9 AU >| a Cop) | Page) A en | GF) ee | wed 4 dE Me BH » 7 , we 8s; 8 ’ . ball te, . = r —— -* = ) es / THE* KANSAS PEACH. THe Luscious, Mrettine, Jurcy Mass or ANGEL Foon. None too good for Kansas palates, but too good to be made into brandy. How can one of the grandest fruits God gave to man be put to so ignoble use as : a body, brain and soul destroyer? — SECRETARY HOW TO GROW YOUR TREES. HOW TO PLANT AND CARE FOR THEM. HOW TO FIGHT ITS ENEMIES. HOW TO GATHER, PACK, AND MARKET. © HOW TO ENJOY IT IN THE HOMR, : 2. MANS FIRST OCCUPATION Z COMPILED BY THE KANSAS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, WILLIAM H. BARNES, SrecrErary, State Capitol, Topeka, Kan, 1899. on ri Avg soeyo — 18 “ q soqoveg,,—ivoxX PIGL si Ut preyqog qovred jeorddy, V Seager, es we = Ready ca Bees hes hia. tes < «48g 4,a0q soeyoreg,, JAEED PEAC H. THE KANSAS PEACH Tue Luscious, MreuTIne, Juicy Mass oF ANGEL Foop. None too good for Kansas palates, but too good to be made into brandy. How can one of the grandest fruits God gave to man be put to so ignoble use as a body, brain and soul destroyer? —SECRETARY HOW TO GROW YOUR TREES. HOW TO PLANT AND CARE FOR THEM. HOW TO FIGHT ITS ENEMIES. HOW TO GATHER, PACK, AND MARKET. HOW TO ENJOY IT IN THE HOME. LIBRARY NEW YORK BOTANICA! GARDPN COMPILED BY THE KANSAS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, WILLIAM H. BARNES, SECRETARY, State Capitol, Topeka, Kan. 1899. i] Ul es bed ables teow GPW Ol is DEFINITIONS AND LEGEND OF ITS ORIGIN. Standard Dictionary: A well-known, high-flavored, juicy fruit, containing one or two seeds in a hard, almond-like endocarp or stone ; also, the tree which bears it. Century Dictionary: (1) The fleshy, drupaceous fruit of the tree Prunus persica. (2) A garden and orchard tree, Prunus or Amygdalus persica. The peach is a rather weak, irregular tree, fifteen or twenty feet high, with shining, lanceolate leaves, and pink flowers appearing before the leaves. The roundish or elliptical fruit is two or three inches in diameter, and covered with down; when ripe, the color is whitish or yellow, beautifully blushed with red; its fruit is subacid, luscious, and wholesome. The peach is closely allied to the almond, from which Darwin inclines to derive it. Its local origin has com- monly been ascribed to Persia, but the investigations of De Candolle point to China. It is now widely cultivated in warm, temperate cli- mates, most successfully in China and the United States, as in Dela- ware, on the shores of the Chesapeake bay and Lake Michigan, and in California. The canning of peaches is now a large local industry ; large quantities are also dried, and some are made into peach brandy. The seed often takes the place of bitter almonds as a source of oil, etc. Peach leaves and flowers are laxative and anthelmintic. The varieties of the peach are numberless, a general distinction being be- tween clingstones and freestones, and again between the white and yellow fleshed. The flat peach, or peento, is a fancy Chinese variety, having the fruit so compressed that only the skin covers the end of the stone. Another Chinese variety, the crooked peach, has the fruit long and bent, and remarkably sweet. In ornamental use there is a weeping peach ; and various dwarf and double-flowered varieties, called flowering peaches, have been produced, with pure white or variously, often very brilliantly, colored flowers. Legend of its Origin: The Japanese, who claim to have first dis- covered or utilized the peach, have a quaint legend as to the fruit. A pious old couple, stricken with years and poverty, subsisted by beg- ging. One day on the highway the old woman found a beautiful ripe peach. Although almost famished, she did not selfishly eat the lus- cious fruit alone, but took it home to divide with her husband. As 8 THE KANSAS PEACH. the knife cut into it the peach opened, and an infant sprang forth, who told the astonished beggars that he was the god Shin To, and had accidently fallen from the orchard of the Japanese heaven while at play with some other gods and goddesses. For extricating him from the peach Shin To gave the Japs its seed to plant, and told them its product would make them wealthy. This is the origin of the peach, according to the Japs. Kansas is the home of 4,058,762 bearing and 1,966,881 not yet bear- ing peach trees (see map), and by the 1890 census stood sixth on the list of peach-producing states, with 1,798,781 bushels reported, being 100,000 bushels more than California. Peach trees grow so quickly, and produce so abundantly when healthy and the season is appropri- ate, that they become necessarily subject to many “ups and downs.” Growers go into ecstasies over a big crop of luscious, melting, beauti- ful peaches, and—if circumstances prevent the crop the second year —many neglect the trees, and allow weeds and vermin to destroy them. No tree fruit brings such pleasing returns so cheaply as the peach. Even when neglected it often repays its owner with most ap- petizing returns. Young trees usually produce the best fruit, and as they grow readily in almost all parts of our state, and adapt them- selves to their environment, we should plant a few every spring, and as the older ones become unsightly cut them out; they make good fire-wood. In this connection, I would describe the method of Frank Barker, of Saline county. Mr. Barker discovered a peach—a persistent seedling; it is yel- low, good size, sprightly, and of good quality, coming the same from seed. Hesays: “I prepare my ground as for wheat, marking it off in squares of ten feet each way; at each crossing of the marks I drop three of the peach pits, and cover them. I cultivate them until six or eight inches high, when I pull out all but one of the little plants at each crossing, filling vacancies by transplanting the surplus. The second year I often have peaches, and thereafter I have an abundance.” If on each farm such a plat of one or two acres was planted each year, our western citizens could have fruit and fire-wood, to their great profit. IN HACH COUNTY. 58,779 Marshall. 40,643 Nemaha. 63,429 43,352 29, 482 Atchison. ® 22,653 37,598 36,225 Jackson, Pottawatornie, 22,872 26,165 58,039 S Fe i Jefferson] £5 yandotte. earl as _ 54,536 56,851 25,028 i eo ~ 17,026 Shawnee; 3 Geary. 28,847 34,190 33,484 Johnson, 17,797 15,873 Douglas. 22,353 Morris. 10,646 33,618 Franklin. 40,520 Miami. 8,499 16,932 32,102 Chase. 56,331 Coffey. 21,122 33 , 303 39,7738 Linn. 41,189 Anderson. 10, 460 30,016 Woodson. 8,685 63,047 27,550 Bourbon, 5,492 Greenwood. 12,466 39,275 35 , 832 Wilson. Neosho. 8,872 10,276 26, 068 Crawford. 6,404 43,881 Montgomery. 33,955 Labette 10,000 48,796 Cherokee. 8,444 45,546 Chautauqua. 9,538 4,593 966,881: total, 6,025,643. Cheyenne, 352 Mt Sherman, 419 160. Wallace, 226 38 Greeley. 3,320 1,441 Hamilton, 2,182 2,892 Stanton. 3,297 2,025 Morton. 410 THIS MAP SHOWS THE NUMBER OF 49 Rawlins. 55a 3,225 Logan. 5, 30% 1,152 Kearny,} 2,558. 7,615 Stevens, 5,125 197 Haskell. 1,105 3,428 Seward, 2,823 8,522 Norton, 2,797 Decatur, 23,225 24,657 457 3,353 “heridan, 1,980 7,761 8,574 Ness, 11,970 2,957 Hodgeman. 6,965 The upper figures are in bearing: the lower Graham, 15,996 Phillips, 27, 861 8,041 Pawnee. 10,853. 18,273 Edwards, 12,001 33,330 Kiowa. 13,648 14, 682 Comanche, 5,719 72,618 Smith, 98,359 26,132 Osborne, 64,935 6,425 Russell 9,074 24,676 Barton, 25,419 68,887 Stafford, 44,148 55,235 Barber, 11,508 are not yet bearing. PEACH 181,001 Jewell, 122,543 42,229 Mitchell, 44,721 28,187 Lincoln, 21,297 20,460 Ellsworth. 18,669 59,790 Rice, 17,828 117,014 Kingman, 16,802 TREES IN 1898 IN EACH 68,105 Republi¢ 46,202 46,481 Cloud, 46,228 39,188 Ottawa, 17,079 47,590 Saline, 18,767 36,228 McPherson, 15,327 136,676 Sedgwick. Total bearing, 4,058,762; not bearing, 1,966,881: Washington, 51,285 58,677 45,713 Clay. | Riley, 23,518, |_ 14,495 Morris, 10,646 Marion. 164,504 Butler. 17,998 178,398 Cowley. 21,316 58,779 Marshall. 63,429 Pottawatornie, total, 6,025 COUNTY. 40,643 Nemaha, 49,352 37,598 36,225 Jackson, 22,872 15,878 56,331 Coffey, 21,122 30,010 Woodson, 5,685 Greenwood. 12,468 43,981 45,546 Chautauqua. 4,593 Montgomery. Douglas. 22,354 33,618 Franklin. 8,499 33,308 Anderson. 10, 480 35, B82 Neosho. 10,276 33,955 Labette 10,000 Johnson. 17,797 27,550 Bourbon. 5,492 26,088 Crawford, 6,408 48,796 Cherokee, 5,4 THE KANSAS PEACH. 9) THE PEACH IN KANSAS. Vy ITH the Kansas settlers came the peach. Peach pits were saved at the old Eastern home and brought in pockets and in baggage. I know one gentleman who was accosted on the train while coming to Kansas by the train-boy with fruit; in the lot were three immense peaches; asking the price, the old gentleman was astounded to be told twenty-five cents, but he gave it—twenty-five cents for three peaches —solely to obtain the pits, and felt proud of his purchase. Such pits were religiously planted and tended. Their product surely must have been unsatisfactory, but they bore peaches. In the following pages the experiences and conclusions of Kansas peach growers have been given, and we find that the peach produces fruit on all kinds of soil and on any angle, aspect, or slope. Sandy soil, of which we have a preponderance, seems the favorite. Budded trees are usually planted after a growth of one season from bud; that is, a two-year root and a one-year top. See chapter on budding. The general way seems to be to trim to a stick, cutting the stick to a length of from six to thirty inches, some leaving it whole. Distance differs from ten (or even eight ) feet to thirty-two feet apart; some planting between young apple trees, ‘others deprecating such practice. In such planting the peach trees should be cut out in seven or eight years; some say they will die of old age by that time; but if a man is a wise cultivator the peach trees will then be in their prime, and it takes ‘fa deal of pluck” to cut down a peach tree with the taste of its luscious fruit still clinging to the mouth. Those who have tried it favor “heading in” bearing trees— that is, cutting back from one-third to one-half of the past year’s growth. This tends to keep the tree in bounds, making it stockier, so that it is not so liable to be torn to pieces by the winds or weight of fruit. Thinning on the trees should be practiced more. See article on thin- ning. I have heard of 9000 young peaches being picked from a single tree, and as those left grew larger and heavier, many more had to be taken off to save the limbs from breaking. Many peach trees would live longer and be far more profitable if thinning the fruit was prac- ticed. Peach trees should undoubtedly be cultivated, and, where closely planted, nothing should be grown among them after two or three years. One of the best crops (for the tree) is vines—melons, pumpkins, squashes, or cucumbers. Live stock running among the trees is harm- 10 THE KANSAS PEACH. - ful; the tops should be low; and the branches are brittle, and animals can and will do much damage; yet shoats or pigs will eat the wormy fruit, and during the ripening period might be