has not arisen from any want of adapta-
bility in soil and climate, but is occasioned by dis-
ease to which we shall presently more fully refer.
In order to reach our present object—which is to
show that peaches in Pennsylvania and in the
Middle States can be grown in orchard culture, as a
branch of farm industry with greater success and
to more profit to the producer, than they are now
raised in Maryland and Delaware, or indeed in any
of the peach districts farther South under a system
of proper culture,I may here say this has been done
for years and fairly tested with the same careful
culture as in the peach districts of Southern Mary-
land. In showing this state of facts we will first
present the early records reaching back to the first
appearance of the fatal disease, in as brief a manner
as possible to be intelligent. To do this, we must
trace its progress and the course of examinations
which lave been made looking to the cause and the
results obtained therefrom.

It is said that this disease—the yellows—made
its first appearance in the neighborhood of Phila-
delphia. As to the truth of this declaration, the
evidence is not at all clear. The first public notice
on the subject we findin a communication made by

AND ITS DISEASE. iB

Judge Richard Peters, President of the Philadelphia
Agricultural Society, dated February 11, 1806, and
published in the transactions of that Society—
which was instituted in 1785, From this carefully
prepared article, it isevident that the Judge took a
deep interest in the growth and cultivation of the
Peach. He states ‘' I know not in the catalogue of
our trees, one more desirable, nor one more subject
to mortification, decay and disease than the Peach.
I have cultivated it from my early youth—about
fifty years ago on the farm on which I now reside,
my father had large peach orchards which yielded
abundantly and they so continued for years, pro-
ducing plentiful crops with but little attention—
then the trees began nearly at once to sicken and
finally perish. I have often found sick trees to in-
fect those in vigor near them by some morbid
effluvia.” In this communication, Judge Peters
refers to a plantation of 700 to 800 trees of natural
fruit, which he calls an extensive orchard, and plant-
ed by Mr. Edward Heston, (near Hestonville, West
Philadelphia, and near what is known as the Cen-
tennial grounds) on rather flat clay land, and states
“that Mr. Heston begins to suffer by the disease I
call yellows.” Following up his observations in
the progress of this disease in Mr. Heston’s orchard,
in September, 1807, he writes, ‘‘as I predicted the
yellows are seen making destructive ravages in Mr.
Heston’s peach plantation. I have lost a great pro-
portion of my trees by the same malady. This year

+

12 THE PEACH

some of them were young and vigorous but we have
had two successive rainy seasons, and I do not re-
collect ever to have seen more general destruction
among peach trees through the whole of the
country. It seems evident that excessive moisture
is one if not the primary cause of this irresistible
disease.”

I may here remark that my observations fully
confirm this statement that wet seasons do favor
the production of disease. The summer of 1878
was a wet season at West Chester, Pa., and in the
immediate neighborhood, and I observed that the
yellows was more than usually destructive among
peach trees that had been cultivated in the usual —
careless way, or rather not cultivated at all.

Again, in Nov. 1807, Judge Peters, commenting
on a letter he had received from Dr. Tilton, of Wil-
mington, Delaware, says, “I still think that the
disease so generally fatal (more so this year than -
any other in my memory,) called the yellows is at-
mospheric. I have always considered mildew and
blight as originating in atmospheric taint, yet Sir
Joseph Banks asserts that parasitical fungi, and
others affirm, that insects are the causes. I believe
with much deference to authority so respectable,
that fungi originate and insects breed in morbid
juices and extravasated sap after the plant has be.
come sickly.” .

In his day Sir Joseph Banks was one of the most
astute and accomplished naturalists England pos

AND ITS DISEASE. 13

sessed, and he had given his attention to the inves-
tigation of the injurious parasite fungi of the king-
dom, and he likewise presented a learned report on
the causes of blight, mildew and rust in grain, and
the discoveries he then made have been fully con-
firmed by subsequent scientific investigation.—
Parasitic fungi are a cause of injury and fina

destruction to healthy vegetable matter, as much
-soas the depredations made by insects, and as to
Judge Peters ‘ atmospheric taint,” being a cause, it
is about as lucid as the opinions of some of the old
vegetable Physiologists, in assigning vitiated and
extravasated sap as the direct cause of disease. The
question behind it all would be what caused the
taint; and what caused the extravasation of the
sap—the hearts blood of the vegetable system? In
the first place it might have been from a floating
parasite fungi spore, or an infusoria in the atmos-
phere, but in that case ‘‘ tainted” atmosphere would
be a misnomer; and in the second place various
causes might be at work through infusoria or fungi
to produce extravasated sap and obstruct the natu-
ral channels of circulation. Sir Joseph Banks was
correct in his fungi theory, as was proven by his
and other practical tests—a discovery conferring no
doubt lasting advantages to the grain growing inter-
ests of the kingdom of Great Britain. ‘The tree or
the plant, to continue its growth and development
requires a free and unobstructed circulation of pure

14 THE PEACH

sap, conveying the pabulum of life suitable to its
taste and physical constitution.

Dr. Tilton, of Wilmington, Delaware, in his cor-
respondence with Judge Peters, Nov. 6, 1807, wrote
as follows, ‘ the disease and early death of our Peach
trees is a fertile source of observation, and that in
all the diseases of the Peach I have examined, it
appears to me that insects do the mischief. The
curling of the leaf, the boring of the bark, the de-
struction of the root, the premature ripening of the
fruit, all proceed from insects, and even the sickly
appearance of the tree called yellows is attributed
to insects by a late writer in our newspaper! In
my jaunt in Maryland, I was attentive to the sub-
ject of your letter. I found that peach trees were
generally long lived, healthy and bore well. In
Edward Lloyd’s garden, I observed some of the trees
fifteen to eighteen inches i in diameter and perfectly
healthy.” :

From these publications it seems that the exper-
iments by Peters, and others, in the application of
supposed cures and remedies were applied empiri-
cally, and opinions were expressed based only on
slight indications, and hence errors and failures were
the result. These gentlemen and others connected
with their learned society, standing then as they did
the living finger posts, directing the course in which
public sentiment and public action should travel,
rather discouraged than otherwise, perseverance of
investigation into the causes of the troubles in

AND ITS DISEASE. Aa,

peach growing, by advising farmers to let hazard-
ous Cultivation be collateral and subordinate, and
apply their main strength to other employment
more certain and equally profitable; concluding
that peach trees could not be profitably cultivated
on an extensive scale in that part of the country,
that a succession of Peaches might be kept up for
domestic use by “ planting a few trees every year,”
and thus a death blow was given to general peach
growing on a large scale, and it has only since been
encouraged by the direction to plant a few Peach
trees about the garden and buildings, and this has
been observed in Kastern Pennsylvania to the pres-
ent day, as one of the oracular sayings of the savants
of that period. This pretext for the encouragement
of our lazy indulgences without further effort to
master the difficulties that beset us, and giving our
time and attention to other departments of farming
requiring less thought—giving us less profit and
more labor—is the legacy left us by these writers
and in our farming interests we are consoled with
the dangerous doctrine that in our economic and
domestic prosperity many things within our capa-
city to acquire by our own industry on the farms
are cheaper to buy than to raise, thereby reversing
the old maxim “that a penny saved is a penny
earned,” and just here for the want of a little more
brain, a little labor, and another step higher up the ©
ladder of energy, Pennsylvania is not only hand
ing over annually, pennies, but millions of gold to

16 THE PEACH

her next neighbors, Delaware and Maryland, for
products which she has the ability to raise in her
soil and under almost the same climate, with the
advantage of closer proximity to the great marts
of consumption. In three or four short years with
& proper application of common industry to this
branch of fruit growing, the counties of Delaware
Chester, Lancaster, Montgomery, Bucks and Berks,
alone would be able to relieve us of our dependence
on our neighbors in the supply of these luxuries at
least, for which we now pay so dearly. In looking
to a renewed energy and a more improved and en-
lightened home industry in this direction, the time
is not distant when these counties will emerge from
their present condition in peach growing, and in-
stead of mourning yearly over a few straggling,
yellow dying trees about the dwelling, we shall see
the thrifty, blooming productive orchard, adding its
golden fruit to swell the profits of the farm, and
contributing to the luxuries and comforts of home.
The Peach now so shamefully neglected is not a new
fruit to Pennsylvania, and the tree is no stranger
to our productive soil and genial climate. It has
been a servant and a good one, responding faithfully
to our domestic culture for the last two hundred
years wherever cared for, cultivated and protected,
and often under our disgraceful neglect its ener-
gies and fruitfulness have only yielded to the visi-
tation of a fell disease which it was our duty as well
as our interest to endeavor to counteract, a3 we

AND ITS DISEASE. Li

would the diseases in our faithful animals depend-
ent upon us for support and protection, in return
for a short life of labor in our fields, Let us in this
strain turn to our Bibles, and learn again the price
of good fruit at the Creation, as fixed by the Deity
himself, and despair not. The injunction we there
find is, ‘dress the garden and keep it.” Can any
one expect to obtain such a luxury asthe Peach at
aless price? In looking over that portion of the
district of Hastern Pennsylvania, extending from
the mountains to the Delaware river, we find but
few who have regarded this injunction, while all
others have rather followed the advice of Judge
Peters, ‘to plant a few trees every year,” and we
have in this way kept up a kind of diseased perpet

uity in the few yellow skeletons which have or:
namented our habitations and surroundings for
almost the past century. Jet every farmer who
has his own broad acres to cultivate, and every
house keeper who has his garden to till, no matter
how limited, read their own rebuke; not only in
their diseased and sickly trees, but in the crowded
markets of their own city, teeming in season with
this delicious product which their industry should
have supplied; and take wisdom for the future.
We might here also awaken our languid interests
by reading: the parable of the vineyard, wherein
idleness is called to industry, in the question, ‘'Why
stand ye here all the day idle?” It is quite evi-
dent that in Chester county, and it may be so in

18 THE PEACH

the adjoining counties, to which we have referred,
that peach growing has increased but little in the
past twenty years, and that from all the informa-
tion we have obtained we have not advanced until
lately, towards a settlement of the cause of the fell
disease. In coming down to a more recent date we
find that it is the old story repeated, and like al}
other ills and diseases, it ke€ps pace with the spread
and extended settlement of the country. In every
direction except toward the South, where its rav-
ages have never extended, do we hear of its de-
structive influences. Many of the Western States,
and especially those bordering on the region of the
great lakes, as, for example, Wisconsin and Michi-
gan, have gone extensively into peach growing for
the purpose of supplying the markets of Chicago,
and the other cities and towns of the great North-
west, and all complain of the ravages of the ‘“yel-
lows.” The Legislature of Michigan has given the
peach growers an act to prevent the spread of the
disease, compelling the eradication of all trees from
the orchard, when they present the first appearance
of disease. This plan of ridding the orchards of
diseased trees, cuts off its spread by contagion
which, as a rule, passes so rapidly over an orchard
to the destruction of the healthy trees, and is one
of the means for retarding its progress. This spe-
cies of legislation is similar to that we have here
- in Pennsylvania, to prevent the spread of noxious
weeds by enforcing the destructiou of the plant be-

AND ITS DISEASE. 19

fore it matures its seed, the one plan removing the
source of complaint nes the destruction of the
seed, and the other attaining the same object, if
fungi is the cause of the spread of the disease,
Some of our leading pomologists have from time to
;ime, indulged in the notion that the ‘‘ yellows” has |
had its day, and as late asthe year 1873, one of the
most prominent, in an address, informed us “that
he was happy to say that the “yellows” is almos;
a thing of the past, and in many sections of our
State (Pennsylvania), where the scourge held undis-
puted sway but a few short years ago, to-day can
be seen healthy, thriving orchards, and consequent-
ly annual crops of delicious fruit. What is there
in the season just passed to make it a marked epoch
in the history of fruit culture? Isit not owing in
a great measure to the peculiar temperature and
possible lack of humidity in the atmosphere ?”
These apparent cessations and almost entire dis-
appearance of the disease in certain districts, for
short periods of dry seasons are but mere tempo-
rary lulls in the ravages of the disease from sus-
pended infectious malaria, inspiring the hope that
in a short time it would become one of the “things
of the past,” but a returning season or two of fa-
vorable influences for the propagation of the dis-
ease, and all hope is dispelled by its renewed viru-
lence. These appearances were noted in 1807, by
that noted fruit grower—especially of the Peach—
to whom I have already referred, Judge Peters, of

20 THE PEACH

Philadelphia, and in a postscript to his letter we
find the following: ‘We have had two successive
rainy seasons, and I do not recollect ever to have
seen more general destruction among peach trees
through the whole of the country. Itseems that
excessive moisture is one, if not the primary cause, -
of this irresistible disease.”