allowed to pick up such as fall. Picking and packing vary, and will have a chapter by themselves. ~ Owing to want of courage and determination on the part of many of our husbandmen, the demand for good peaches (culls and indiffer- ent ones, too) makes a market for them necessary in the orchard over a large area. During the late 70s peaches were shipped in car lots from our state; but of late years, owing to the increased population and prosperity of our cities, the peach crop is mostly utilized within the state. In the western part of the state peach pits are planted in great quantities to grow for windbreaks; and as they—without culti- vation or care—produce more fruit than the settler needs, and much of it of surprisingly fine quality, therefore there is little inducement for him to try the choice budded varieties; for such localities we would recommend the choicest of the persistent varieties, costing only a little trouble to obtain, but yielding under the same treatment a choicer fruit. Dean’s Orange, Barker’s Rareripe, Heath Cling, Sal- way and many others will give great satisfaction and grade up the western seedlings. The severe winter of 1898 and 1899, beginning suddenly with a snow-storm in October, with peaches still on the trees, and passing through the extremely low temperature of February, 1899, caused im- mense loss and destruction to the peach interests. But as it cleaned up many worthless varieties, and the same cause affected the peach in all our neighboring states—in some more disastrously than in ours— therefore, if wise we will plant largely of choice varieties known to do well— barring such extreme weather—in our state, and we will soon be reaping our reward. VARIETIES RECOMMENDED. The following varieties are recommended for all purposes by the Kansas State Horticultural Society. This list is the result of a ballot taken December 11, 1896: Votes. Voles Heri er ek ere oe eee 17 | 8roth’s 226. uae ce ee eee | IA MIKON SOG so eos. on ce ss aot 14 |} Hale's Marly 2). 3.10.00 eon 4 Sal Waly e eri ioe iets cs. vs oes) eee 13" | >Nork ‘Marly. 8: =) o-iaere) 12) eee 3 Smock 40 Oe Jee Shs ES one 11: | -Reeve’s Havorite: 2. 2 42 aot: 3 (Whanipione re: seers ek vice os ise eee 1023) (Old Mixon @ling 233 sence cee 3 aN) Leper 6G Fe Dees keene ee ere 9)"| Woster oi. ics oo eee eee 34 Slump he WOM. 6: 0.503. seas 9 | Crawford’s Marly ici... + pec ae 3 Give] Cee Seen + nee aaron 9° '\" Ward? seluate aie ses ee eee 3 NIGAM A erate o> te cie 2 oe 7 "| MountaintRoses. 1.0: 2 eee eee 2 HWamiily Wayorite, s.- 4b vs-e2o2s- ) oe 5 | Amsden. ....-..... 06. ssse wees eee 2 THE KANSAS PEACH. at Zoles Voles Ona wiord:s ate: s ... 2. scars ewe eve Dea ALI CLIATINE Realizing the importance of this theory, the Georgia experiment station instituted careful tests in order to determine how far it could be relied upon in this section and in this climate. The results of these experiments are given in detail in bulletin No. 40. It is only necessary here to state that after three years’ tests the station is satis- fied that peach trees pruned by the Stringfellow method, even when all the roots were removed, will live and flourish in this section in stiff clay soil and under adverse weather conditions. This state- ment may also be extended to cover apples and pears. That all trees so treated will thrive equally well in all localities we are ky no means _ prepared (as yet) to admit. Continued and more extended experi- mentation must be relied upon to decide this matter. Nor can the station recommend unreservedly the employment of the Stringfellow theory and practice by fruit-growers. We think, however, that it is highly probable that the experience of every one who tests the matter for himself in Georgia will be found similar to that of the station, and we certainly earnestly recommend every fruit-grower who can do so to test the matter for himself on a larger or smaller scale, according to his means, as the matter is of such vital importance as to warrant a great deal of pains in forcing it to a conclusion. THE KANSAS PEACH. 27 DISCUSSION ON PEACHES By the Missouri State Horticultural Society, at its summer meeting, in June, 1898. W. A. Garpner: In pruning, Professor Stringfellow [of Texas ] advises the cutting off of lateral roots, and I have found it a success. The reason is that it is better to have roots start in the soil where they are to grow, and thus accord with the nature of the soil. The surface roots which furnish food should be near sunlight and air, also in condition to obtain food from the soil. The trees bear after three years. Devote three years to shaping; cut the center out to have an open tree. Keep the buds in the right direction and let the branches grow out so as to let sunlight in. I did no pruning back after the third year, and for three years now have had beautiful peaches. Where the wood was thoroughly seasoned [ ?] I had the best buds and they withstood frost the best. There should be system in pruning. Clean out dead branches; prune when there are no peaches on; do not cut back far; have the lower part eighteen inches from the ground and cut off three to four feet of the growth. This gives many branches from the old wood which are fruit producing. Cutting indiscrimi- nately makes a brush heap instead of a tree. On new wood the fruit is not so good color or vigor. To cut every year produces the effect of a young tree which drops its fruit. Do not prune until after frost. In cutting back one-third you cut off the best bearing part. Keep the roots bare and exposed on all sides where they grow into the ground. The borer goes into these. A wash of lime, wood ashes and kerosene will keep off the borer. Now, about gathering, packing, and marketing. Use one half bushel baskets lined with excelsior, so as not to bruise when dropped in. The California box is a good pack- age and the commission man says it is better not to wrap the peach. [?] Elbertas stood two weeks in hot Chicago weather. Pack in four- or six-basket carriers. It is very bad to send poor peaches to market. When the crop from Olden glutted the market, poor peaches brought five cents a box, while those wrapped brought $1.25 per box. Fancy peaches pay even on a glutted market, and are always in de- mand, while the poor peach keeps the market down. Those who packed poorly thought they were cheated because they didn’t get as much as those who sent in good shape. Peaches properly graded and packed give satisfaction. J. T. SNopGrass: One great trouble is irregular packing. It should be uniform and the fruit of uniform grade. Commission men sell on the track, after representing to their markets what they have. The six-basket carrier is the favorite. 28 THE KANSAS PEACH. PRESIDENT Murray: One fault with all fruits is the packing. L. Erp: For packing peaches, the six-basket and four-basket car- rier, the California box and the one-third-bushel box are best. There is a new six-basket carrier which holds less but is better and lighter. I do not like the California box; it holds too little. The favorite in New Orleans is the one-third-bushel box. Common fruit in baskets, good quality in one-third-bushel boxes, and the best in the California box or six-basket carrier, is, to my mind, the best arrangement. The consumers want small packages and the above meet the demands of all classes. Small growers should learn to have fruit uniform. In mar- keting, send small quantities by express, but where there is enough for a car the refrigerator is much the better. Mr. Lane (of Memphis): Use the refrigerator car. We load a great many, but, no matter how good the car is, the results cannot be good unless we pack and handle properly. We should have several ice stations on the route. Open the doors before icing, as this lets out the foul air. Have them open for from one-half to two hours, no matter how hot the day is, as the car may be musty. Ice, then close one side and the drip box, to drive out the warm air, and it will be cooled enough in fifteen minutes. In loading leave a space of fifteen inches between the fruit and the top of the car. Fruit begins to de- generate as soon as gathered, and gas forms at the top; therefore this space makes ventilation; if it is not so the fruit molds. The boxes should be set end against end, and a space left between the piles. Seven or eight cases will reach across the car, leaving two inches be- tween the crates, so the refrigerated air circulates through the fruit. The peach keeps the best of any fruit, but it also shows any imper- fection quicker. Mushy peaches are worthless to the consumer. Fruit must look attractive on the market, and uniform—not good and knotty together. The peach takes less ice; but put in all the ice you can, because the fruit and the box are warm. Fruit will carry from here [Kansas City] to Buffalo or Philadelphia with one re-icing. Chill your car and the fruit first, and you will have no trouble. Vegetables generate heat; so the box must stay filled with ice. This means icing every 300 miles, and even then it is hard to keep peas from wilting and turning yellow. Do not re-ice as heavily for peaches as you do for other things; one and one-half tons are enough to keep the fruit from getting too cold. A California car takes a ton more than a Kansas City car. To unload a car gradually and hold it for a day or so is better than to put all on the market at once. Fruit sent by express needs no ice-car, and keeps in a cool place until after the glut is over. Sometimes cars are reshipped to avoid a glut, and this cannot be done unless a refrigerator car is used. Fruit getting too THE KANSAS PEACH. 