These coincidences of rainy seasons and the yel-
lows among peach trees over the country, I have
observed for years as marked in these alternations
of weather, favoring the now general opinion of the
cause of the disease as I have already remarked.
Thomas Taylor, the microscopist of the Agricul-
tural Department, Washington City, as published
in the Agricultural Report of the year 1872, page
169, makes the following statement, ‘‘ since contact
with water dissolves this form of Nzemosporo, wiz:
“ Parasitic Fungi,” without destroying the life of
the spores, it is evident that the action of rain or
washes of pure water will only tend to diffuse the
spores over the body of the tree and roots, while
the application of solutions of sulphuric acid and
alkalies will destroy them.”

There are strong confirmatory facts favoring the
theory of “ Fungi” as being the cause of disease,
and that alkaline substances, such as ‘caustic lime
and potash are the proper substances as curatives
for the disease, and with necessary precaution in
the application of caustic lime, the destruction of.
the diseased agent is effected in a cheapand expe.

AND ITS DISEASE. a1

ditious way, or the same end is accomplished in the:
application of ashes to.the entire surface of the or-
chard. The trees introduced from the nursery, al-
ready diseased, when such disease shall appear,
should be wed out and replaced by healthy young
trees, first renovating the soil with an application
of caustic lime, potash, or other strong alkaline
substances. i

My main object here is to satisfy the agricul-
tural interests of Pennsylvania that peaches can be
grown in the State on a scale commensurate with
the demands of our cities and towns, in orchard
culture, in larger quantities than they are now or
can be raised in the most favored districts of Dela-
ware or Maryland, and can be sent into our mar-
kets in better condition and at a much larger profit.
As this is a declaration so entirely in conflict with
the opinions of our people in Hastern Pennsylva.-
nia, I feel myself called upon to sustain the asser-
tion in a very practical way, showing that what has
been done for years can be done again throughout
this and other States, all things being equal, and
the recommendations here strictly observed—re-
commendations based on practical experience in
peach culture for thirty-five years, in what is called
the diseased peach district in Pennsylvania, and in
the healthy districts on the Eastern shore of Mary-
land, cultivating and planting within that period |
from 25,000 to 30,000 trees; also an earlier expe-
rience i. raising peaches in the State of Delaware,

22 THE PEACH

but on a smaller scale. And I may here repeat,
that the accumulated evidence of all this period is
fully and most overwhelmingly confirmatory of the
declaration with which I set out. I was brought
up from early boyhood in the apple and peach or-
chards of Delaware, and took my first lessons in
grafting from an old almanac, and a knowledge of
inoculating trees under the instruction of a good
old neighboring Methodist exhorter. )
Through these instrumentalities I became some-
thing of a pomologist of that early day—of a large
country and small towns—and acquired a neigh-
borhood reputation in the profession, but in a short
time domestic changes took place, and I was called
to other employments, carrying with me into Penn-
sylvania my taste and love for fruit culture, and
particularly for my early favorite fruit, the Peach.
Some years after my location in West Chester,
Pa., I made purchase of a farm on the ‘ Mica Slate
Ridge,” some two and one-half miles north of the
town. This ridge was known asthe “ Barrens,”
and the purchase was what, at this day, would be
called a worn out-farm, but it was what I consid-
ered a miserably neglected one. Most of the farm
land was out in “commons,” and a range for road
stock, under a crop of briars, and poverty grass,
The prospect was gloomy enough for making out
of it anything by ordinary farming, unless by a
heavy out-lay in fertilizers, and the aid of a doubt-
ful tenant. It occurred to me, as it was near West

AND ITS DISEASE, 23

Chester, then a fair market even for foreign peaches,
upon which we were depending, that it would be
the best scheme for me to plant this land in peach
trees, which, if successful, would give me a double
advantage; first, by improving the land, and giving
a crop of fruit for the market. In a proper routine
of peach culture yearly, poor or medium land

greatly improves; plowing down *the weeds and
stuff that springs up in the summer, with the fuli-
age of the trees in the fall, is almost equal to a
light coat of manure. Having fnlly determined on
this course, against the ridicule of some and the
remonstrance of other friends, with the old stereo-
typed declaration, ‘‘ You can’t raise peaches in Ches-
ter county,” backed up by directing my attention
to the hundreds of skeleton trees, dead and dying,
about the yards and gardens of the town, and
around the dwellings of the neighborhood, I went
to work. All this was no terror t> me, as I had
seen it all in my younger days, in Upper Dela-
ware, and I had enquired into the cause of it. If
you want healthy peaches, do not plant your trees
about a farm house, or in a farm garden, if it is an
old one, unless you know of a proper system of
renovation ; for peach trees have been planted there
from time immemorial, and in planting young trees,
as many do every year or two, and on the very
graves of a dozen predecessors, all of whom have
died in rapid succession with the yellows, leaving
the ground filled with the seeds of the disease, to

24 THE PEACH

seize on its new victim, is in effect courting failure.
Indeed, even about modern houses, where but few
trees have been planted, in nine cases out of ten,
where a new tree is introduced, you will find two
or three in the neighborhood perhaps in the last
stages of disease, and through their poisonous con-
tagion, or sporadic infection, if left in the ground,
they will inoculate your young trees with disease
the first season. To renovate the suil we must use
caustic or quick lime, wood ashes, guano, poudrette |
or other alkalies, in sufficient quantity to destroy
or neutralize the active agent in the soil, ready at
all times to commit its ravages on the young trees
—its natural food—and with this precaution, all
trees affected by the yellows, which, from my de-
scription under the proper heading, may be recog-
nized, must be removed, body and branch, and
the earth renovated before replacing it with a young
tree. In rejecting all the kind counsels of my
friends, and feeling that I could bear the jocular re-
marks of others, I set myself to work, taking up
everything that I could get my hands on, touching
the subject of the disease of the tree, the only
thing that could interfere to. prevent my success.
From my schooling in the orchard, in boyhood,
knowing the routine of peach growing, in a rough
way, having occasionally visited the mammoth or-
chards at Delaware city, and below, I had but one
point in the whole field of peach growing to exam-
ine, and that wasto finda preventative, or at least a

AND ITS DISEASE. 25

palliative for the yellows. The peach borer, the
curled leaf, and other things, in their feeble efforts,
were mere myths compared with this one fatal
scourge. In the course of my examinations, I
found much good common sense and a good deal
of nonsense on the subject, and as a specimen of
the latter, I here give one or two little extracts, as
they are from the brain of a Professor of Agricul-
ture, Horticulture and Botany, in 1819: “There is
but one stock proper whereon to bud peaches,
which is the muscle plum, all other stocks are at-
tacked by the gum, and by different species of 7n-
sects, in particular the grub, an hexipode magot,
_ which gets in between the cortex and the albumen,
and prevents the sap from circulating, and pro-
duces what is commonly called the yellows.”

“Tf the trees are injured with mildew, dip the
branches infected in the liquid and it will imme.
- diately destroy the ¢nsect.”

“Tf your orchards are troubled with mole hills,
strew branches of elder about the ground, and they
will soon disappear.” “If you are troubled with
snakes, plant ash around your orchard.”

The most sensible articles I met with were the
various letters and papers of Judge Peters, and cor:
respondence gathering facts in relation to the dis-
ease, and particularly his reference to the investi-
gations of Sir Joseph Banks, in his inquiries into
the cause of blight, mildew and rust, which he
found to be the result of parasitic fungi, and by

26 THE PEACH

fair analogy, the Judge considered it in connection
with his inquiry into the cause of the yellows, but
he differed with Sir Joseph in his correct conclu-
sions, that fungi was the cause of the disease, and
not the effect, and produced disease in healthy liv-
ing vegetable matter. These conclusions, it seems
to me, leave no room for doubt. Knowing that
moss, lichens, fungi and vegetable matter were de-
stroyed by caustic lime and potash, I concluded
that a good coat of caustic lime, which was less
expensive tlian ashes, could do no harm to the trees,
at least if it did no good. Sol ordered fifty bush-
els tothe acre for twenty acres, but fortunately,
through some mistake, seventy-five bushels to the
acre were sent, and it was all spread, the land be-
ing first broken up deep, and well harrowed, and
the lime, after spreading, harrowed in. The rows
were struck eighteen by eighteen feet apart, of the
depth of the original plowing; this, at the inter-
section of the cross-checking, made a place for each
tree,/only wanting a little levelling of the earth to
receive them. One thousand trees were planted in
the best part of the plot—if there was any best
part to it. The ground in peaches was planted in
* corn, and the balance of the field sown down in
oats and clover, and the corn, after the last dress-
ing in the peach lot, was also sown down with
clover. The following spring all the field was
plowed down, and the balance planted with peach
trees, with other lands, making up 5,000 trees, and

AND ITS DISEASE. 27

all the land constituting the twenty acre field was
planted in corn, manured in the hill with ashes,
yard scrapings, &c., gathered aboutthe barn. The
other field, receiving the balance of the 4,000 trees,
planted that spring, was treated as above described,
except that the lime was reduced to fifty bushels
per acre. After the second year the cropping was
suspended in the first twenty acres, but the most
of the other grounds were cropped for three years,
in various crops, but mostly with corn, and after
this was discontinued, the ground received one plow-
ing and harrowing each year thereafter. The
ground was generally plowed in the fall, harrowing
mostly in the spring, and there was but little fall-
ing off in the crops of corn, in the second year,
but in the third there was quite a reduction, as by
that time the roots of the trees had quite covered
the ground, interfering with the crop of corn. All
of these trees made a rapid growth, and the first
thousand bore a heavy crop the fourth year from
planting, the fruit as fine as I ever raised before or
since. I continued adding yearly to the orchards
up to some 8,000 trees; this included an orchard
in Delaware county, Pa.. occupying a high piece of
land of loamy soil, of strong Gneiss formation and
and in fine condition. A strong grass sod was
turned down, and the trees cropped in corn, for
three successive years, and treated as the Chester
county orchards, except in the question of liming,
which was postponed for the want of time at plant-

aa THE PEACH

ing, and was not put on till the following spring.
All these orchards came into bearing condition the
fourth season, bearing fine crops, except those com-
ing in on unfavorable seasons, from late frosts.
Sometimes the third season, if favorable, the young
trees would make a light show of fine fruit. These
orchards continued to produce well from twelve to
fifteen years, glutting the West Chester market
with the finest quality of fruit, and driving out all
foreign supply for years; returning to my aston-
ished friends, for their advice so kindly given, and
as kindly rejected, the most substantial evidence
of my entire success, establishing the fact, beyond
a doubt, that peaches can be raised in Chester and
Delaware counties at least, and on a large scale,
and at an immense profit to the producer. These
orchards more than paid the original cost of the
land, on each bearing year, on a full or even half
acrop. One season, of a very heavy crop, I rented
out twenty acres I had some two miles from my
general orchards, for $850. I had, at that time,
some seventy acres in bearing, and the balance
marketed, more than paid the original cost of the
land upon which they stood.

IN turning to what, under more favorable cir-
cumstances than the preceding, just detailed, would
be called ‘the dark side of the picture,” I pro-
ceed to a recital of the difficulties encountered in
the course of our management of the orchards re-
ferred to. J am most happy to say that the great-
est, and the only one that caused the most anxiety,
and for which I received the most condolence, arose
from the trouble of disposing of my large crops of
peaches, without glutting the surrounding markets,
to the reduction of generous prices. Domestic mar-
kets pay better than those more distant, and par-
ticularly in cities, where competition is found in
inferior fruit ; but I console myself that in all these
gluts, and excesses beyond demand, I had my re-
ward in the removal of the old notion that Eastern
Pennsylvania was not adapted to peach growing.
From some cause or other that: old scourge, the
‘‘vellows,” was not so formidable an enemy as !
had expected to have met, considering the remon-
strances and persistent advice which my friends
and neighbors had volunteered, and although this
advice, so often rejected, may have had its impres-

30 THE PEACH

sion, in the truthfulness of the adage, “that to be
forewarned is to be forearmed,” and that in these
repeated forewarnings I had forearmed myself with
the requisite instruments to successfully repel the
assaults of the enemy, and to this we are, in an in-
direct way, indebted for the lights and shadows on
the reversed side of this picture. The trees planted
in the orchard were principally obtained from two or
three New Jersey uurseries; one lot of which came -
from tle interior of the State, and of a variety now
common to our orchards, and of first quality in
size and beauty—the Crawfords Late—and was
grown in a well conducted nursery, but in a badly
diseased district. I was informed by the nursery-
man himself that the infection of the disease was
so great, through the neighborhood, that he could
scarcely raise sufficient for home use. At the same
time, and for years before, he had been raising and
inoculating nursery trees, and disposing of them
largely to the peach growers in Delaware, Mary-
land, and elsewhere every year. This small lot of
trees—not over 500, perhaps—gave me for several
seasons more close inspection in detecting and weed-
ing out diseased trees than all the rest of the or-
tite fe I possessed. I entertain no doubt, whatever,
that the large percentage—which was not less than
one-third to one-half of the trees—became diseased
in the nursery, from a general infection, or in bud-
ding, trimming, or from some other local cause. I
watched them closely, and on the first symptoms of

AND ITS DISEASE. $l

the disease, as it appeared, the tree was removed,
“root and branch,” at once, to prevent any spread
from contagion. I may remark, just here, and
and most emphatically, that ‘‘at once” is the time
to be observed in the removal of the diseased tree
—suffering no delay to ripen up the approaching
promising crop—and on the appearance of but a
single specimen of immature fruit eradicate the
whole tree; manifesting no sympathy, nor itching
palm, to be relieved by a gold dollar or two in pros-
pect of the crop; and no penny-wise and pound-
foolish system of economy to be indulged in; but
strike at once at the root of the evil, and save your-
self, from, perbaps, a tenfold sacrifice.

Returning to the subject of the diseased lot of trees,
spoken of above, in the course of a couple of years
the disease ceased, and the balance remained
healthy, requiring no further attention than the
ordinary culture, and so continued, producing
heavy crops, in years of bearing, with the rest of
the orchard. The strongest evidence that this lot
of trees became diseased in the nursery was the
fact, that the rest of this orchard, and the others,
planted mostly with trees from entirely a different
section, exhibited no such appearance of disease,
but only occasionally, here and there, one or two
over a field of some twenty or twenty-five acres,
continuing thus for perhaps some two or three
years, but altogether outside of the lot of diseased
trees above referred to. I do not think that | lost

82 THE PEACH

at any time in aseries of years, over three per cent.
by diseased trees, and this, we can readily count
upon, as diseased trees from the nursery, not only
from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but from all
nurseries in badly diseased districts. Assuming
that fungi is the cause of “yellows,” of which I
think there is no doubt, and what we call diseased
infections, spread by contact, budding, trimming,
or in any other way, and as it affects the roots,
body and limbs, any remedial agent, or any cura-
tive agent cannot at once, or in a year, surrounded
as we may be by careless cultivators at times,
whose only use is to cultivate parasitic fungi, and
not peaches, prove effectual. In addition to this,
we have to contend with that which I have just re-
ferred to, say one or two per cent., and for a time,
perhaps more, of diseased trees fromthe nursery,
and this we have to fight. In this aspect of the
case, in addition to lime, potash, guano, poudrett,
or other caustic alkalies, it will require the vigil-
ant eye of the peach grower to detect the “ except-
ionals,” that may so provokingly find their way
into the orchard, and to nip them in the bud. The
parasitic fungi that works the injury is microscopic,
and not visible to the ordinary sight, and its seed
_or spore is its infection, and its touch is its conta-
gion. A knife inserted through the bark of a dis-
eased tree to the ever-moving current of sap may
carry with it, in its incision into a healthy tree, a
thousand spores, marking, in this way, their new

AND ITS DISEASE. 33

victim to an early grave. This active sporadic
agent appears on the body, branches and roots of
the tree, and the application of alkalies, in a dilu-
ted state, may be made use of asa wash against
their further spread. Caustic alkalies will destroy
fungi—of this there can be no question. The peach
grower, commencing right at the beginning of his
work, can have no trouble, if he looks through his
orchard several times through the season, and at-
tends to these “‘exceptional”’ intruders, which have
come uninvited from the nursery, or on a sporadic
visit from a neighbor, and have all such as they
appear rooted out, replanting other young trees in
their place, and renovating the earth well with any
caustic alkali, as ashes, guano, poudrett, &c.

It must be remembered that these experiments
have not been confined to a dozen trees in an old
garden, but extended to thousands, in open field
culture, and not with one orchard, but with half a
dozen, and not only in one location, but in several;
one distant ten miles from the other, and in an ad-
joining county, and in a different formation of soil,
and not planted at one time, but at different times.
These orchards, during their bearing, for twelve
to fifteen years, were noticed for their thrifty yrowth,
health and productiveness, and as an evidence of
it, an extensive nurseryman in Delaware, who raised
large quantities of inoculated trees for sale every
season, obtained his buds from these orchards, to
keep his fruit trees for the market correct as to va-

Bt THE PEACH

riety, and as a protection from the yellows, in tak-
ing buds from known healthy trees. The usual
course among nurserymen is to cut their buds for
inoculation from the nursery rows of the previous
year’s growth. Asan introduction to another field
of operation in peach culture, in a different soil and
ina different climate, embracing a portion of the
healthy peach districts of the State of Maryland, I
may say that the Delaware railroad, connecting
north with the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Bal-
timore railroad, a mile or two south of Wilming-
ton, Delaware, with lateral branches, known to be
the great avenues of trade and travel through al-
most the entire length and breadth of the penin.
sula, embraces the great peach regions of Dela-
ware and Maryland. This road terminated, until
after the close of the war, at Salisbury, Delaware,
and at that time the peach ana fruit district did not
extend in that direction many miles below this
point, for the want of facilities of transportation to
the northern markets.

In 1864-5 the attention of our northern people
began to be drawn in that direction, and particu-
larly in and around the peach growing centres,
some dropping below the terminus, in the direction
of the proposed extended route of the railroad,
where a pleasant, equable and healthy climate pre-
vailed, having on the one side the Atlantic ocean,
and on the other the Chesapeake Bay, equal of it:
self to an inland sea. The country isin every way

AND ITS DISEASE. 3d

adapted to early trucking and fruit growing, for
the northern cities of New York and Philadelphia.
Here fruits and vegetables mature some three weeks
in advance of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, af-
fording the producer the advantage of an early
market and highly remunerative prices. I visited
that section of country in July, 1865, and found
the early peaches just ripening, and coming into
market. This was about the twentieth of the
month. These early shipments were then bringing
high prices in Philadelphia and New York, and I
was so pleased with the appearances that I con-
tracted for the purchase of a farm, near the rail-
road, with a view of going into general fruit rais-
ing. This was in Somerset county, Maryland,
some fifteen miles below the terminus, at Salis-
bury. A short time after the road was extended
to Crisfield, on the bay. In the fallof 1865 and
the spring of 1866 I commenced planting, putting
in some 9,000 peach trees, and about twenty acres
in pears, strawberries and grape vines. This sec-
tion of Maryland was and is entirely exempt from
the yellows. The disease, in fact, is not there
known to peach growers. The extension of the
railroad through to the bay induced the extensive
planting of orchards, and the success attending my
experiment with strawberries at once established
that branch of fruit culture as highly profitable,
and from less than one hundred quarts daily ship-
ped from the station at the time I purchased, the

-

36 THE PEACH

shipments increased in two years to some 25,000
or 30,000 quarts per day, from the same station.
The peach tree there located, having no enemy
to contend with but the borer, the caustic Jime
was not applied at planting, or at any other time.
The trees were put in ordinary ground, without
any fertilizer, and with good culture produced fine
crops of peaches, commencing to bear the third
year after planting. The early fruit brought fine
prices in the northern cities, but the later peaches
coming into competition with an overstocked mar-
ket, from upper Delaware and Maryland, reduced —
the prices to such a low figure that often the ex-
penses for baskets, collecting the fruit, freights,
cartage and commissions consumed the whole price
obtained, and, in fact, some consignments placed
the consignee on the debtor side of the account, and
the early profits were partly absorbed in the later
shipments. To all this there is another serious
drawback to peach growing in the South; for, as
we proceed from Pennsylvania southward, even to
Florida, the more precarious is the peach crop,
from early blooming, succeeded by heavy frosts,
and such is my experience in raising peaches North
and South, that I am fully warranted in saying
that the difference in this respect between West
Chester, Pa., and Somerset county, Md., a distance
of about one hundred and fifty miles, in a due line
from North to South—taking a consecutive num-
ber of years, has been fully fifty per cent. of an

AND ITS DISEASE. 37

increase in quantity in favor of West Chester, and
in profits there is no approximate comparison. In
Chester county the peach crops were more valua-
ble than any other farm crops I ever raised, except
my early strawberry crops in Maryland, while the
peach crops in Maryland were quite unsatisfactory
and discouraging from the causes assigned. The
peach isa perishable fruit, and to enjoy it to the
full, its rich, luscious saccharine taste, which it can
only acquire at maturity on the tree, it must
have a home market, a quick and careful convey-
ance, and then all these advantages can be enjoyed
by the consumers in our cities and towns by its cul-
ture in the adjoining counties of Hastern Pennsyl-
vania supplying the demand, instead of relying
upon fruit wanting inall these good qualities. The
time is at hand when all the peaches for our north-
ern markets will be grown in the North, and every
great centre of population will be supplied with its
favorite fruit from its immediate surrounding coun-
try. ‘This is briefly my experience in peach grow-
ing in the North and in the South, ona scale about
equal in number of trees cultivated,and which I con-
sider a full, fair and satisfactory test, asshown in the
comparative stateinents made; but as the ground for
the first year, in this southern trial at peach growing
—or at least twenty acres of it, was planted in straw-
berries, and was with another orchard of some ten
acres cequpied in the same way and continued for

38 THE PEACH

several years, amply made up for losses that were
sustained in the cultivation of peaches in Maryland.

LOCATION AND SOIL.

In treating upon the subject of a location for a
peach orchard, as the recommendations are for
practical and intelligent farmers, it may be as-
sumed that no one of ordinary intelligence would
be likely to select low springy or marshy grounds,
as a suitable location for his orchard of peach trees,
or for fruit of any kind without thorough ditching
and draining. With this hint, the selection ought
to be left entirely as an open question, to be de-
cided by the taste and convenience of the planter,
as there is little left to choice within the limits of
a farm, either of exposure, quality or character of
soil asto give any anxiety ina selection. If the
proposed orchard should cover the entire farm the
question is at once settled. Ifa field of a few
acres only, select high ground and easy of access,
and as near to the buildings as may be convenient.
As to exposure, North,South, East or West, taking
a consecutive number of years, there would be but
little difference, if any, as to the protection of the
_ fruit from spring frosts. But I may say, in plant-
ing on a small scale, and where a choice of ex-
posures offered, I would unhesitatingly, all other
things being equal, select a high, dry northern ex-
posure: for occasionally a season of early bloom-

AND ITS DISEASE, 39

ing occurs, and as the peach is more sensitive to a
few days of warm sun on a southern exposure than
almost any other fruit, a northern exposure may
save the crop, while on the south it may be par-
tially or entirely destroyed; a total destruction,
however, is but seldom. I have remarked it but
once in forty years, but this difference may occur
more frequently on hilly or mountainous regions,
where the declivities are great and the exposures
have a great difference of temperature. My or-
chards were on what may be called rolling land,
not very hilly, one field about equally divided by
a narrow valley, giving the orchard on one side
quite a northern exposure, and on the other about
the same exposure south. Occasionally I have no-
ticed the crop on the northern exposure the heav-
iest; but one season, and one only, the crop on the
northern exposure was good, while the south was
almost an entire failure, My orchards presented
almost every exposure, but I have not noted much
difference in the effect of frost, except the one I
have referred to. In Maryland the land is gener-
ally flat, and the question as to exposure does not
arise, but even there, there is a choice in location
governed mainly by the influence of large bodies
of water modifying the temperature and affording
in their vicinity protection from late frosts. Such
locations are greatly preferred by the peach grower,
for although he is south, still he is subject to losses
in his fruit crop more so than in Pennsylvania, and

”

40 THE PEACH

the further South we proceed the more precarious
and uncertain is the peach crop from the same
cause. The peaches raised in Michigan and Wis-
consin, for the Chicago market, are principally from
orchards cultivated in the vicinity of the lakes,
these affording protection to the crop from the se-
vere frosts of spring, and the trees from the sever-
ity of winter.

PLANTING.

In preparing the ground for planting, the soil
should be deeply broken up, fully to the depth re-
quired for setting the trees, when practicable; rocks
and stones may be obstacles; follow the plow by a
thorough harrowing of the ground; in stiff or clay
ground sub-soiling would be of vast advantage.
In laying off the rows for planting, which must be
done by a heavy plow and a ae strong pair of
horses, turning the ground up fully to thes depth or
deeper than the first plowing, so that in cross-check-
ing, the intersection of a furrows, as laid out,
a form the holes for planting, only wanting a
little filling or leveling with the shovel to prepare
them forthe tree. With ground prepared in this
way, and with four men, and a boy to drop the.
trees, I have set out 1,000 trees in nine hours. From
the time of taking up the trees at the nursery to
the time of planting them in the ground prepared.