2 cold does no harm if the commission man handles it properly; but fruit will spoil at a violent change, even if it has been only chilled, The condition depends on the icing of the car, on the stacking of the boxes, and on the handling at the end of the journey. Mr. ANDERSON (Memphis, Tenn.): For packages of peaches, the best specimens in Michigan are put in one-third-bushel boxes; the others into one-half and one-bushel baskets. In Georgia they use the six-basket carrier: in Kentucky, the half-bushel basket; and in Missouri all these are used and another wanted. Growers should find what they want and not change so often. All of these are good. The one-fifth-bushel package is not suitable for long distances. The six- basket carrier holds nearly a bushel, but we have a new package of six baskets holding the same as the four-basket size. Bushel boxes are good for customers; made with handles they are better for load- ing peaches into the wagons than baskets. The price is seven cents apiece ; bushel baskets are twelve cents. F. Houstncer, ( Kansas ) : I choose small trees and get all roots and tops. I took two and one-half and three feet culls from southern nurseries, cultivated for two years, and thinned 300 peaches off one tree three feet high. I have had five crops continuously in Kansas City. J.C. Evans: Every market has its choice [ preferred ] package. One-third-bushel box is best [ preferred ] in Kansas City, but I deem it poor taste. Chicago takes anything; Boston wants the twenty- pound box and the finest of peaches in it. It would be well to edu- cate people to expect low grades in one-third bushel, and the best in twenty pound boxes. Mr. GarpNER: Interior towns prefer one-fifth-bushel baskets. The one-third-bushel box is not known in Iowa. CoLonEL Evans: The one-fifth is good for short distances, filled with sound but ripe ones. _ L. A. Goopman: Three packages [styles] are enough. First, fancy ; second, fair; and third, for lower grades. L. Ers: The third grade should be in bushel boxes, second in one- third-bushel boxes, and first in six- or four-basket carriers. [ ?? | H. E. Mosetey: Gathering is an important factor. Fruit cannot get on the market right unless correctly gathered. The best arrange- ment for packages is six basket, California or one-third-bushel box, and one-fifth-bushel basket. Put the ripe ones in one-fifth; the next grade—selected by the superintendent at packing table—goes into the third-bushel box ; and the next grade, greener and of two sizes, goes into carriers. . Culls go into half-bushel baskets. . Pack near the trees; put up shade in the orchard. Gather by hand and have tables within 30 THE KANSAS PEACH. a few rods of the outer row. Pack securely. A half-bushel basket will hold four tiers and will bruise if hauled. The basket for gather- ing is the half bushel; renail | tacking around the rim and the handle }; pack in excelsior, and sacking for lining, making a pad three-quarters of an inch thick, and thus avoid bruising. PRESIDENT Murray: Nearly every variety requires a different time for the pickings. Mr. Mosevey: A Family Favorite tree is stripped in two pickings, three-fourths on the first time. Salway, picked every other day, takes fourteen days. Elberta requires three pickings; the second takes one- half of them. A LIST OF PREFERRED VARIETIES. In answer for the call for lists of best varieties for market, the fol- lowing were given : F. H. SpeaKkMAN (Newton county): Elberta, Heath Cling, Family Favorite, Mixon Cling. W. A. GARDNER (West Plains): Family Favorite, Elberta, Salway, Mt. Rose, Bonanza. T. W. Wave (Greene county): Heath Cling. H. S. Wayman (Mercer county): Elberta, Champion. Louis Erp (Cedar Gap): Mt. Rose, Elberta, Salway, Heath Cling, Bonanza, Picquet’s Late. H. E. Mosetey (Olden): Reeve’s Favorite, Family Favorite, Elberta, Pic- quet’s Late, Salway. © F. C. Wurrren (Columbia): Family Favorite, Elberta, Salway. C. H. Durcuer (Johnson county): Elberta, Champion, Heath Cling. G. T. Tippin (Springfield): Champion, Mt. Rose, Elberta, Picquet’s Late, Chinese Cling, Henrietta. N. F. Murray Holt county): Champion, Elberta, Family Favorite, Mixon Free, Heath Cling. F. Housincer (Rosedale, Kan.): Rivers, Champion, Crawford, Elberta, Crosby, Mt. Rose, Family Favorite, Reeve’s Favorite, Salway, Mixon Free. A. Newson (Laclede county): Elberta, Early Crawford, Salway, Champion, Family Favorite, Old Mixon Free and Cling. W. H. Loomis (Wright county): Elberta, Salway. J. C. Evans (Howell county): Mt. Rose, Reeve’s Favorite, Family Favorite, Elberta, Picquet’s Late, Salway, Bonanza. G. L. Sessen (West Plains): Mt. Rose, Family Favorite, Elberta, Salway, Bonanza. J. E. THompson (Johnson): Heath Cling, Stump the World, Elberta. On a vote of varieties, Elberta received 86, Salway 21, Family Favorite 138, Old Mixon Free 4, Reeve’s Favorite 5, Champion 6. G. L. SesseN: Matthews Beauty has not been fruited in Missouri, but is reported as prolific as Elberta and ten days later, and it carries well. J. EK. THompson: June buds on Triumph trees two years old are full of peaches. THE KANSAS PEACH. aL Willie it PAY TO PLANT PEACHES; AND: WHAT VARIETIES ? Read by A. CHANDLER, of Argentine, Kan., before the Missouri Valley Horticultural Society, at Edwardsville, on October 21, 1899. To a superficial observer this question might seem easily answered. Many questions present themselves that are not readily disposed of, especially from a commercial standpoint. The consideration of the main questions will embrace: (1) Cli- mate; (2) soil and location; (35) varieties; (4) market and its ca- pacity to consume. Now, as to climate, certain types of the peach succeed in the far South, namely, the peento and its seedling. Such type belongs only to the orange belt. The Spanish race of the peach is found in the sandy soil of the Gulf region. Some attempts have been made to introduce the Persian race far south, but failure was the result. The peach, like people, thrives best in its own climate. The North China race has given us some conspicuous object-lessons, the most notable and most worthy of which is the Elberta. The terri- tory of the Persian peach has been extended far to the north. Many of our hardiest and most popular varieties have been propagated from thisrace. Peaches of all these different types are grown in their home belts. All are subject to variations, being governed by different soils and other local conditions. These types have in many cases been modified by cross pollination, so that it is not easy to determine to which race they belong. In the United States the successful peach district lies between the thirty-fourth and thirty-ninth parallels of north latitude, though the peach industry has been extended far north of this limit, subject to the ever-varying vicissitudes of climate. One notable peach district is the Ontario, adjacent to Niagara Falls. Another is the state of Michigan, or rather the western side of it; nearer to the lake and sandy soil are the leading features of adapta- bility. Now, as to soil. Locally speaking, our own country possesses many requisites for successful fruit-growing. One thing to avoid on the prairies of Kansas, and even the loess formation of the Missouri river, is too rich a soil, or else no fruit; a superabundance of fire-wood will be your only recompense. I learn that in some counties of west- ern Kansas the peach is successfully competing with the forest-tree as a windbreak, so rapidly does it grow; a growth of eleven feet in one year has come under my observation. Let us be particular about soil and location. Take the highest points possible, upland clay or sandy loam; no bottom land or wet land is desirable. It is especially 32 THE KANSAS PEACH. desirable to take a north slope, even if you must buy your neighbor's farm to get it. Evidences are not wanting of failure where all these conditions have not been complied with. The direct cause of failure this present year was the too frigid character of the climate, likely to prevail five years out of ten. Not- withstanding last winter’s extreme cold, seventy per cent. of the peach trees are living, many having made a fine growth. A few conspicu- ous varieties may be named; Early Rivers, Elberta and Old Mixon stood the winter best. Later, Smock, Picquet’s Late, Salway, Heath and Wilken’s Cling are desirable varieties. For further information of particular varieties for varying latitudes, see Catalogue of Fruits No. 6, Department of Agriculture. This was compiled by the Ameri- can Pomological Society, and is reliable. It is generally conceded the market nearest home is best; this, though, is often limited in demand. As the markets of great cities do not come to us we must go to them, devising means and methods of transportation as the occasion demands. At any rate, it is supposed that the up-to-date fruit-grower will be equal to any emergency. This fact I have noticed, that the Western people have never had an over- supply of first-class peaches, and, with new markets to supply, no one fruit will be in better demand for some years to come. GROWING GOOD PEACHES. The American Garden reports Mr. Hall’s address before the Mas- sachusetts Horticultural Society, as follows: “The difference in preparation of lands for peach orchards is the ditference in business methods, that being superior which is most thorough, practical, and intelligent. The land cannot be plowed too much, and harrowing and cross-harrowing are less harmful than sen- sible: Res “The trees should be planted early in spring; fall planting is apt to be disastrous, because the tender roots will not then bear transplant- ing from nurseries to open soil. While sixteen feet each way is now accepted as a proper distance, the theory of planting trees thirteen feet apart is justified by the fact that peach trees are mighty uncertain and may not fill out. Medium-sized trees, three or four feet high, are best to plant, and they shonld be one year old. In fact, no nursery ever delivered a two-year-old tree, though it may claim that it does. “Tt is not essential that a tree have many fibrous roots; most of them are dead anyway at planting, and a modest number will serve, provided they are cut off smoothly. Fine earth should pack the roots, THE KANSAS PEACH. 33 and the only thing having any business in the orchard after that is a horse, a harrow, and a plow.. The practice of mixing crops by plant- ing alternate rows of corn and expecting to get a peach orchard of any vigor is extreme folly. At the first year’s growth cut off all but a few top sprouts, and the next year cut off the interfering side spurs. Twice can these be removed, yet the tree will yield well. “Do the pruning and shaping in the first two years. In pruning for fruit, the question is, ‘‘How are your buds?” If theyare nearly all killed wait until spring, and when the buds are swelled prune. Trim for peaches then. Don’t trim for form; you may have one of the worst looking orchards in the country, but you will get more peaches. “As to winter bud killing, seventy-five per cent. of your peach buds may blight, but if the remaining twenty-five per cent. are evenly distributed among the trees you need not worry. It is a popular fal- lacy that when it is announced that fifty per cent. of the buds have been killed the peach crop for the following season is doomed. It is time enough to thin your fruit after it has set in the spring. Large, fine fruit can be raised only when there are a moderate number of peaches on. each tree. “Tt takes from ten to twelve days to gather peaches which have come to maturity. Don’t use a machine in sortingthem. Hire bright, intelligent women ; they are better than men asa rule. And remem- ber always that there is more profit in selling fifty or sixty peaches to the half-bushel at two dollars than one hundred to the half bushel for fifty cents. There may be less nutriment and more water in the large fruits, but the people like them and will have them. As to the profit in peach growing, it depends on the individual. PEACH GROWING IN NEW JERSEY. By Auva T. JORDAN, in Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 133. SOILS FOR PEACHES. Downing, in his work on “Fruits and Fruit-trees of America,” page 582, states that “the very best soil for the peach is a deep, rich, sandy loam, next to this a strong mellow loam, then a light, thin, sandy soil, and the poorest a heavy, compact clay.” Thomas, in the “American Fruit Culturist,” (20th ed.,) page 410, says ‘even a com- pact clay may