AND ITS DISEASE. 41

for the orchard, there are three very important.
matters to be observed, and in which there is as
much close attention required as at any time in the
growth and culture of the tree: First, the protec-.
tion of the roots from the time of lifting the tree
in the nursery; second, the trimming before plant-
ing; third, planting properly. By the observance
of the following directions at least a year’s growth
may be saved to the expectant fruit grower—a
highly important item in the anticipation of an
early return for the labor and capital invested in
the new enterprise :

First, the roots of the trees from the time they
are lifted at the nursery until plantedin the ground, _
should not be permitted to dry; if transported to.,
a distance, they should be first packed in damp
moss, or other material, to keep them damp, and at
once shipped with despatch, and on reaching their
destination be examined, and if the roots appear
dry, they should not, be planted until they have
been restored by immersion in water from twelve
to fourteen hours before planting. If found in
good condition in the box, plant them as they are
unpacked, and before the roots become dry by ex-
posure. The soaking of the roots,in water will
restore the small fibres, and the trees, if the
weather and soil are favorable, will commence
growth at once. It is, I believe, a pretty fair cal-
culation to make, to estimate about one-fourth
of the stock taken from the nursery as failing for

42 THE PEACH

the want of the observance of more care and at-
tention in the protection of the roots from the tak-
ing up to the resetting, and to increase the propor-
tion of losses, there may be much attributed to
carelessness in planting. The roots are mostly
crowded down into a small, deep hole, twice the
depth it should be, and into a cold, poor sub-soil,
filling up and settling the earth down by a few
shakes of the tree, and thus leaving it to the
chances of a dry spring, or a cold wet one, with a
dry summer to follow, which is no better for such
planting, and there it soon withers and dies.

Instead of such treatment, it should be put in
the well pulverized ground at a moderate depth,
not deeper than it stood in the nursery, and even
not so deep, if the sub-soil in which it is planted is
stiff clay; and in all cases, if the tree has been ex-
posed and become dry, soak the roots in water be-
fore planting, as above described.

For small peach trees, one year old, and for ap-
ples, two and three years old, in planting them,
every shovelful of earth should be pressed by the
foot firmly to the roots, with no shaking up and
down, and misplacing and doubling the small roots
and fibres, under the old absurd idea, that practi-
eal experience never originated or sanctioned. The
tree must be established in the first place, firmly
in the ground, with the earth impacted about its
roots, leaving no room for mould, or other fungi,

AND ITS DISEASE. 43

to conceal themselves for future depredations, and
no staking required to keep the tree upright.

In the case of the peach, before planting, the top
should be divested of every limb, with a sharp
pruning knife, and a portion of the top or main
stem, for some four to six inches, leaving the tree
in appearance a mere stick above the surface. The
latent buds, at the base of the limbs cut off, will
break at the opening of the season, and soon show
a new and vigorous growth, which, by the fall of
the year, will be double the size of the old ones,
had they been left, as is generally practiced by
amateurs. As a rule, it is advisable, in setting
out anorchard or in planting a favorite tree, the
owner should superintend the planting or plant him-
self, unless he has some one to do it on whom he
can fully rely, knowing more or as much as he
knows himself. |

To give an example of faithless employees and
bad planting, some years ago I had been employed
in setting out some ten to fifteen acres of peach
trees, and on the last day of planting, towards
evening, I left my men to finish out with some fifty
or sixty trees still to be planted. This was ona
Saturday afternoon. The trees were put in, and
to all appearances, as I observed in a day or two
thereafter, they had been planted about as the
others had been, but in a short time they gave un-
doubted evidence that something was wrong with
them. There was but here and there one that

44 THE PEACH

started in growth. In testing them, asI should
have done when I first saw them, and taking
hold of one I lifted it out of the ground almost
without an effort, and the consequence was that
two-thirds of those trees died. This is what the
men used to call “covering their tracks,” but this
case was the last of their ‘‘track covering” for me.

In looking into the old authorities, in their re-
commendations of soils for peach growing, we can-
not go amiss in recommending everything, for tak-
ing them altogether, we find them running pretty
much in the same groove, winding up with the old
discriminating degrees of comparison of ‘ good,
better, best,” the same as our agricultural fairs
rank their fruits on exhibition, from the luscious
peach to the useful pumpkin, and I think from my
experience, I may say that they are all about right,
for I have never met with a formation yet upon
which I could not succeed in raising peaches; even
low, wet, swampy lands can be made to grow them
with the proper ditching and draining; but the
peach, of all the fruits we grow, adapts itself to
more formations and climates than any other spe-
cies of fruit, from the tropics to the State of Mas-
sachusetts, and through all this territory, where-
ever cultivated, it excels all other fruits grown, for
its great beauty, lusciousness and adaptability to
the taste, not only of man, but even of the lower
animals, birds and insects. From my experience,
I can say that it is well adapted to a Gneiss forma-

AND ITS DISEASE. 45

tion, which affords a deep, rich loam, with a small
portion of sand, to mica slate, which is composed
of quartz and mica, and deposits of tale, to lime-
stone, which is the carbonate of lime, to sandstone
and red shale, of slaty structure, composing the
red formation passing through the counties of
Bucks, Montgomery and Chester, in the State of
Pennsylvania, to light sandy soils; also to sandy
soils with a red clay subsoil. The most of these,
in the course of farm culture, contain more or less
rich vegetable mould, and these formations em-
brace about all the suils of a general geological
character constituting our farm lands, ‘These are
all adapted to peach culture, but for preference I
will name them in the following order: Mica slate,
gneiss, red shale, limestone, sandy loam, lght.
sand, sand with red clay subsoil. This last I have
tested in Maryland, and there it rates first in qual-
ity for peaches or any other fruit. Stiff clay is
considered the least desirable, but if well prepared
I have found it to produce excellent crops of fruit.

The peacl does not require the richest soil. Del-
aware and Maryland ship thousands of baskets
yearly of finely grown peaches from lands below
medium quality in fertility. In such soils, and in-
deed in all soils, the peach requires yearly culture,
and with that requisite all soils will produce good
peaches in our temperateclimate. The peach must
make its bearing wood every year, and it requires
cultivation to give it strong, vigorous growth.

.J

46 THE PEACH

With fair ground, as to quality, it comes into bear-
ing lightly the third year, if favorable, and in the
fourth year I have uniformly, if aot cut off by late
frosts, had full crops.

My first planting of 1,000 trees nniediied a fall
crop the fourth year, and attracted a great deal of
interest from a doubting community for miles
around, disarming all the threadbare arguments
that peaches could not. be raised in Chester county.
There was scarcely a year in which the crop en-
tirely failed, and a partial crop often brings more
than a full one. In such years peaches are scarce,
and the market prices are correspondingly higher.
I have had peaches to retail in the Philadelphia
market as high as seventy-five cents per dozen, di-
rect from my orchards, and they have often since
brought higher prices from Chester county or-
chards. Those who have read Edwin Morris’ ad-
mirable little book, entitled ‘‘Ten Acres Enough,”
will recollect that he tells us of his ten old peach
trees in his garden, which, after supplying the fam-
ily with fruit for the season, realized sixty to sev-
enty dollars for the surplus fruit sent to market.

CULTIVATION.

The peach of all the fruits has for the last fifty
years made better return for good and careful cul-
tivation and labor expended, than all the other
fruits for market purposes within reach of our
northern cities. It will pay better than any crop on
the farm and from my experience nothing I believe
will pay the farmer better for the money and labor
expended than its cultivation. The idea is preva-
lent at the North that in the healthy districts in
Maryland and the South the tree springs up and
without culture or care grows up and flourishes in
health and productiveness for almost an indefinite
period, but this is a mistake, as the apple and other
fruits which we see there running intoold age have
had their culture in the rotation of field crops and
if standing in gardens they have had their annual
culture incidentally with the cultivation of the
flowering plants and vegetables. Under these cir-
cumstances we see these old relics of a past century
from three up to seven feet in circumference of
body, and two to two and a half feet around in
limbs, still responding faithfully in good crops of
fruit almost yearly for the little care bestowed upon
them. Many of them through a long life of sacred

re ve
vivir?
rf

48 THE PEACH

associations are still the object of family endear-
ment. Why should not care and culture prolong
the life of the tree as it does that of our permanent
plants and the common products of the earth?
Fruitfulness and longevity require culture and with-
out it both vegetable and animal life would result
in failure. And here we read the history of our
failure through our own prejudices and lack of en-
érgy years ago to grow this delicious fruit in Penn-
sylvania dering its almost entire culture beyond
the limits of our State and to be taken up by the
early pioneers of the enterprise—the citizens of Del-
aware and Maryland, as a branch of common indus-
try and one which has added its millions of dollars
to their agricultural interests in raising them to
competence and affluence in a fifty years undis-
turbed monopoly of our markets. I do not speak
of this in any feeling of complaint, for they de-
serve it all for their energy and their labor. Their
foresight stands as a monument to their perse-
verance and industry. As we are now, with our
discoveries, placed on an equal footing, so far as to
say that we, too, can raise peaches at home, and
compete with them in our own markets, we may now
congratulate ourselves in the hope that the time is
coming when we may, in some measure, return the
many obligations to our friends in Delaware at
least by catering to their tastes in the markets of
Wilmington, the growing metropolis of their State.

The planting of peach trees will not interfere, to .

AND ITS DISEASE. 49

any appreciable amount, with the crop of corn, by
turning down, as usual, a stiff sod, and in planting
the peach trees at 16x18 feet in the rows we will
have one hundred and fifty tothe acre. Using that
many hills of corn, the corn being planted 3x4 at,
say eighty bushels to the acre, the one hundred and
fifty. hills occupied by the trees would reduce the
product of the acre only about three and one-half
_ bushels. The second year we put in corn, potatoes
_ and other crops, requiring culture, also manuring
in the hill to make the corn crop, and this second
year's crop may not exceed over two-thirds that
of the first year; the third year to be again plant-
ed with corn, or such crops as require cultivation,
and after the third year all cropping to be sus-
pended, but the field of orchard thereafter to be
cultivated by plowing and harrowing it at least
once a year, and oftener in years of overbearing,
as hereinafter pointed out.

MANURES.

As the analysis of the peach, apple and pear
shows them so nearly allied in proportional quan-
tities of the most important elements of which they
are composed, on the settled principle that these
constituent parts indicate the food upon which they
exist, it is evident that in catering to their appe-
tites, we may feed them all from a compost formed
of the same fertilizing elements of which they are
mainly composed. Every suitable soil of medium
fertility contains a sufficient quantity of the requi-
site elements for a healthy and vigorous growth of
the peach; therefore, but little, if any, of the fer-
tilizing elements will be required at planting, or
in its growth up to bearing, unless as a precaution
against infection from that fell specific disease, the
‘‘vellows,” to which it is subject in Pennsylvania,
and in the most of our neighboring States. The fol-
lowing is a chemical analysis of the peach, apple
and pear, the leading fruits adapted to our soil and
climate:

Peach—Potash, 12; lime, 23; phosphate of lime,
21.

AND ITS DISEASE. 51

Apple—Potash, 16; lime, 19; phosphate of lime,
ive

Pear—Potash, 22; lime, 13; phosphate of lime,
27.

It will be observed that there is but little differ-
ence in the chemical composition of these import-
ant elements, except that of lime, which, in the
peach, is largely developed. All these ingredients
are familiar to every tiller of the soil as manures,
and are applied almost yearly to crops. With this
analysis before us, we have no need of inquiry of
our neighbor as to the kind of manure best adapted
to the orchard. We see that these three fruits are
composed largely of potash, lime and phosphate of
lime, and when the soil becomes exhausted of either,
or all, and the ground begins to present the appear-
ance of poverty, as indicated in the crop, these ele-
ments must be resupplied to restore the trees, or
rather to continue their growth and vigor.