be made suitable for the peach by regular and thorough underdraining and mellow cultivation.” Our first commercial or- chards were planted upon light, sandy soils. This fact led many of the early planters to believe this class of soils the best for this fruit. Later experience, however, has shown that the stronger gravelly and —3 34 THE KANSAS PEACH. loamy soils have given the best results, producing trees that are more vigorous and fruitful and longer-lived. This experience has been the one chief cause of the gradual movement.of the peach center from the southern to the northern section of the state. Our reports show that approximately three-fourths of the orchards are located upon the stronger rather than the lighter soils of the state. In some cases thrifty, vigorous orchards are found upon soils the disintegration of which was so imperfect —that is, so stony and rocky—that the use of picks was necessary in the setting of trees. INJURY TO BUDS. Injury to buds, and consequent failure of crop, results quite as often from winter-killing as from late spring frosts. A warm spell in winter starts the sap moving and causes the buds to swell; this, if followed by a lower temperature, is liable to cause considerable injury. North- arn and northwestern slopes will reduce to a minimum danger of such injury, as far as location is concerned, while management of the or- chard may exert a greater influence even than location. Very early cultivation may force an early growth that late frosts destroy, or late cultivation may cause a too late growth that does not fully ripen be- fore winter. Heavy dressings of nitrogenous manures of the wrong kind, or applied too late, may also result in injury, due to the imper- fect ripening of the wood. About forty per cent. of our growers re- port annual injury to buds. In selecting a soil, its situation must be considered, as well as its physical qualities. Low situations are to be avoided, since cold air, like cold water, will seek the lowest places. Southern and southeast- ern slopes are likewise to be avoided wherever possible, since they favor an early spring growth just in season to be nipped by the late frosts. Other things being equal, a northern or northwestern expos- ure is the best. THE PURCHASE AND SETTING OF TREES. A good beginning is half the battle. Very few growers bud their own trees—they are generally purchased from local nurserymen. A popular idea demands the use of ‘natural pits” for propagation. Many nurserymen claim to use pits from this source, but the abund- ance of the supply has been questioned. Downing and Thomas, in their works, do not mention natural pits; they do, however, lay much stress upon the selection of pits from healthy, vigorous orchards and trees. Pits from diseased trees are believed cto be a fertile source of infection ina young orchard. Before setting, all trees should be care- fully examined for rvot-gall, scale insects, ete. Prune before taking to the field; remove all injured or bruised roots and burn the prun- ings. THE KANSAS PEACH. 35 The usual distance for setting is sixteen feet each way. On the stronger soils, eighteen and even twenty feet is occasionally used. The quincunx method is also reported, which requires about half as many more trees for the same area as when set square. An apple orchard is frequently started with the peach, the latter having passed its usefulness when the apple comes into bearing. In this case every other tree in every other row is an apple. The age of trees generally used is one year from bud, though about thirty per cent. of the growers prefer two-year-old trees, and a few those still older. Sod land is almost always preferred [this is in New Jersey |, though an occasional grower crops with corn a year previous to setting the orchard. Spring setting is quite generally practiced, though approximately one sixth set in the fall and report excellent results. Care should be taken, when setting, to have the roots well spread, and to fill all air spaces, also to thoroughly firm the soil with the feet. This point is very important; it not only holds the tree in place, but prevents the drying out of the soil about the roots. PRUNING AND THINNING. These operations exercise a great influence on the life of the tree and the size and color of the fruit. The low-forked, vase form is an excellent method of training, the foundation of which is laid at set- ting. All side shoots are cut back, and the trunk cut to about two and one-half feet, from which point the main branches are started to form the tree head. The idea prevails that this form of tree prevents close cultivation, though experience has proven that the low heads, with obliquely rising branches, are easier to work among than the high-headed trees with their horizontal, drooping branches. The ad- vantages of the low fork are the ease of pruning, picking, and thin- ning, while its spreading habit freely admits the sun to color the fruit ; and the disadvantages of the high-topped tree are that it is generally more dense, hence shading the fruit; besides, it exposes more of the trunk to the hot sun, and is more liable to be injured by high winds. The t¢me of pruning is not so important a matter, since it may be performed in any month in the year; authorities, however, generally agree that late winter or early spring, before the buds swell, is best. One point to remember in pruning is that the fruit is borne on wood of the previous season’s growth, and hence a vigorous annual growth should be provided for this purpose, which is readily accomplished by an annual shortening in process, the cutting back of a quarter ora third of the growth of each year. Thinning is not practiced to the extent that it deserves; for while direct experiments are wanting, the fact remains that the removal of a third or half of the number on the tree, as occasion demands, greatly 36 THE KANSAS PEACH. increases the size and quality of the remaining fruits, and that as much and more prime fruit is obtained, with far less culls, than if left unthinned. Thinning is secured in two ways: either by hand-picking of all the small and imperfect fruit, and sufficient of the remainder to leave none closer than three or four inches (this is best done after what is called “the June drop” occurs ), or annually cutting off with pruning shears at regular time of trimming from a quarter to a half, as required, of each year’s growth. The first method is the better. LIFE OF ‘AN ORCHARD. The length of life of an orchard is naturally variable, depending upon the grower, the soil, and climatic conditions. The average life for the state is approximately ten years, with a range of from six to over twenty years. The older orchards are largely the result of judi- cious and systematic culture and feeding. As previously stated, the use of fertilizers or manures will prolong the profitable bearing period of an orchard. With ordinary care and with no attention to fertilization, three good crops are, on the average, all that can be obtained from an orchard, while with good care and judicious fertilization from eight to ten crops may be secured. The failures in the latter case, which must be expected, are due almost entirely to conditions over which the grower has no control. PICKING AND MARKETING. Only experience can determine the best degree of ripeness to pick for shipment. If picked a little too soon it is too green, and if too late it quickly becomes soft, and on arrival at market is bruised and unsalable at remunerative prices. A request of the commission man for information at to the condition of fruit on arrival will soon teach the beginner the best time to pick. The handling should be reduced to a minimum, and be done carefully, in order to avoid bruising the fruit. Sorting is an operation which requires strict attention. Grade carefully; keep the inferior specimens at home, and put nothing but No. 1 fruit in the No.1 basket; one inferior fruit in the basket is sufficient to cut it in price. The kind of basket or package used also has a considerable influence on the selling price. The majority of our growers use the standard one-half-bushel basket, though a few are using a carrier holding eight four-quart baskets, and report better returns by so doing. To the large grower a knowledge of the different markets is indispen- sable, since often when prices are low in the large, near-by markets, be- cause they are oversupplied, there is a scarcity in the interior towns, high prices prevail, and direct shipments to these result in good re- THE KANSAS PEACH. 37 turns. Scere .83 SOGaf Jo) ea ce eee eet 4 Sulphuricwacide a. vas. least 14 IPHOSpPHOricsaGidin seers d= = 15 Organic matter pate Bape ! 396 0.20 lomMitrogemeey «eee. ae c Water. notte setts ites. ort Pants .86 Capillary capacity for water, 44, 58 THE KANSAS PEACH. Soil from Missaukee county: Timber: Beech, maple, elm, and some pine. .Sand and silicates......... % 69.39 Alana eee cee nike cisicie a0 as 8.35 Oxideopirons sees oe des hee 5.80 ERIN Cp yee As. «Masa eabecisiais 1.15 IMaemesiage me oe retd > sisac< atte 98 Potashiewrce Roce dnote cote. 1.95 SOLO CHAS a Buia enh GaEtS See oe 1.15 POU PMMLI eC LCL so teteye cts. @ ctor 29 Phosphome acid::: 32952). .5 .28 Organic matter containing / 4.73 SUIS MGrOMeN).. ..ms2e - tees) a’ WiOtOtEe tips. «daee aks oeeee 5.38 Capiilary capacity for water, 39.10. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. JAPAN BLOOD PEACH. A correspondent of the Fruit Growers’ Journal, in speaking of the Japan blood peach, says: “The tree is of a rather stocky, dwarfish growth; which is all the better, for the branches shade the trunk and prevent the sun from burning the bark and thus damaging the tender wood. The tree comes into bearing the second year after planting, and matures its fruit about one week earlier than Alexander or any of the early June varieties; and the specimens were not only good- sized but ripe fully to the seed, and of almost as fine flavor as George the Fourth or other freestones that we have in August. I am free to say that the introduction of this peach, considering all its good points, was the most remarkable occurrence in peach culture, so far as my ex- perience has gone, in a quarter of a century. Ripening the Ist of June; a decided freestone; of good quality; blooms late; and is not in danger of spring frosts.” VITALITY OF TREES. Maturing an immense crop reduces the vitality so that the tree is unable to ripen a crop of fruit-buds the succeeding season; so that there is only one crop in two years; or else the tree or vine by annual overbearing is unable to make a healthy growth of new wood, so it dwindles and soon dies. THINNING. Thinning cannot be done with a brush, or by thrashing off the fruit, because the fruit that remains will be more or less bruised by the thrashing, and the finest specimens are more likely to be removed than the smaller. THE KANSAS PEACH. 59 EXPRESS ON INFERIOR FRUIT. The express and freight charges on fruit of inferior size and qual- ity are just as much as on the finest that can be produced; so the dif- ference between a profit and loss is the difference between inferior, ordinary fruit and that of fancy size and top quality. VOLUNTEER TREES. Wherever there were peaches last season there no doubt will be found seedlings coming up, which can be taken up carefully, and set in rows three feet apart, and six inches apart in the row, to let grow until August or September, says Judge Miller in Rural World, when they can be budded. If of a select good variety, they might soon be planted to bear without budding. TO GET EARLY PEACHES. J. H. Hale, the peach grower, gets ripe peaches two weeks earlier by the following method: In the middle of the growing season put a strong wire around a large arm of a tree and twist it fairly tight. This checks the flow of sap and causes fruit-buds to form early and in great | number. The fruit on the branches of this arm will ripen two weeks earlier than that on the untreated branches and will be much more highly colored. But this part of the tree will be so weakened by the treatment that it should be cut away after fruiting that new shoots may come and take its place. Thus one large arm or limb of a tree may be forced each year. TEN PEACH COMMANDMENTS. Mr. J. H. Hale, of Connecticut, lays down the following, and says: “On these ten commandments hang most of the law and all of the profits” : 1. High, dry, sandy or sandy loam soil. 2. Careful selection of varieties most hardy in fruit-bud. 3. Vigorous, healthy seedling stocks budded from bearing trees of undoubted purity and health. 4. Trees given entire possession of the land from the start. 5. Thorough culture from the opening of spring till the new growth is well along. 6. Liberal annual manuring, broadcast, with commercial manures rich in potash and phosphoric acid and lacking in nitrogen. 7. Low heading and close annual pruning for the first five years. 8. Keep out most borers with some suitable wash, and dig out all others. 9. Search for traces of yellows every week of the growing season, and at first sign pull up and burn every infested tree. 10. Thin the fruit so that there shall never be what is termed a full crop. 60 THE KANSAS PEACH. ENEMIES AND DISEASES OF THE PEACH. THE PEACH-TREE BORER. (Sannina exitiosa Say.) From Bulletin No. 77 of the Kansas State Agricultural College Experiment Station, by Prof. E. E. FAVILLE, of the Entomological Department. One of the most widely distributed insects attacking peach trees in Kansas is the peach borer. See figs. 6,9, and 10. Notwithstanding the havoc noted each year, scarcely anything of its attacks, life-history or appearance is known by the majority of horticulturists of this state. Too often peach trees planted and left to grow suddenly weaken and die, seemingly from some unknown cause. Thus the planting of peach trees is little encouraged on the average farm. If the method of destruction of the borer were better understood, its attacks could be more easily stopped. The damage done to the tree consists in extreme cases in the entire girdling of the tree. In slight attacks mere excavations are made in the bark and layers of the bark. Where girdling is prolonged, the infested part begins in time to decay. The eggs are deposited on the bark of the tree, ordinarily near the surface of the ground. The eggs are of a yellowish color, oval shaped, somewhat flattened, and average about one-fiftieth of an inch in length. The earliest record of the appearance of the adult at the Kansas station is June 16. From about this time until fall eggs are deposited on the bark at the base of the tree, fastened by a gummy substance which is secreted by the female. As soon as the larve hatch they work their way downward toward the roots. They do not perforate the bark at first, but as they increase in size they gradually enlarge their channels laterally and inwardly. When first hatched the larvie are very small, but by winter some in- dividuals attain a length of one and one-third inches. They are of a whitish color, slightly tinged with yellow; body soft and cylindrical, slightly tapering from first three segments; head horny like, brown, with strong jaws; segment next to head semi-chitinous. Fine hairs are arranged sparsely over the body, more noticeable at tip of abdomen. In studying badly infested trees at and near the college grounds dur- ing the past season, a number of important and practical observations were made. Whole trees, with roots attached, were removed in cer- tain instances and studied. See fig. 12. Upon examination of the infested trees various stages of the larvee were found, varying in length from one-fourth of an inch to one and one-fourth inches. This varia- THE KANSAS PEACH. 61 tion in larvee may be found particularly in fall and spring. This fact often leads to the belief that the life-history consumes more than one year; although there may seem to be several broods, there is but one year employed in completing the life cycle. This difference in size is easily accounted for by the fact that eggs are deposited from about the middle of June to September. By a study of the workings of the pest, the large larvee appear to form long channels or broad, deep cavities filled with large quantities of gum and worm castings. A number of channels measured showed a measurement of one and one-fourth inches wide by two and one- eight inches long. The larger larvee are found beneath the bark, feed- ing on the cambium and interior portion of the bark. Seven inches below the ground large larvee were detected which had eaten one-fifth around roots having circumference of eight inches. Several small roots next to it were dead, undoubtedly due to action of the borer. A number of trees and roots were beginning to decay, showing serious effects of the insect. See fig. 12. In a number of instances the work of the larvee upon the roots seems more destructive than upon the trunk. They not only cut the bark and cambium but burrow grooves into the woody tissue. The larvee pass the winter in different positions, as observed by careful examinations during the winter months. Ina badly infested tree the liber of the bark was perforated with short channels, evidently the work of small larve. Larve were found feeding upon rotten wood, four or five inches from growing tissue, though evidently not there by accident. These larvee were in large channels about one-fourth of an inch deep. The number of larvzee is dependent upon the care that is exercised in the protection of the tree. In one orchard inspected, trees were detected containing over fifty larvee. The number in other trees varied, depend- ing upon the severity of the attack. About the middle of June the larvee have nearly all attained full size. They then spin for them- selves follicles of silk, with gum and excrement intermixed. The pupz (see fig. 8) are about an inch in length, brown in color, ovate, with obtusely rounded ends. They are attached to the trunk of the tree at the base just above the ground. The pupal state lasts abouta month. There is a great difference in the sexes of the adults (see figs. 6,9, and 10), the female being much larger and more robust than the male, from which she is easily distinguished by a broad, transverse, orange-yellow band on abdomen. Both have almost transparent wings and are of a steel-blue color. - Fie. 6. Adults. 62 THE KANSAS PEACH. REMEDIES. As the presence of the larvee is clearly indicated by the exudation of gum, one of the first remedies to suggest itself is to search for the larvee and remove them. The depth to which the larvee channel and the manner of their work makes the operation almost speculative, so that there is great danger of serious injury to the trees in digging for the insect, making the method almost impracticable. The best method that can be employed in combating this insect is by preventing the adult from depositing its eggs. Mounding the tree is often employed to meet this end; hilling the trees to the height of about a foot in April before the adults emerge —thus preventing them from deposit- ing their eggs. This mound should be left on until fall: the object, as in all mechanical protections, being so to protect the trunk that the adult cannot deposit its eggs nor the larvee emerge. Bands of tarred paper may be used by wrapping to a height of two feet, tying at top. These should be renewed each year. Fine wire netting which is more lasting may be employed. It should extend two or three inches below the surface of the ground. Applications of certain washes are made during the spring and summer months which are obnoxious to the moths, and keep them from depositing their eggs. One of the most common used is an alkaline wash, consisting of soft soap and washing soda made to the consistency of paint, to which enough crude carbolic acid is added to give the mixture a strong odor. Apply the wash with a stiff brush at various times during the season. Fic. 7. The Peach Borer, enlarged. From Bulletin No. 128 of the New Jersey Experiment Station. Fic. 8. Pupa of Peach Borer. From Bulletin No. 128 of : the New Jersey Experiment Station. THE KANSAS PEACH. 63 Fies. 9 and 10, Parents of the Peach Borer, Sanninoidea exitiosa. Upper figure male, lower female. From Bulletin No. 128 of the New Jersey Experiment Station. THE KANSAS PEACH. 64 Aosdop~ MON OI JORZT ON UNT[NG Worg ‘41 wor SatQ09fo1d eseo ednd Aydume Surmoys ‘ ‘m019e849 JUOWIIEd XY 700000 ‘p !ya1Rq JO opis 1IUUT OF Pyuo}seyZ uo0s00 A3du1ea uv ‘vy :pasoWe OAVY STJOU I4ze YIVq wor surjoofoad surys vednd ‘Q ‘y :1o10g YORVeq jo adnd puke saoo000p ."