In medium soilsan application of eaustze or quick
lime, direct from the kiln, at the rate of fifty bushels
to the acre, spread on the plowed ground, and well
harrowed in, as for corn, is about all the manuring
or treatment that the ground requires for the peach
tree at planting, and for the first season of its
growth, with the usual attention in cultivating the
corn, potatoes or other cultivated crops which may
occupy the ground. As caustic lime—always cheap
and accessible—is to act a leading part in the new
programme, as a remedial agent for the protection

52 i THE PEACH

of the health of the peach tree from its specific dis-
ease, in connection with other alkalies, it may be
as well for us to look now somewhat into its chem-
ical and mechanical action in the multiple econo-
my of vegetable life. Lime may be employed to
prevent the decay of wood and other organic sub-
stances, or it may be employed for their decompo-
sition. We have the example of the first in ships
and wooden structures used in transportation of
burned lime, and in carts and wagons conveying it
from the kiln to the fields. In these cases the lime
is in excess of the organic matter, and therefore
the moisture in the wood is absorbed by the lime,
while the fibre is preserved in this way from de-
composition; but if these conditions are reversed,
and the water and organic matter are in excess of
the newly burned lime, the wood will decay. Lime
is employed on our soils to reduce or decompose
vegetable elements, to correct its acidity, or for the
solution of silica, or the decomposition of iron salts
in the soil. |

Lime has a powerful attraction for carbonic acid,
and as vegetable matter is composed largely of car-
bon, it is readily seen why decomposition takes
place. Quick or caustic lime, in fact, soon becomes
the carbonate of lime by exposure to the action of
vegetable matter, and thus loses its caustic proper-
ties. As an alkali, lime neutralizes acidity in the
soil, and sweetens it for the growth of our crops,
A good soil must not possess any acid properties.

AND ITS DISEASE. 53

The remains of plants, and even stable manure are
of an acid nature, but the soil usually contains, in
its mineral constituents, so many bases—lime, pot-
ash, soda and magnesia—that these suffice to neu-
tralize the acidity. But when this natural supply
is insufficient we must add to it, and lime is the
cheapest base at the hands of the farmer. Lime
has the property of setting at liberty the alkalies
in the soil, thus favoring the formation of the solu-
ble silicates, so important.to the growth of grass
and grain. The application of lime to land and
the burning of clay act on the same principle in
decomposing the clay silicates and liberating their
alkalies, thus favoring solubility and affording nu-
triment to vegetable life. Lime in its caustic state
is destructive to moss, lichen, fungi and all vegeta-
ble and animal matter.

In the month of October the fields of Yorkshire,
aud Oxfordshire, England, look as if they were
covered with snow. They are plowed down, and
whole square miles are seen whitened over with
quick lime, which during the moist winter months
exercises its beneficial influence ‘upon the stiff clay
soil of those countries. |

Fruitfulness in cold clay soils may be promoted
and made equal to the best for apples, peaches and
other fruits with a moderate dressing of quick lime,
about the quantity such lands should receive for
corn. Lime will generally promote profuse flow.
ering and fruiting of trees and plants, the lime

54 THE PEACH

salts producing evaporation and concentration of
the sap. On the black vegetable lands of southern
Maryland, with caustic oyster shell lime. of forty
bushels to the acre, fifty bushels of corn can be
produced to the acre without using a shovel full of
other manure. The quick lime neutralizes the
acid in the sour. vegetable soil sweetening it and
changing it into rich soluble food for the crop.
The cultivated plants which consume very much
lime in their development will naturally lead much
sooner to an exhaustion of the lime in the soil, than
those plants which use lime only moderately.

These brief references to the chemical and me-
chanical operations of lime on the vegetable and
mineral substances in the soil, will give us some
idea of its importance in preparing the soil with.
indispensible food to the healthy rr of plants
and trees.

The questions as to the time, soiilabli and quan-
tity in which this great corrective alkaline agent
should be applied to the soil to obtain the most
desirable results are of vast importance to the in-
terests of the country. Many an agricultural crop
has been lost and many an. orchard has withered
and died for the want of a better knowledge of that
class of alkaline manures which make up so large-
ly the elements of vegetable growth. It will be
observed that the analysis has given us but three
of the ingredients, among the many, which go to
make up the entire composition of the peach and

AND ITS DISEASE. 55:

the other fruits named, viz: potash, lime and phos-
phate of lime, these being the important ones, and
the only ones indeed required to enable us to point
out the requisite manures; the others being sup-
plied in small quantities already in the soil or ob-
tained from the atmosphere.

In the analysis of the peach, apple and pear
referred to, potash ranks as the second ingredient
of importance, entering largely as a component
part of these three leading fruits. We will here
briefly present it as another of the alkaline agents
with quick lime active in the destruction of the
relentless enemy to the peach tree. In speaking
of potash we associate it at once with ashes as they
are well known to contain largely of this element,
and they are all at the command of the farmer
that furnish it. |

Practice has shown that Potash exerts a highly
favorable influence on the growth of plants. The
Chemist informs us that potash belongs to the caus-
tic alkaline bodies and in this form resembles am-
monia, and this similarity is carried out in its
strong action in forcing vegetable growth. The
virgin soil furnishes us with potash and it will
continue to do so, for all kinds of earth and stone
contain stores of it in an insoluble state, and a cer-
tain portion is made soluble from year to year by
the weather and our plants have the benefit of this.
Spreading the fields over with quick lime causes an
increased quantity of potash, since lime possesses

56. THE PEACH

the power of decomposing rocks and stones con-
taining it (Stockhart Ag. Chem.) Butif the soil is
employed from year to year in the growth of ex-
haustive crops, the salts of potash must to some
extent be given back in some form to prevent the
land from becoming sterile for the want of thisim-
portant element of which it has been robbed. An
example we have in the exhausted soils of Virginia
by the successive crops of tobacco grown by the
early settlers of the country who looked upon the
virgin soil of their farms as inexhaustible+and ds
alsd the farmers in'the rich Genesee Valley of New
York, within my recollection, entertained the same
views: In advertising their farms for sale, one of
the advantages claimed was that the barn and sta-
bles were located on a stream of water sufficient to
carry off the manure without the trouble and ex-
pense of carting. Although this may be so with
a continued succession of exhaustive crops, (all
crops are exhaustive if all is taken off and nothing
returned,) for the potash and other manurial in-
gredients will go faster than the weather can an-
mually supply them. But this is not the case with
our orchards, for it is well known that a peach
orchard improves the soil and it is thesame with
the apple aud. pear orchards as may’ be seen in the
soil fer years after they have died out or been re-
moved. I believe that an analysis of the soils of
any of our orchards would show as much if not
more lime and potash. than they could have done

AND ITS DISEASE. é 57

at the planting; however old they may be if not
exhausted by overcropping; for the continual stir-
ring of the soil as in the peach orchard and the
turning in yearly with the plow all vegetable
growth, that may be made through the growing
season, and the fallen foliage of the trees in the fall;
together with the exposure of the soil to the de-
composing actions of rains and frost and other
atmospheric influences, make soluble that which
was before insoluble for the support of plants.
From rock and stone and pebble and grains of sand,
down even below a microscopic atom is developed
this important agent, potash, which plays its in-
comprehensible role in the support of vegetable
and animal life. All these elements are at work
in their proper seasons, furnishing lime, potash
and other alkalies to the soil, the same as we ob-
serve in Virginia for the past century, furnishing
slowly but surely a returning supply of plant food
to be husbanded, it is to be hoped, more carefully
for the present and succeeding generations,

We may assume that the peach, apple and pear
contained in their first introduction into the coun-
try the same quantities and relative proportion of
ingredients in their composition that they now do,
and that no complaint was then made in the North
that the soil had become exhausted of its potash
and lime; nor is there any complaint now in the
South where the orchards thrive and produce from
fifty to sixty years. The shortened life and failure

.

58 THE PEACH

in the North arose from another cause, which was
noticed and first recorded by Judge Peters, the
President of the “Philadelphia Agricultural So-
ciety,” who, on the 1lth of February, 1806, in a
communication to the Society, wrote: “About
fifty years ago, on the farm on which I now re-
side, my father had a large peach orchard which
yielded abundantly until a general catastrophe be-
fel it. Plentiful crops had been for many years
produced with but little attention, when the trees
all at once began to decline and finally perished.
For forty years past I have observed the peach
trees in my neighborhood to be short lived.” This
sudden transition from a long life toa short one
was not from the exhaustion of the soil. It was
from disease, and in the peach tree the great and
overshadowing disease caused by a “parasitic
fungi,” and perhaps from slighter injuries from in-
sect life. These pests being destroyed, the orchard
will be restored to tts primitive health, thrift, pro-
ductiveness and a more prolonged life.

The remedy is at hand in the very elements
which afford food for the tree, and of which it is
mainly composed—lime, potash and other alkalies,
and while giving life and strength to the tree they
are striking down and removing the cause of dis-
ease, when properly applied.

In recommending a suitable manure for the peach,
and following out the indications shown by the
analysis, and my own experience, I may say that.

AND ITS DISEASE. 59

“caustic or quick lime is now for the first tome pub-
licly announced as an indispensable specific remedial
agent, with the other alkalies named, against the yel-
lows in the peach tree.”
_In seasons of Goindiive® ing the cies should be
cultivated up to about the middle of July with the
_plow or cultivator .and harrow, the same as with
the young trees before their bearing and while cul-
tivated in corn; andif apparently needing manure
a light shovelful of wood ashes applied to the tree
at its base—first removing the earth from around
it with a heavy hoe—and this course of treatment
will keep the trees in a thrifty, growing condition,
forming wood for the next year’s crop, and sustain-
ing them through their exhaustive efforts under an
over cropping. But this unnatural draft upon the
strength of the tree may be avoided, under a judi-
cious thinning out of the young fruit to a moderate
crop. This is done to a limited extent occasionally,
but I have never yet known it to be extended to
large orchards.’ There can be no doubt of the ad-
vantage and profit of such a practice, as a case in
point from a successful gardener shows: ‘ My ten
fruit trees were loaded with fruit. When as large
as hickory nuts, I began the operation of remov-
ing all the smallest, and of thinning out unsparing-
ly wherever they were crowded. After going over
five trees in this way, in deference to gentle remon:
strances from his ‘better half,’ he suspended his
‘ravages,’ leaving five untouched.

=

60 THE PEACH

In summing up he states that the peaches on the
five denuded trees grew prodigiously large. These
were gathered and sent to the Philadelphia market
and brought forty-one dollars clear of all expenses,
while the fruit from the other five trees, sent to
market, netted only twenty-six dollars, making a
difference of fifteen dollars in favor of thinning.”
The ten trees produced sixty-seven dollars, but if
all had been thinned the product would have been
eighty-two dollars.

This difference, extended to an orchard of 10,000
to 20,000 trees, would make a handsome annual
profit. This is a striking illustration, though it
might not be carried out ona large scale, at so
high a rate, still it isa hard fact in favor of ex-
pending a little labor to a large profit. This is am
impressive example for our fruit growers and gar-
deners, but more particularly to those on a limited
scale, who can in some measure make up in quali-
ty what they lack in quantity. I expect however
that the matter is pretty well adjusted as it is giv-
ing the advantage to the small though careful pro-
ducer in his quality. Where there is a will there
is a way and with the enthusiast it is a well beaten
path to the object of his ambition.

In applying manures to trees and plants, when
required, if the compost heap, or the means to pro-
cure the requisite elements recommended, fall short
of a supply for the entire surface of the garden or
orchard, the object may be attained by adopting the

AND ITS DISEASE. Of

“Chinese method” of manuring the roots rather
than the soil, by applying the fertilizing liquid or
solid to the base of the tree by first removing the
earth from around it, giving it, in the case of the
peach, a shovelful of wood ashes occasionally, or
soap-suds, lime, poudrette, or a little composted
guano, or other alkali, graduating the quantity to
“the strength of the application and size of the tree.
This will give better immediate results than tem
times the quantity scattered broadcast on the sur-
face, as around the base of the tree the application
is at once direct to the proper place, and will soon
show the effect on the orchard. My views on this
point are contained in an article submitted at a
meeting of the Fruit Grower’s Society of Pennsy].
vania, held at Reading, January 15, 1873, and pnb-
lished in the proceedings of the society, in volume
9, of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society,
inquiring as to the “Best Method of Manuring
Fruit Trees, Their Appropriate Manures, &c.” from
which the following is extracted:

“Perhaps it is enough to apply the remedy di.
rect tothe roots of the trees around their trunk,
instead of treating all the soil of the orchard; ex
periments, as shown, seem to have established this
fact. With my experiments with ashes, charcoal,
poudrette, also with lime, the application around
the tree, first removing the earth from the surface,
I have found quite sufficient; the potash or other
alkalies being absorbed and carried into the circu

62 THE PEACH

lation, and in the course of a few months a new
supply of fine surface roots from the tree encircling
the whole stock, spreading in every direction in the
alkaline compost, and taking up the nutritious ele-
ments they contain, increasing the thrift and fruit-
fulness of the tree. Here we have the evidence
that this portion of the tree, at least, absorbs nu-
triment as well as the roots and leaves, and that:
every portion of the tree performs the same office.”

This practice is directly in the teeth of the the-
ory of Professor Lindley, (Hngland’s great vegeta-
ble physiologist), in his facetious ridicule in the
closing page of his work on “Horticulture,” in
which he says:

‘“T have seen a wenden ‘alia ought to have
known much better, seduously administering liquid
manure, by pouring it into the soil at the base of
the stem, which is much the same thing as if an
attempt were made to feed a man seRIee the soles
of his feet.”

There is not, I would suppose, an intelligent fans
mer in Chester county but who could convince the
old philosopher of the error implied in his ridicule
of the wise gardener, nor is there a doctor within
the same limits but would confirm it practical-
ly, by the insertion of a little solution of mor-
phia in the professor's back for lumbago. I may
here add that the Chinese system of manuring by
a direct application, as the manure of the profes-
sor's gardener, is the most plausible argument that

AND ITS DISEASE. 63

can be used for the gross system of culture, which
has its distinguished advocates; but I find none
among extensive peach growers who break the
soil yearly. .

It has always been remarked that quality, and not
quantity, is what is wanted, My observation has
been that beauty outranks quantity, in the fruit
market, at least. To present that requisite in more
than its natural attraction, I would recommend
an occasional manuring of the ground around the
tree with ammoniacal manures, such as guano,
poudrette, and with charcoal, which is a heavy ab-
sorbent of ammonia. These elements, through
their ammonia, will impart to the peach an inten-
sity to that peculiar rich, deep mellow red color,
known to no other fruit, giving it its great beauty
over all others; and in addition to this, these am-
moniacal elements are, in their effects, highly enrich-
ing to the soil, as we are all aware, and as strong
alkalies act as remedial agents against the ‘‘yel-.
lows.” The expense of fertilizers for the culture
of the peach is much less than for any other crop
on the farm. My practice was to a considerable
extent to plant apple orchards in the grounds oc-
cupied in peach trees. The trees are cultivated to-
gether, and the fertilizers of the one are adapted to
the other, and in some six or eight years the ap-
ples will begin to bear, and there will be but little
interference, the apple trees being planted in rows
22x36, the peach trees 16x18. My large orchards

.

64 AND ITS DISEASE.

were mostly planted 18x18 feet. I have tried them
at from 12x12 up to 18x20, but finally settled down
to 18x18, which I found to be about the proper
distance; intersecting the orchard with roads at
convenient distances for gathering the fruit, small
orchards not requiring such an arrangement, the
head lands being wide enough for wagons to pass
and repass in removing fruit.

INTRODUCTORY TO THE FOLLOWING
CHAPTER ON THE INDICATIONS OF
THH YELLOWS:

The subject of the “yellows” in the peach tree
has come under the notice of the Agricultural De-
partment at Washington, and recognized as a ques-
tion of great importance to our agricultural inter-
ests. The microscopist of the Department, Prof.
Thomas Taylor, in his investigations into the cause
of this widé spread and most destructive disease,
has thrown around the whole subject many new
and interesting features that séem to have harmo-
nized our Pomologists, and led to the adoption of
Prof. Taylor’s conclusions, that Fung? is the cause
of this fatal disease. These microscopic reports
of the investigations of Prof. Taylor, accompanied
by illustrations, will be found at length in the
Agricultural Reports of the Department for the
years 1871 and °72. We understand that further
examinations are being made by the Department,
which, no doubt, will goto confirm the conclusions
to which the former investigations led. This, it is
hoped, will settle the great question which has
baffled the untiring efforts of the country for al-
most the last century to discover a cause.

We have now only’ to apply a remedy in a

66 THE PEACH

proper way to restore our diseased peach districts
and sections of the country to a healthy condition
as peach growing regions, and I think that this
may be found in my practice of treatment in peach
growing for the last thirty years, and as recom-
mended here in these pages with the vigilant pre-
cautions I have pointed out.

INDICATION OF YELLOWS.

In the yellows the bearing tree in its incipient
stage of disease shows a premature ripening of the
fruit, sometimes only in a single branch, or even
a fruit spur, and on other trees the fruit on a large
limb may present the same early maturity, while
in both trees the balance of the fruit retains its
natural green, thrifty condition, and to all appear-
ances perfectly healthy, but as the disease pro-

gresses the fruit continues to be affected gradually -

in the same way up to the ripening of the healthy
crop. I have known many fruit growers to be
deceived with these appearances, supposing that in
this early maturity they had a new variety of
great value, which could be increased by inocula-
tion; and for atime the supposed new fruit was
quietly spoken of in a very confidential way. But
alas! the next year’s appearance of both fruit and

AND ITS DISEASE. 67

tree fully dispelled the delusion, and instead of a
new early variety, the disappointment ended in a
crop of small astringent, worthless fruit and a tree
in the advanced stage of the disease. The most of
our authors inform us that the fruit indicating the
disease is smaller than the healthy fruit. My ex-
perience uniformally has been that in the first
stages of the disease, where but a few peaches on
tree ripen prematurely, they are much larger than
mature fruit of the general crop of the same va-
riety. I well recollect, and will here cite one or
two cases of treesslightly affected, which produced
fruit of immense size: |

At the first exhibition of the Chester County
Horticultural Society, held at West Chester, Pa.,
early in September, 1848, Mr. B. Graves exhibited
a few specimens of the Red Cheek Malacaton, which
for size and beauty could not have been excelled,
many of them measuring thirteen inches in cir-
cumference, but all exhibited here and there on
the surface the fatal symptoms of disease, mani-
fested by deep, reddish, purple splotches and hectic
spots, in beautiful contrast with that rich tint pe-
culiar only to this delicate fruit. This, of course,
was the first and the last contribution from that
noble tree, and it fell prematurely. under this fatal
disease that has seldom spared its victim.

There was exhibited at the same time a beauti-
ful collection of the same variety from an orchard
near Chester Springs, which also showed slight in-

68 THE PEACH

dications of the same disease. These took a pre-
mium, and were sent directly to the Horticultural
Fair then open in Philadelphia, and there also re-
ceived the premium for their great size and beauty,
and as I was informed, were considered a valuable
seedling and not the Malacaton as labelled. Hun-
dreds of bushels of these prematurely ripened
peaches from badly diseased trees are sold in the
early markets, bringing prices much greater per-
haps than the healthy crop, on account of their
early ripening, and hence it is that diseased trees
are left standing in yards and gardens and even in
the orchards of some peach districts, diffusing their
poisonous contagion throughout an. entire district,
blasting their own and their neighbor’s healthy
trees, in order that they may at so great sacrifice
gather from their dying plants the last deserted
and tasteless peach. The disease in its earliest
stages in young trees, which, by the way, some-
times comes from the nursery in the stock we pur-
chase, is more difficult to detect than at a later
period. Py dt

It requires a practical eye and a knowledge of
the habits of the tree to detect it, and its peculiar
features, as there are several active agents at work
which may cause the yellow appearance, and the
casual observer might be mistaken; and through
this very common mistake we have so many dif-
ferent and infallible recipes for the cure of the
yellows. The next indication, and the oply one

AND ITS DISEASE. 69

by which the majority of peach growers first de-

tect the disease, is as indicative and as marked in
its symptoms of approaching death as the “black
vomit” in the human system. This next indica-

tion to which we now refer, is seen in the small
wiry shoots springing from the body and large
branches, or from the roots at the base of the tree,

Carb etas in every instance small yellow lanceo-

late (lance- like) leaves, and the whole tree assum-

ing a sickly appearance in leaves and branches,

Sy producing small highly colored fruit with the
peculiar spots and blotches as before described,

only more numerous with flesh deep red and
stringy, and fruit worthless for any purpose of
family use or for marketing. I am so. entirely
familiar with the appearance of the diseased peach
tree in all its stages, that I can readily tell the
condition of an orchard by examining a few gen-

eral samples of its fruit at maturity, either prema-

ture or healthy. In aspecial disease the discover y
of the cause may be the means of leading to the
discovery of a cure, but if the special remedy be
inown, the doctor can get along with the patient
wie: troubling himself so much with the cause
of disease. It i 1s pretty generally believed that the
cause here arises from a Parasitic Fungi in the
bark and roots of the tree, but itis not for us just
here to discuss that question, nor is it at all neces-
sary, as we know our remedy and the course of
treatment to be applied, which has proven entirely

70 THE PEACH

satisfactory in raising fruit on a large scale for
twelve or fifteen years consecutively in the same
orchards in Chester and Delaware counties, sur-
rounded at the same time by thousands of trees,
dead and dying from the disease for the want of
the application of proper measures, and quite as
much, perhaps, from. the want of care and proper
treatment. My large and successful orchards were
_Intersected by public roads much traveled, and were
the cause of great attraction, exciting an interest
that led to the planting of thousands of trees, but
as our apple orchards are now cultivated and cared —
for, these new plantings of the peach were gener-
ally left to take the rotation of farm crops, of corn,
oats, wheat and clover, and they soon yielded and
finally fell victims to the borer and the yellows.
The disease is communicated by contact of roots,
inoculation or trimming. A knife used on a dis-
eased tree will communicate the disease if used on
a healthy one. Ifthe disease arises from Parasitic
Fungi, it is most likely communicated by what is
called sporadic contagion. A great deal of the
cause of its rapid spread, no doubt, may be attrib-
uted to the practice so prevalent with peach grow-
ers in the annual trimming of their orchards. It
has no doubt been ruinous to those growers who
have not been able to recognize the disease in its
early stages. Only the trimming of a few diseased
trees in an orchard may be the means of spreading
the disease over the entire orchard in the course of

‘ee.

AND ITS DISEASE. 71

two or three years, and this would more likely be
the case if the trimming should be done in the
spring or summer at the full circulation and flow
of the sap. Really the tree wants but little trim-
ming after the head is formed. This is to be regu-
lated according to taste and convenience. My prac- .
tice has been to head my trees leaving the body
five to six feet in length, so as to cultivate with
freedom and ease with small horses or mules, well
up to the tree, thus saving much labor and afford-
ing a free circulation of air and a full view through
an orchard of considerable size. Low heading makes
close and neat cultivation rather difficult and more
expensive, and what is worse than all liable to be
neglected. The peach grower looking to success
which is found alone in the health of his trees must
be a bold operator. On the first symptoms of dis-
ease if only in a twig or a fruit spur, it must be
eradicated, root body and branch, and as the barren
fig tree cast into the fire, renewing its place by first
applying to the soil in which it grew the necessary
curative manures in sufficient quantity for a healthy
reception for a new tree at the proper season for
planting.

Shall we longer as advised by the old school of
vegetable Philosophers still wait the old cycle of
time—20 years—to renew a removed apple or peach
tree, or replant a new orchard on the ground fol-
lowing the removal of the old? Iam prepared to
answer no; with the light before us we will treat

72 THE PEACH

our orchards as we treat our crops; rotate at a time
and in a way to suit our own convenience, and not
to suit the tastes and convenience of fungoid toad-
stools and infusoria, our enemies in péach’ growing
and so insignificant too, that we have to use 500 or
1000 diameter microscopic power to bring them
within the range of our vision:

“Nature abhors a vacuum,” so said the old Phil-
osophers; their successors said nature did no such
thing and proved it! We can point to farmers asa
class residing within one hundred miles of the city
of Philadelphia, who let their corn land rest every
alternate year, while the farmers in Penisylvania
found out'long ago that‘ they could ‘not afford their
lands ‘any such ua BOHOE? dach field must pro-
duce‘a crop annually and’ rabpoad liberally to good
treatment. This is the course to be pursued in
peach growing and this is what we intend to do.
We have found out long ago through dearly bought
experience that the system of “ masterly inactivity”
néver did nor never will pay in farming at least.
Whether the peach is a long lived or a short lived
tree, or a large’ tree or a small tree we shall not
stop here to enquire, but we intend to make it pro-
duce as‘long at least as our faithful horse labors on
the farm, or our generous dairy cow affords us milk
and what more could'we ask of the peach? With
caré and éxemption from disease we may double
the period: of ‘its production, for such is its lon-
gevity in the healthy districts not one hundred

AND ITS DISEASE. 73

miles south of Philadelphia, that we can reason-
ably look for a more extended limit. Why then
should not the peach be permitted a place on the
farm, and raised to the dignity of a new staple for
Pennsylvania, and at once for the counties con-
tiguous to our great markets supplying the annual
want which is now supplied from adjoining States ?
From the quick return of the crop under careful
culture of four short years, the six counties of Del-
aware, Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, Berks and
Lancaster, may reap a rich harvest from the pro-
duct of the peach orchard, increasing yearly, to
meet the increasing consumption and in a little
while yielding more in profits than any other branch
of farm industry, not excepting Lancaster’s great
staple—tobacco. | iM | |

PEACH BORER, &@.