{T * ~ oly 65 PEACH. THE KANSAS ‘UOMeIg JuoUTIEdxA AOSIOf MON EY} JO QZT ‘ON UIyeT[Ng WoT Ainfar Surredes ‘9 !sseur 4yoor. oq} 09 PpeTpirs ‘q :4oor-de, uMOp peyouuRYD pu Tt RB YUN, B JO 19j4U9d UI MOAING ‘p ‘4jJoT 1a10q 1047;R beTpirs AToJo[da10d ‘yp :see19 Sul[pess uo euop Arnfay “ol “SIA 66 THE KANSAS PEACH. PEACH-TREE BORER. By FRANK HOLSINGER, of Wyandotte county, in the Western Fritt-grower. The peach-tree borer is a very common pest throughout the country wherever the peach is grown. It is a native American, and doubtless subsisted in the wild plums, which were widely scattered. It is claimed by some that it attacks the cherry, but I bave as yet to be convinced that the cherry is ever infested by them. The presence of the peach borer is discernible by the exudation of a glutinous, gummy substance at or near the root of the tree. To the orchardist no introduction of this enemy is needed. Yet it is no un- common thing to meet orchardists who, while recognizing the im- portance of the pest and knowing its habits, are unfamiliar with the parent insect. See figs. 6,9,and 10. The parent is a moth, yet is fre- quently mistaken for a wasp, which it strongly resembles. In the male this similarity is more strongly developed than in the female. In color the moth is adeep blue. In the male the wings are transparent; in the female, the hind wings only. The female is much the larger when her wings are expanded, being fully one and one-half inches across. in this latitude they appear about May 1. They deposit their eggs in the bark at a few inches below the surface of the ground. The egg is very small; color, yellowish brown. After ashort period of in- cubation they are hatched, the worm entering the bark of the tree to the sap-wood, where it feeds until fall. This is the time the greatest damage is usually done, as not infrequently the tree is entirely gir- dled and dies. How to get rid of them is therefore an important factor. The remedies are legion— quack nostrums are abundant; but a lit- tle common sense injected into a little work will give you the greatest satisfaction. About May 1 take a hoe and mound the ground sbout your trees four to six inches in height. This will induce the moth to deposit her eggs high up in the tree. You should maintain this mound. If the winds and rains displace it, go over your trees and re- place the ground about the trunk. You should see that the weeds are kept down. About the 10th or middle of September you should, with the hoe, remove the ground, leveling it. You will be surprised at the result. Many exudations of gummy matter, carrying numer- ous larvee, will part from the tree. Wherever this substance is found scrape the tree and that tree will be beyond the power of the moths’ influence for at least that year. It is quickly done. An active hand can effectively care for 500 to 1000 trees per day. I have rarely lost a tree, although following this custom for more than fifteen years. It does sometimes happen that some larvee escape observation at first, but by having the tree scraped you can at a glance THE KANSAS PEACH. 67 see any that remain, by having four to six inches of the body of the tree exposed. It is rarely they pass below the surface if thus treated. Where loose cultivation is had the insect soon passes to the roots, and it is much more difficult to clean the tree. I think this the best and simplest method yet devised to reduce this pest to the minimum. CEMENT AND SKIM-MILK FOR BORERS. From Bulletin No. 128 of the New Jersey Experiment Station. During the winter of 1896-97 it was suggested that a coating of hydraulic cement mixed with skim-milk formed an excellent protec- tion against borer attack, with no danger to the trees. The suggestion seemed practical, and I tried the material on the college farm, and had it tried on peach trees near New Brunswick, at Cologne, and at Parry, N. J., and at St. Catharine’s, Ontario, Canada. The applica- tions on the college farm were made on May 3, two quarts of skim- milk being used, and cement added to make a body paint. This was applied to wild cherry, from the sapling of last year’s growth to a tree three inches in diameter. The test was to determine the lasting qualities and whether it was injurious; hence the application reached from the surface of the soil to the branching or, in the case of sap- lings, to the very tip of the growing plant. A complete coat was put on in all cases, and it set almost immediately. It began to rain when the application was completed, and during the night a heavy rain fell. All through the early summer there were frequent heavy rains, so that the test was a severe one. May 6 another series of trees and shoots was painted with the hydraulic cement mixed with water to the same consistency as in the case of the skim-milk, the application covering the same variety of plants. June 15 the coating where mixed with water was decidedly imperfect. Where mixed with milk it was entirely intact. October 4 found the coating where milk was used to be yet entirely intact, the covering as perfect as when first put on. The material was brittle, however, and broke or crumpled readily. As to injurious effects, it was impossible to detect any on even the youngest shoots. The bark was dirty; otherwise entirely healthy be- neath the cement coating in all cases. For lasting qualities it leaves: nothing to be desired. As there is nothing to-penetrate or soak into the tree, the only possible injury could have been from the inclosing jacket of cement or from excluding air. But the coating does not seem to be air-tight, and is somewhat elastic, perhaps from the pres- ence of casein; so there is no reason to expect injury. The water- mixed cement was broken in every direction, the coating imperfect in 68 THE KANSAS PEACH. every case, and almost entirely gone in some. The material was now reduced to a powder, easily rubbed off, and which looked as if the next good rain would remove it completely. Several trees were coated with the milk and cement at Parry, early in the season, one of which was under observation up to September 25. This was a small plum tree badly infested by scale, and standing alone near a road in weeds and grass. The coating of cement was still in excellent condition Sep- tember 25, except where it had been broken by the growth of the scales beneath it. The shoots were still green and healthy but hardly vig- orous, which is not surprising when the surroundings of the plant are taken into consideration. The application on Mr. White’s place was made in early June, and the coating, when examined late in September, was yet practically in- tact. Only the milk-and-cement mixture was used here. The experiments at St. Catharine’s, Ontario, were made by Mr. M. Burrell, on peach trees, and both milk and water mixtures were ap- plied June 16. August 9 the skim-milk and cement was found “as good as when put on,” while the cement and water was only “fairly good.” September 21 the milk mixture was “in good shape,” while the water mixture was “largely off.” Applications made May 26 to May 28 to peach trees by Mr. Henry Pfeiffer, Cologne, Atlantic county, New Jersey, were still in perfect condition in October, and had been effective in keeping out borers. It isa fair conclusion from these experiments, made in a very wet season, that a mixture of cement and skim-milk applied to tree trunks forms a continuous coating that will remain in good condition during an entire summer. Asa mechanical coating it leaves nothing to be desired, and no appearance of injury from its use has been observed. It is impenetrable to young insect larvee, and a surface so covered would not be readily selected by an adult for oviposition. The coating is sufficiently elastic to admit of moderate growth, but quite brittle enough to break readily from the efforts of any insect at- tempting to come out from beneath the bark. It would not, there- fore, prevent the exit of borers that were already working in the tree, but would keep out any young larve that attempted to get in. It is probable that this cement, added to some of the soap washes in use by fruit-growers, will add to their [the soap washes’ | lasting qualities. The simple water mixture is so far inferior to that made with milk that its use is not recommended. In all cases the cement should be broken up with a stiff brush when the danger season is over. On young trees it should not be put on until necessary, nor kept longer than required, that the bark may - develop normally. On old trees it makes little difference. THE KANSAS PEACH. 69 THE PEACH TWIG-BORER. (Anarsia lineatella Zell.) From Farmers’ Bulletin No. 80 of the United States Department of Agriculture. This insect is of European origin, but has been known to occur in the United States since 1860. It has been very injurious at times to peach trees in the peach-growing sections of the East; notably in Maryland; Delaware, and Virginia, also in New Jersey and New York, and more recently in West Virginia. In California and Oregon, and elsewhere on the Pacific slope, its injuries have taken a wider range, including damage to the apricot, almond, nectarine, prune, pear, and perhaps other fruit-trees, in addition to the peach. In California it is listed as one of the three or four worst insect pests. In Washington as many as 100 larve, or instances of damage to as many twigs, have been counted on a single tree. In Oregon this insect is stated to be next to the peach-tree borer in the amount of damage it occasions, particularly in the Willamette valley. In western Colorado it is very destructive to peach, plum, apricot, and almond. The injury occasioned by this insect is limited almost exclusively to the work of hibernating larvee during the latter part of April and first of May, when they bore into the shoots of new leaves, killing the growing terminals and preventing the development of the branch, although sometimes a whorl of living leaves may remain at the base. Much of the new growth of the tree is often killed, in many instances the branches remaining with scarcely a bud or shoot which has not been thus destroyed. This necessarily results in greatly checking the vigor and fruiting capacity of the tree, and causes an irregular and knotty growth. The summer broods of larvee feed beneath the bark or in the fruit stems, occasionally, when nearly full grown, boring into the fruit; but such damage is not ordinarily noticed and is slight as compared with the injury occasioned by the first or hibernating brood of larvee. RECENT STUDIES OF THE INSECT. Up to comparatively recent years the knowledge of this insect has been practically confined to its injury to peach twigs, either in termi- nals before the trees leaf out in the spring, a rare form of attack, or in the young shoots—the usual and destructive habit —and later and more rarely in the ripening fruit. The peach twig-borer is apparently an old world species, and prob- ably a very ancient enemy of the peach, with little doubt coming with this fruit from western Asia. It was described in Europe in 70 THE KANSAS PEACH. 1839, and in this country in 1860. As an important injurious insect in this country, attention was first drawn to it about 1872 by Mr. Glover, a former entomologist of the department, and also by Mr. Saunders, of Ottawa, the report of Mr. Glover being the first pub- lished. On the Pacific slope record was made of injury by it to various stone fruits by Mr. Coquillett, and later similar damage was reported from Vancouver. We have also the results of the investiga- tions by Mr. Ehrhorn in California, and the recently published ac- count by Mr. Cordley relative to the insect as affecting peaches and prunes in Oregon. That this twig-borer is very destructive to the peach, plum, apricot and almond in western Colorado is shown by recent accounts, and damage from it has also been lately reported in West Virginia. In addition to the more important published ac- counts, injury from the twig-borer has been often recognized and re- ported by various observers in recent years. The records of this department show the presence of twig-borer in at least twelve states, and give it a range which indicates it is practically as wide-spread in this country as is the culture of its principal food plant. If not already cosmopolitan in distribution, the peach twig-borer is rapidly becoming so, and will probably follow the peach and other stone fruits wherever they are cultivated, especially as its peculiar hibernating habit greatly facilitates its distribution with nursery stock. LIFE-HISTORY AND HABITS. According to Mr. Ehrhorn, they appear in the fall as very small larvee, living and working in the spongy bark, chiefly at the crotches of the branches of the peach, and he surmises that they are from eggs deposited in these situations. Here the larve are supposed to grow slowly until the new growth appears in the spring, when they leave their cells in the bark and enter the new shoots. It is stated, also, that frequently the larvee are nearly full-grown when they-attack the young growth. A later brood is said to attack the fruit near the stems. The occurrence of the larvee during the winter in the situations de- scribed is also thought to explain the fact frequently noted that the under and inside twigs, being the more accessible, suffer the most, while the exterior and topmost branches escape. Later studies confirm, in the main, Mr. Ehrhorn’s conclusions as to the habits of the larvee. That the larvee make any essential growth in the winter, however, is probably a wrong inference, as will be shown later, and the nearly full-grown larve referred to were doubtless indi- viduals that were wandering from one point to another, and had merely reached nearly full growth before they were observed. Both in the orchards of California and by means of the abundant THE KANSAS PEACH. 