The Peach worm or borer is a four winged in-
sect, wasp like in shape, and of a steel blue color.
It deposits its eggs from early in the summer until
fall, near the ground around the base of the tree.
The young larva or worm enters the bark at the
root of the tree and for the whole year subsisting
on and ringing the tree if not attended to, and in
the spring having finished its ravages encases itself
in a gum and saw dust like envelope or cocoon,
under the bark or just beneath the earth, around
the door of its premises, soon to change from pupa
to insect life. It rarely happens that healthy trees
are entirely destroyed by it unless greatly neglec-
ted. As it confines its depredations to the bark
not entering the wood it is easily captured and de-
stroyed on examination in the fall if carefully done,
and the larva removed by a sharp pointed knife;
and about an ounce of hard soap firmly rubbed
around the base of the tree an inch or so beneath
the surface and if about the same quantity be ap-
plied to the place injured by the worm or in the
incision made by the knife it would be of great
benefit in healing over the wound and giving
growth and vigor to the tree.

The potash in this case has its direct application

AND ITS DISEASE. 75
to the sap circulation and is the very kind of food
the little wiry surface roots are looking after in the
soil tocarry to the limbs, leaves and fruit. Here
again is an application of the “ Chinese system” of
manuring the tree instead of the soil. These two
ounces of soap (potash) will do more good to the
tree than a half a bushel of ashes sown on the bare
surface of the ground broadcast, and it will be as
effectivein keeping off the borer through the season.

The cheapest and most efficient and expeditious
way to keep an orchard clear of the peach worm
or borer, is the plan above recommended of re-
moving it with a knife and applying an ounce or
two of cheap hard soap. The application of the
soap, while it repels the insect and borer is a pow-
erful stimulant to the tree, and acts quickly and
efficiently. Other enemies that commit their de-
predations on the limbs, branches and leaves of
the tree, though slight compared to the yellows,
such as curled leaf, mildew, &c., &c., destructive to
small limbs, call for their remedies also. Strong
soap suds, or a solution of potash and urine will
destroy mildew, fungi, aphides, bark insects, &c.
Whatever is effective to the root is also beneficial
to the branches. I have always found whitewash
sufficient, and in looking at the many recommen:
dations by practical Pomologists I find they all
make lime the leading ingredient, and it seems that
lime and potash are indeed about all that is re-
quired to produce the required effect, which is to

76 THE PEACH

destroy the parasitic agents, insects and fungi on
the limbs, body and leaves of the tree. A good
wash for the limbs and body of the tree is a half a
peck of unslacked line, one quart of soft soap, and
pour on this warm water until it comes to the con-
sistence of whitewash, and apply with a brush. If
the whitewash is objectionable it can be changed
to any color desired, Others have recommended
about the same composition ; adding, however, sul-
phur, soot and various compounds, but the vital
destructive agents in all such washes are the lime
and potash.

PRUNING.

I have already elsewhere remarked that the
peach really requires very little of what is gener-
ally understood as pruning or trimming after the
head of the tree is properly formed, except to keep
all sprouts or shoots cut or rubbed off as they ap-
pear springing from the roots at the collar of the
tree or from the main body. The first pruning or
trimming is to the y oung tree, after it arrives from
the nursery and before planting, which has been
fully described. The system of shortening the
branches and limbs as practised among amateurs,
gardeners and small growers, though employed to
but a limited extent, if judiciously “applied, is pro-
ductive of very satisfactory results. It is, indeed,
but a counterpart to plowing, which is a shorten-
ing in of the roots; both performing important
parts in Stes ete thrift, productiveness and
life of the tree, and more particularly in dis-
eased districts, and under the present system of
peach growing which has undergone but little
change of importance for the past fifty years at
least, the tree for a little time producing, though
Riding out but a false hope, then lingering and
3 dying under its fatal disease the yellows. Insuch
cases this double cutting in by the plow at the

78 THE PEACH

roots and the knife at the limbs, destroying or
palliating for a time to a considerable extent the
incipient stage of the disease in the tree, whether
it arises from the agency of an insect or from the
ravages of a parasitic fungi; in either case it af.-
fects the body and branches as well as the roots of
the tree. While the plow cuts and turns up the
entire network of surface roots, and destroys as
well the active agent of disease, the knife performs
a like office by cutting in the limbs and branches, |
destroying to a large extent the active agent there,
thus divesting the tree to the extent of the loss of
its diseased roots and branches of the fell enemy,
leaving the tree in its full flow of sap to throw out
its thousands of new surface roots as feeders to
work in the more healthy soil which has just been
turned down by the plow. The shortened limbs
in the new growth now in active sympathy with
the roots, respond in a more healthy current of
sap—the life-blood of the tree+-in a vigorous
growth of wood and root for another year of pro-
ductiveness.

This system of culture of the peach tree, plow-
ing and cutting in the branches, with the addition
of a bold operation in eradicating the diseased
trees, if any, as they appear, attended by its re-
versing effects of health and returning vigor, is
one among the strong evidences that this infection ©
is caused by fungi. A pruning of the roots and a
judicious cutting of the branches and limbs in the

AND ITS DISEASE. 79

way I have pointed out, and for the reason as-
signed, and even in the application of remedial
agents, prevention of the disease would be more
benefit to the orchard than any blind empirical
course of the highest culture that could be
adopted.

The large peach-growers, most of whom are on
the healthy side of the peach-dividing line between
the North and South, are exempt from the evils
referred to, and they have not adopted this course
of shortening in to any extent, leaving the orchard
after the proper heading, pretty much to its natu-
ral growth, attending rather to the necessary thin-
ning out of all intruding sprouts, and removing
dead and dying branches, leaving the tree as de-
scribed by one of our distinguished Pomologists,
‘when in fruit with bending slender branches in
graceful curves, so as to open the spreading heads
and let in the sun and air to color up the fruit,
all through the middle of the tree as well as the
outside.” “This is the plan,” he further observes,
“which is found to work much better than head-
ing the tree in.” Asthis mode, it seems, has be-
come almost a universal system and has worked
well, and having its convenience, it will be contin-
ued there with large peach growers, while the
heading-in system will be practised North among
amateurs, gardeners and small producers. It is
evident that a tree judiciously cut in, and the fruit
thinned in years of overbearing, will produce fruit

80 3 THE PEACH

under good cultivation of increased size and im-
proved in quality, which will command a much
higher price in the market than the general crop
under ordinary care.

*These are all questions that enter into the con-
sideration of labor, expense and time consumed,

and are for each one to decide for himself. The
active, energetic, vigilant and farsighted man in
the peach, as well as in every other enterprise,
will avail himself of all the advantages to be de-
rived to the extent of his ability, and will adopt
such a system as will prove to the greatest ad-
vantage between expense and profit.

* Well directed pruning is one of the most ali and if

ill directed, it is among the most mischeyious oie ser that
can take place i in application to a tree.

THE VALUE OF PEACH GROWING.

There is no crop that can be raised with less la-
bor and expense, and a quicker return, than that
of the peach, and none that will give a greater re-
turn for the capital and labor employed. The peach
farms in Upper Delaware and Maryland, have re-
turned to their owners the most fabulous amounts
for their investments, far exceeding in profit any
other staple crop that has been raised in the Mid-
dle States, and on a scale never before heard of in
this or any other country. Some of the orchards
containing from 1,000 to 1,800 acres have netted
their owners from $20, 000 to $80,000 annually. A
peach orchard in New Castle county, Delaware, of
400 acres, netted the owner in one crop, $38,000,
One in Kent county, Maryland, of some 600 acres,
produced a crop paying $31,000, and the same or-
chard in 1879, yielded $42,000. In 1873, the Dela-
ware Peach Growers’ Association, reported that
there were sent from the Delaware peninsula to the
northern markets of Philadelphia, and New York,
1,288,500 baskets of peaches, or 2,577 car loads by
the railroad. Adding the quantity shipped by
steamers and sailing vessels, and the amount canned,

82 THE PEACH

the actual quantity amounted, in the aggregate, to
2,000,000 of baskets. In 1872, the whole district,
comprising the Eastern Shore of Maryland, mar-
keted, 3,500,000 baskets. The late Col. Wilkins,
on Chester river, Kent county, Maryland, had 1,350
acres in with peach trees, numbering 137,000, pro-
ducing in bearing years from $30,000 to $40,000
annually. In the State of Michigan peach grow-
ing is carried on to a considerable extent, along the
shores of the lake, some sixty miles from Chicago,
and furnishes the fruit to the city and surrounding
towns. It is reported that Mr. A. T. Dykeman,
President of the Horticultural Society of the State,
in 1878, sold peaches to the amount of $10,000
from sixty-five acres, and in 1872 a grower from
six acres received $1,700.

Peaches are grown to a fine profit in Wisconsin,
for Chicago. All these western districts, including
Ohio, Indiana and other States, complain of the
ravages of the yellows, and the Legislature of Wis-
consin has even passed an act to prevent the spread
of the disease, and I am informed that the law works
well. Thousands of dollars have been invested by
individual enterprise in planting and cultivating the
pear, and although we hear, in every direction, of
its failure in dwarf trees, still the markets seem to
be pretty well supplied through the fruit season,
yet at low prices, and particularly when it comes
in competition with the peach, which, during the
past season, was very marked. I noticed in the

AND ITS DISEASE. 83

market at West Chester, and also in Philadelphia,
baskets of first class Bartlett pears, in fine condi-
tion, by the side of Delaware peaches; the pears
were going off slowly at fifty cents per basket,
while the peaches were readily bringing seventy-
five cents. As a market fruit for production and
profit the pear pales before the peach—the expense
and extra culture required in producing good pears
is never returned in the product to half the profits
of the peach——and again the long time required be-
fore it is brought intoa bearing condition, is one
of the great‘drawbacks to pear culture.

He who plants pears,
Plants for his heirs.

But notwithstanding all these disadvantages to
be met with by the enthusiast in pear culture, I
have, at different times, set out some 3,000 trees,
dwarf and standard, for orchard culture, but they
have not been satisfactory. The pear is sold by —
the single specimen, while the peach is sold by the
crate or basket. Many of the large estates in
Lower Maryland and Delaware, which were orig-
inally purchased for a few dollars per acre, are now
fortunes to their owners. On my last visit to the
Ray bold orchards, at Delaware city, I was informed
by the Colonel, that he had then some 700 acres in
peach trees, and some 500 acres were then in bear-
ing. Crosby Morton, on the Chester river, at Round
Top, had some 1,000 acres in trees, and he informed

84 THE PEACH
‘

me that in asettlement between him and his part-
ner of the receipts of the season’s crop they divided
near $50,000 between them. These net profits from
these large orchards seem immense, but smaller
growers greatly exceed in the rate of profits, owing
to the greater and more economical facility of
handling, and the ability of doing it, as everything
can be managed with system and economy, and
without the loss that occurs from dependence upon
others. The encouraging feature of the peach busi-
ness is in its almost unlimited extent and ever in-
creasing demand, and necessarily so from the un-

limited wants of our improving towns and coun-
try. Peaches are marketed by the millions of bas-

kets, where apples and other fruits are counted
only by the thousands. The large peach grower
must be a landholder; and, like the merchant, he
has his large aggregate profits, and correspondingly
large expenses and losses in the management of
business, while the small peach grower, in most
cases, in counties contiguous te large cities, would
manage the orchard and its products under his own
eye from the field to the market, making the best
of everything and doubling his profits. The great
peach growers of Delaware and Maryland are looked
upon as the Wanamakers of the orchards, though
with goods not “marked,” while the small pro-
ducer has his brands - for superior quality on the
cheek of his ripe, luscious fruit, to be disposed of
in a comparatively retail market. The one sélls

AND ITS DISEASE. 85

in the field, by the orchard or the crop, the other
by the basket and the peck, obtaining larger prices
and better profits. f
If this should meet the eye of any one who has
2come tired or worn out with farming, and is de-
sirous of disposing of his farm, I would advise
him to plant from ten to fifteen acres in peach
trees, and at the same time a suitable portion with
. apple trees among the peaches at proper distances
apart. Such an improvement in two or three
years, or just at bearing, will secure a purchaser
at a greatly enhanced price, paying more than one
thousand per cent. on the cost of the orchard. In _
this I have had a great deal of experience, as I
have never failed in putting in a good orchard as
the first improvement on the many farms I have
purchased, if Ifound they wanted it. I have found
it as a general rule that nothing is more attractive
to farmers and their families than a good apple
and peach orchard just coming into bearing: The
purchaser in this can see at once the interest on
his mortgage if purchased on a credit, as nine-
tenths of farms are, and if an orchard of considera-
ble size, the entire principal too by the day of
maturity. If you have such a farm for sale, or
one more particularly wearing out or thin in soil
and unsightly for selling, take my advice, plant
an orchard, for it will be not only a benefit to you
but a lashing advantage to your purchaser.