71 material received at this office, we have been enabled to make a care- ful study of the hibernating galleries or chambers of the young larvee. These occur not only in the crotches of the smaller and sometimes quite large branches, but many of the larvee utilize the roughened bark at any point. They burrow into the bark for a short distance, penetrating little more than the upper superficial layer, and form slightly elongated chambers (fig. 13, ¢), which are lined with white silk and the opening afterwards closed. The location of the larvee may be readily recognized by the little masses of projecting excrement or comminuted bark at the entrances to the burrows. Fig. 13, a,b. The size of the burrow and the fact of its being lined with silk preclude the idea that the larva feeds in the fall or during hibernation, except, perhaps, in the mere operation of excavating the chamber. Fie, 13.—A narsia lineatella:a, twig of peach, showing in crotch minute masses of chewed bark above larval chambers; b, latter much Fic. 14.—Anarsia lineatella: a, new shoot of enlarged; c, a larval cell, with contained peach withering from attack of larva; }, larva, much enlarged; d, dorsal view of larva enlarged; c, pupa enlarged; d, tip of young larva more enlarged (original). pupa more enlarged (original). The young larva, as taken from the burrow, is not above two milli- meters long, and is of a general yellow color, with the head and cer- vical and anal plates dark brown, almost black. Fig. 13, d. While in their winter quarters the larvee are subject to the attacks of predaceous mites, and many of them are destroyed by this means, as will be later noted. They are also occasionally parasitized by a chaleidid fly. Early in April the larvee begin to abandon their hibernating quar- ters and attack the new leaf shoots, but some individuals were found in the crotches by Mr. Ehrhorn as late as April 21. The damage becomes noticeable, as a rule, at the time the shoots are from one-half inch to two inches in length, or, more properly speaking, [ when | mere clusters of newly expanded leayes. Glover's account of their working downward in the old twigs from i THE KANSAS PEACH. the terminal buds before the starting of the leaves in April apparently cannot be questioned, but seems not to be the normal course, as shown by the observations since made. In our experience, the larvee begin to migrate only after the new foliage has begun to put out, and they [ then] attack the new shoots at any point, generally, however, from one-half inch to an inch from the apex, either near or in the crotch formed by the leaf petiole and the stem. The longest burrow observed was one and one-half inches and the shortest one-fourth inch. Sometimes the burrow extends about one-eighth inch above the entrance, and occasionally the larvee simply eat into the shoot: as far as the pith and then go elsewhere. The larve are seemingly restless and not easily satisfied, and are con- tinually moving from one shoot to another, and are most active travel- ers. In this way a single larva may destroy or injure several shoots before reaching maturity, thus greatly increasing the damage. When working in the succulent new growth the larva bores rapidly, sufficiently so at least to excavate a burrow two-thirds of its length in an hour. The length of time spent by the hibernated larva in com- ing to full growth in the green shoots is comparatively short, not ex- ceeding ten to fifteen days. In California, and also in the District of Columbia, the larve begin transformation to pupz in the latter part of April, and the moths of the first brood emerge throughout May. In Colorado, Mr. Gillette has bred the moths the Ist of June and also toward the end of July. In Oregon, Mr. Cordley secured his first pupa on May 8, and his first moth on May 17. The adult larva tapers strongly toward either end, and attains a length of three-eighths to half an inch, or slightly more when in mo- tion. It is of a dull, reddish-brown color, the reddish color predomi- nating before maturity and the latter after maturity, and the head and the cervical and anal shields are dark brown or almost black. The space between the segments, and especially between the second and third thoracic segments, is noticeably light colored. The hairs are long, and spring singly from minute tubercles. Other details of structural features are shown in the illustration. Fig. 14, 6. In con- finement, the larva on reaching full growth spins a scanty web—in no sense a close cocoon —in the leaves and rubbish about the trees or on the trees in the dried and shriveled leaves of the injured shoots, or it attaches itself exposed on the twigs or bark. After thus securing itself the larva immediately pupates, becoming a brown, rather robust, chrysalis. Fig. 14, c, d. In midsummer these transformations are very quickly accomplished. A larva. for example, which webbed up June 29 pupated July 1, and the adult emerged July 8. Mr. Ehrhorn states that it is very difficult to find the pupz in or- THE KANSAS PEACH. 73 chards, as the larve hide in all sorts of places, as in crotches of the branches, between dried leaves, and about small peaches likely to drop off. The chrysalis stage lasts from seven to ten days, and the moths of the first brood begin to appear early in May and continue to emerge throughout this month and into June, in the latitude of Washington. The adult moth is less than a quarter of an inch in length, expanding a little more than half an inch, and is of a beautiful dark green color, with darker spots on the fore wings, as indicated in the illustration. Fig. 15. It isa handsome insect, and has a peculiar way of resting with its palpi (feelers) bent back over its head and its antenne laid closely down on the wings. The actions of the moths out of doors have been recently described by Mr. Cordley. During the daytime they remain perfectly still on the bark of the tree, and with the fore part of the body slightly raised Fie. 16.—A narsia lineatella: a, egg; b, young larva; c, eye: a, Fic. 15.—Anarsia lineatella: a, moth with thoracic leg of larva; e, anal spread wings; b and c, same with wings segment, from above—all great- closed, illustrating position normally as- ly enlarged (original). sumed — all much enlarged (original). and the labial palpi (feelers) held rigidly upright before the face. They so closely resemble small, rough projections of the bark that it is almost impossible to distinguish them. When disturbed they dart rapidly about for an instant and then as suddenly alight in a new position. The egg-laying habits of this insect previous to 1897 having been merely a matter of conjecture, special effort was made to get the facts concerning this feature of the life-history. A number of moths reared in the insectary were confined about May 10 with peach twigs eight to ten inches in length, of this year’s:growth. On May 28 it was 74 THE KANSAS PEACH. found that many eggs had been deposited on these peach twigs, an egg having been placed apparently just above the base of the petiole of nearly every leaf. When examined, most of the eggs had hatched and the larve had entered the twigs at or near the crotch formed by the leaf and twig, the point of entrance being indicated by a little mass of brown excrement. The egg had evidently been placed in the protection formed by the two little spurs at the base of the petiole. In one instance nine eggs were deposited around the base of a sin- gle leaf, six of them close together under one of the bracts at the base of the petiole, and three in the depression or sear left by the second bract, which had dropped. The recently deposited eggs are white in color and iridescent, but before hatching become distinctly orange. They measure about four- tenths of a millimeter in length by two tenths of a millimeter in breadth, are somewhat ovoid, and are lightly attached lengthwise to the twig by a glue-like material. Under a high power they are seen to be coarsely and rather regularly reticulated,as shown in the illustration. Fig. 16, a. In confinement the moths live about ten days, and most of the egg laying is in the first half of this period. The habits above described are those of caged moths, but it is reasonable to suppose that in a state of nature the eggs are deposited in much the same way, and this is rendered almost certain by the great regularity noted in the man- ner of their deposition. In but one or two instances were the eggs placed in other situations—one being placed on the upper surface of a leaf close to the midrib, and two together placed in a groove at the side of the base of the leaf. From eggs deposited later than those first mentioned, viz., about June 3, larvee appeared June 15, indicat- ing a period of about twelve days between the laying of the egg and the hatching. The newly hatched eggs measure about one millimeter in length and are of a very pale yellow color, with the head and the cervical and anal plates black and the thoracic legs dusky. When first noted they had excavated channels somewhat longer than themselves and about twice as broad in the twigs, the entrance being marked by a small mass of excrement. By June 3 most of the older larvee had abandoned their original burrows and were constructing new ones in similar situ- ations on fresh branches of the peach, with which they were from time to time supplied. They continued to construct new burrows every few days until they were full grown. On June 23, of the few remain- ing individuals of this lot of larvee, one had already pupated in a folded leaf and the other two were fully grown and about ready to transform, which they both did before the end of the month. About the end of June some peaches were received from Mr. Ehrhorn, said to be in- THE KANSAS PEACH. 