VARIETIES OF PEACHES FOR. CULTI- |
VATION.

From the great varieties of peaches recommend-
elin the different peach growing districts of the
country, selections have been made of ‘such as
have been found on trial as best adapted to the
different localities.

In all such selections ‘regard should be paid to
those combining the elements of good marketable
fruit, good keepers, healthy, large, fine color, and
of vast importance, to be good carriers, standing
safe transportation to market, and such as ripen
in regular succession from the earliest to the latest,
extending through the peach season from about .
the middle of July to the middle or last of Octo-
ber, in a region near the city of Philadelphia.

The following list contains the most-of the lead-

ing varieties grown and fruited in the peach dis-
tricts of Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania,
and have for the most part been well adapted to
the Eastern’ and Western States. Many of the
kinds named have been. standard varieties for the
last thirty to fifty years and over, and have not
been superceded in their good qualities as paying
market fruits. Others have been introduced with-

AND ITS DISEASE. 87

ina later period for superior excellence, such’ as
Crawford’s Late’ and early Reeves’ Favorite, Moun-
tain Rose, Stump the World, &. We Hav now
a class of new early peaches; mostly from the seed
of the Hale’s Harly, that ripen in Pennsylvania in
July. Among them are Alexander, Amsden’s
June, Downing, Early Beatrice. These and other
varieties are offered by our nurserymen, and al-
though they have not as yet been sufficiently
tested, some of them’ offer well, and are worthy of
early trial, as they commence the peach season
nearly a month in advance of the Early York,
which some thirty years back was about the first
peach in the market, its season herein Pennsylva:
nia being from about the fourth to’ the tenth of
August. The Early Alexander was ripe here in
1879, from the 15th to the 23d of July. The Ams-
den’s June and Downing are’even earlier. It isto
be hoped that they all may prove more valuable
than their parent, “Hale’s Early,” which is now
in Maryland and Delaware as well as in Pennsyl-
vania,.pretty generally supplanted: by more relia:
ble’ varieties. -I feel hopeful that some of these
new varieties will prove themselves entirely re-
liable.

Name. : Color. Quality. Ripe.

Amsden’s June.Red............ RMN acs sed cus its July.
Alexander..... Wes cohen sy ass AMA veeweciva< et Caw July.
Downing...... Red and White. .Good. ..........4. . duly. -
Wildér.i se. Red and White..Good size........... July.

Beatrice.......ked and White. .Small........ceseees July..

88 THE PEACH

Name. Color. Quality. §- Ripe.
Hale’s Early ...Red and White. . Rots badly..........Aug.
Treth’s Early..Red and White...Fine Market Peach. .Aug.
Mount’n Rose..Red and White...Good Market Peach.. Aug.

Early York....Red and White...Popular. ......... .. Aug.
Crawf d’s Early Yellow..........Large and Good.....Aug..
Yellow Rare © E oh 4 p . '
UBRDE a5 Sa 5 3 A DUO W ps2 stadia Large and Good..... Aug.
Morris FavoriteRed and White...Large and Good.....Aug.
Oldmixon...... Red and White...Large and Fine......Aug.
Waste. oe .Yellow..,:......Like Crawford Early. Aug.
George IV..... Yellow.......+. SMeawtildl .So5:6s dents Aug.
Reeves’ Fay’te. Yellow.......... Large, Splendid..... Sept.
Fox Seedling .Red and White...Excellent bearer.....Sept
Crawford’s LateYellow..........Splendid, Valuable . .Sept.
Shipley’s Red...Red and White... Valuable............ Sept.

Grosse MignoneRed and White...Fine peach..........Sept.
Stump _ the s

World....... Red and White... Very fine............ Sept.
Stisquehanna.... Yellow.. ....... Very large..... Perre
Ward's Late,

: Free........Red and White... Popular........ ‘sa. . BOpt.
Patterson’s — ‘ite |

White....... White «05 ..55. Very 066... 33+. eeee Sept.
Crocket’s Late Ettean my

White.:..... Write 0.225532: Great bearer........ Sept
Free Heath....White....... »1 Good; .~.5. o52304. ene.
Free Smock.,... Yellew.......... Valuables = sis s wei nis Oct
Salway as... - VEMOW... 000 cccccccesceccccenecscens Oct.
Late Heath....White.......... Valtiable.. rose .uwe Oct.

‘Headly........ Ripening after the Heath.

EXTRACTS

From the Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Fruit
Growers’ Society, at its Twenty-first Annual Meet-
ing, held at Bethlehem, Pa., January 21 and 22,
1880. Judge Stitzel, President, of Reading, Pa.,
in the Chair.

Mr. Thomas W. Harvey, of Chester County,
Chairman of the Committee on Orcharding, re-.
ported with other interesting matter that Mr. John
Rutter, of West Chester, had prepared an exhaus-
tive paper on the Peach and its diseases, contain-
ing an experience of over thirty years~in- its cul-
ture in Chester and Delaware counties, Pennsy]-
vania, and in the State of Maryland, showing that
peaches can be more successfully grown and put
into the markets in better condition and to much
greater profit from these counties than from Dela-
ware and Maryland, and he hoped that it would
be asked for by the Society, whereupon Messrs.
Harvey, Sattherwaite and Noble were appointed a
committee to wait on Mr. Rutter and to invite him
to give his experience and views to the Society

on peach growing.
a * * *

90: THE PEACH

Mr. Josiah Hoopes said “the election of new
members, he believed, is always in order, and the
man I now propose to elect, twenty years ago, did
more than any one in the organization and early
prosperity of the Society, and he now moved that
John Rutter, Esq., of West Chester, be elected an
honorary member of this Society. Mr. Rutter was
elected by acclamation. |

# * * x

The Committee on Mr. Rutter’s paper on Peach
Growing, reported that the paper referred to was a
manuscript of a treatise on the culture of the Peach
and its diseases, remedies, &c., just prepared for
publication, that it was too voluminous for a single
address, and recommended that extracts be read
from it. The Secretary now read such extracts as
were selected. They were lengthy and very ex-
haustive. These, with Mr. Rutter’s very able ad-
dress before the Society, presented clearly his
mode of culture, treatment of the diseases of the
Peach, &c. |

He gave a brief history of the introduction of
the peach into the American colonies, adaptability
of our soil and climate to its growth, and great
productiveness, continuing in health and vigor to
an old age, affording annually its delicious tribute
as a luxury to the early colonists. About the
commencement of the’ American Revolution a
change suddenly came over the health and pro-
ductiveness of the tree, first appearing near Phila-

AND ITS DISEASE. 91

delphia, as reported by Judge Peters, Mr. Heston
and other peach growers of that day, and this
change they spoke of was that fatal disease the
yellows. It has continued its: ravages on the
orchard with almost unremitted virulence ever
since, and owing to the disease, peach growers
were discouraged in extensive planting in Penn-
sylvania for market purposes. New Jersey, Dela-
ware and Maryland became the peach growing
regions to supply our markets, and for the last
fifty years the two last named States have enjoyed
an almost entire monopoly of the peach market in
Philadelphia and New York. Mr. Rutter next
treated of his successful system of peach growing
for years in Chester and Delaware counties, both
diseased districts and subject to the yellows, show-.
ing that under his treatment peaches were grown
successfully, and more so than in the healthy dis-
tricts in Southern Maryland, and with much
greater profit tothe producer. The yellows isa
specific disease affecting the peach, and the cause
assigned, and pretty generally now conceded, is a
parasitic fungi, and the remedies are found in
caustic alkalies. These remedies were elaborately
and exhaustively treated. He gave a chemical
analysis of the peach, apple and pear tree, showing
that the three great and leading elements were
lime, potash and phosphate of lime, and that the
fertilizing elements required for one were the
proper food for the others; that two of these three

92 ee THE PEACH

elements, lime and potash, which contributed so
largely in their composition and healthful growth,
were the very agents, when properly prepared and
applied, that proved destructive to all the enemies
of the tree, whether from insects or parasitic fungi.
Quick or caustic lime, potash, guano and all the
ammoniacal alkalies, act as purifiers and produce
the desired result—the entire destruction of these
diseases, whether in the body, limbs or roots of
the tree; in the one case by the application of a
wash, and to the roots a treatment of lime, which
is preferred to ashes on account of its cheapness,
convenience and access, and as favorably known
to every farmer as an indispensible agent in the
fertilizing of his soil. The peach tree, he said, is
an improver of the soil, and lands of medium fer-
tility are to be preferred for peach orchards, as the
ground will continue to improve yearly under cul-
tivation. |

The peach is the least expensive crop on the
' farm; this brings peach growing within the capa-
city of all as a cheap, available and profitable crop.
The successful growing of this delicious fruit is of
the highest importance to every one, from the
farmer with his broad acres and his thousands of
trees, to the town, village and country house-
keeper who hasa yard or lawn, however limited.
Kach can become his own peach grower on a sufii-
cient scale to supply with a few thrifty trees his
entire wants in this delicious fruit. Ina few short

AND ITS DISEASE. 93

years the farmers of the six eastern counties of the
State, Lancaster, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery,
Bucks and Berks, within a few hours each of the
market, will be found relieving us from our de.
pendence on Delaware and Maryland, our two
two neighboring States, which have enjoyed a mo-
nopoly of our city markets for the last fifty years.

The result of Mr. Rutter’s peach growing in
Pennsylvania and Maryland, on a large scale for
a series of years—the first in a district diseased
with the yellows, and the other in a healthy location
not in any way affected with the disease—is infor-
mation that is vastly to the advantage of Pennsyl-
vania in quantity and quality of fruit. The un-
certainty of the peach crop is increased as we
leave Pennsylvania and proceed South, even into
Georgia and Florida. Again, the fruit shipped
from Maryland, he said, is gathered in an imma-
ture state, quite hard, and before it has acquired
that sweet saccharine taste which is only found in
a ripe peach. This immature condition is re-
quired for peaches handled so frequently and
roughly in their long tratisportation. They ripen
on their way to market and never attain the rich,
luscious taste of afully matured peach. The peach
is perishable at maturity and requires a near mar-
ket and careful handling. As to the profits in
peach growing between the North and South—a
distance of one hundred and fifty miles—there is
no approximate comparison, Pennsylvania having

94 THE PEACH ©

so greatly the advantage of nearness of market and
superior condition of fruit.

At the conclusion of Mr. Rutter’s address, on
motion of H. M. Engle, of Marietta, the following
resolution was passed :

Resolved, That the hearty thanks of this Society
are hereby tendered to Mr. John Rutter, of West
Chester, for his generosity in giving us the benefit
of his most valuable and long experience in peach
culture. .

INTRODUCTION, - . .
GENERAL REMARKS ON THE PEACH, -
First APPEARANCE OF THE YELLOWS, .
TREATMENT OF PEACH FARM NEAR WEST
CHESTER, Pa. : - .
_ DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME, . :
EXPERIENCE IN PEACH GROWING IN MarRY-
LAND, : : : .
LOCATION AND SOIL FOR PEACH CULTURE,
DIRECTIONS FOR PLANTING, ETC, - :
ADVANTAGES OF PEACH CULTURE, -
MANURES AND REMEDIAL AGENTS, - :
BENEFITS OF POTASH, ETC., : :
Quick LIME THE GREAT REMEDY, - :
INDICATIONS OF YELLOWS IN THE PEACH,
PEACH BoRER, ETC.. : - -
PRUNING, . pe - :
THE VALUE OF PEACH GROWING, - :
VARIETIES OF PEACHES FOR CULTIVATION,
EXTRACTS FROM PROCEEDINGS OF FRUIT
GROWERS’ CoNVENTION, - -~ =
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MORRIS NURSERIES,

ESTABLISHED 1848

120 Aeres in Cultivation,

GEO. ACHELIS,

: PROPRIETOR,
West Chester, Pa.,

20:

A LARGE ASSORTMENT OF

PEACH, APPLE, PEAR,
CHERRY TREES, FETC.,
ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUBS,
EVERGREENS, IN GREAT VARIETY,
SMALL FRUITS, GRAPE VINES,
CLIMBING VINES, ROSES, ETC, ETC.,

Always on Hand.

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mrrespondence Solicited.

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EVERY SATUNDAY Mun.

A WEEKLY PAPER,
Published Every Saturday

IN
HARRISBURG, PA.
ot ameccg a!
EDITED BY DR. J. R. HAYES.
):(

And Devoted to

Literature, Science, Agriculture and Farming
Interests in General,

Essays Upon the Proper Cultivation of To-
bacco, published from time in this
Journal,

Essays Upon the Use of Fertilizersand Method
of Application.
EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT

is a Live Family Newspaper, Full of Informa-
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