75 fested with the second brood of larvee. Some of the peaches had been bored into a little way near the stem by what was evidently, from the size and nature of the burrow, nearly full-grown larvee of the second brood. One of these was found, and also one pupa. On further ex- amination, however, it was found that the larvee of what is undoubt- edly the third brood (the second of the summer broods) were present in numbers, not in the fruit, but in the short stems of the fruit, which at this season are green and somewhat succulent. In these stems they had made their little chambers not unlike those in the twigs de- scribed above, or those in the crotches in the fall, except that they were for feeding purposes and not lined with silk, as are the latter. Others were also found at the base of the leaf stalks, just as we had been finding them in our breeding-cages. We were unable to carry our breeding-cage material farther than this point at Washington, D.C., and Mr. Ebhrhorn was unable to fur- nish additional supplies, but he writes that he found minute larvee in the crotches of the trees as early as August 21. It would seem from this last and very important observation that some, at least, of the fourth brood of larvee, if not all of them, go into winter quarters, and at a period much earlier than would have been supposed. These facts go a long way toward clearing up the life-history of this insect, and indicate a much more uniform habit in the different broods than has been hitherto supposed. The old idea that this insect is double brooded, the first brood living in the wings of the second brood, af- fecting the ripening fruit, must be abandoned. At the time of the appearance of the first brood of moths, during the month of May, the fruit of the peach is of considerable size, especially by the end of the month, but is green, hard, and densely hairy, and is probably rarely if ever chosen by the parent moths as a nidus [ repository | for their eggs. ; The normal location of the eggs, and the point at which larval de- velopment begins, is indicated by the foregoing notes, and there is no reason to doubt but that at all seasons of the year larvee develop in the new growth, entering normally at the axils of the leaves or in the stems of the green fruit. In these situations the eggs are placed, and the young larve construct their little oval chambers, which they abandon from time to time to make new ones, rarely doing enough damage in the later broods at any one point to be noticeable. As they attain larger size they travel more, and often bore into the fruit near the stem, where the greater exudation of gum and more serious char- acter of the injury draw attention to them. In the case of the bur- rows in the twigs, the more abundant new growth and more mature condition of the wood render the injury much less noticeable, nor are 76 THE KANSAS PEACH. the results of the attacks so marked as in the injury to the new growth in April. Our records for the first summer brood indicate a period of about six weeks as necessary for its complete development. The time nec- essary in the warmer months for the later broods is probably even less, and it is evident that there are certainly three broods of larve annually, if not four. One of the important points remaining to be cleared up in regard to this insect is whether the larvee found in the crotches of the branches in late summer and fall come from eggs placed in these situations or are migrants from some other parts of the plant. Mr. Ehrhorn’s supposition that the eggs were placed by the moth where the larval chambers are afterwards found are borne out by the small size of the larvee, which are not much larger than when newly hatched. The comparatively large size of the egg and its striking appearance, and the lack of any attempt at concealment of it, should enable one, where the insect is abundant, to clear up this uncertain feature without difficulty. NATURAL PARASITES. That the larvee of the peach twig-borer are attacked by parasites during the hibernating period has already been alluded to, and, in fact, of the material received from. Mr. Ehrhorn, nearly all had been destroyed by a minute predaceous mite, Pediculoides ventricosus. Fig. 17. In most in- stances nothing remained of the larvee except the empty heads. Two minute hymenoptera, or four- winged fly parasites, have also been reared from the larvee. The first of these was obtained by Prosessor Comstock, who, in his studies of the peach twig- borer, reared a parasite from it which he did not name, but which was later, described by Dr. L. O. Howard as Copidosoma variegatum. 'The second eres Lie Peatcauae fly parasite of Anarsia was obtained from the ma- enlarged(original). terial in tree crotches submitted by Mr. Ehrhorn, and proves to be Oxymorpha livida Ashmead, a wide-spread species, quite variable in point of size. Of these parasites, in California the greatest benefit is derived from the mite, which, as we have already stated, frequently causes the death of from seventy-five to ninety-five per cent. of the young larvee. REMEDIES AND PREVENTIVES. The common method of procedure against this insect, and the one — hitherto generally suggested, is to clip off and burn the withering in- fested tips in the spring as soon as the injury is noted. The forego- THE KANSAS PEACH. 77 ing life-history emphasizes the fact that it is necessary to do this very promptly, for the larvee remain in these situations a very short time, and early in May will have abandoned their burrows in the young shoots, to transform, often elsewhere, although sometimes pupating in the withered leaves. The presence of dying terminals does not always indicate that a larva is necessarily present, since in many in- stances it will have wandered to some other point. With large or- chards this step would be a very tedious one, and, with trees of any size, often impracticable. The knowledge of the hibernating habits of this insect indicates a more effective method of control. This consists in spraying the trees during December or January, or any time after the foliage has fallen, with kerosene emulsion, resin wash, or some similar oily preparation which will penetrate the burrows and destroy the young larve. Mr. - Ehrhorn found the kerosene treatment very satisfactory, as practiced in California in the winter of 1897-98, the little excremental pellets of the larvee absorbing the oily mixture and leading it directly to the insect in its hibernating cell. For California, Mr. Ehrhorn recom- mends that the application of the mixture should be begun in De- cember. Kerosene emulsion has one advantage over other oily preparations, such as the resin wash, in that it is more penetrating and will be more certain of reaching the larvee. Where the emulsion is to be prepared by hand, it is better to make it in rather small quantities at a time, in order to secure a perfect combination of oil and soap. The propor- tions usually taken are as follows: Kerosene, two gallons; whale-oil soap. half a pound; water, one gallon. The soap, first finely divided, is dissolved in the water by boiling and immediately added boiling hot, away from the fire, to the kerosene. The whole mixture is then agitated violently while hot by being pumped back upon itself by a force-pump and direct-discharge nozzle, throwing a strong stream, preferably one-eighth inch in diameter. After from three to five minutes’ pumping the emulsion should be perfect, and the mixture will have increased from one-third to one-half in bulk and assumed the consistency of cream. Well made, the emulsion will keep indefi- nitely, and should be diluted only as wanted for use. The proper di- lution for the above formula is about twenty gallons of spraying mixture. When hard water is employed in the making of the emulsion or in diluting afterwards, it is necessary to use about twenty-five per cent. more soap, or preferably the water may be broken with lye, or rain- water may be used. In the use of kerosene or other oily washes on plants, the applica- 78 THE KANSAS PEACH. tion should be merely sufficient to wet the plant without causing the liquid to run down the trunk and collect about the crown. Usually at this situation there is a cavity caused by the swaying of the plant in the wind, and the accumulation of the insecticide at this point may result in death or injury of the plant. It is even advisable to mound up the trees before spraying or to see that the earth is firmly packed about the base. Care should also be taken in refilling the tank to see that no free oil is allowed to accumulate in the residue left at the bottom. In line with the use of kerosene emulsion may be suggested the use of pure kerosene mechanically combined with water in the act of spraying, as is now effected by a style of pump specially made for the purpose. A twenty to twenty-five per cent. solution of the kerosene can be used without danger to the plant in its dormant condition, but it is necessary to watch the apparatus employed for this work very carefully to see that the proportion of oil to the water does not change, and on the whole it is much safer and more satisfactory to use the kerosene emulsion, the strength of which may be known definitely in advance and is not subject to variation. SPRING OR FALL TREATMENT WITH ARSENICALS. The possibility of destroying the larvee of the peach twig-borer by spraying the plants with arsenicals, either in the fall or spring, has also been suggested; but such treatment demands the greatest cau- tion on account of the extreme sensitiveness of the foliage of the trees ordinarily attacked by this insect to scalding when sprayed with these poisons. The fall treatment is directed against the last brood of larve, and to be effective the poison should reach the parts of the plant where the eggs are most apt to be placed, presumably the crotches of the branches. Many of the larve might thus be poisoned while eating through the bark preliminary to the construction of their winter re- treats. To effect anything of value by this course the poison must be applied early—that is, before the eggs are deposited—and the feasibility of the treatment will depend somewhat on the condition of the trees and the damage that might result from scalding of the foli- age in late summer. As a spring treatment, the arsenical spray should be applied to the trees at the moment the leaf-buds begin unfolding, so that the first meal taken by the wintered-over larve will be a poisonous one. The difficulty with this method is that already given — namely, the extreme sensitiveness of the foliage of the peach and allied fruits to damage by scalding with arsenical sprays—and if this method is followed the poison should not be used in much greater amount than one pound THE KANSAS PEACH. 79 of the arsenical to 400 gallons of water, previously mixing the poison up with an equal weight of lime in a small amount of water. The experience in California with the arsenicals, as reported by Mr. Ehrhorn, has not been satisfactory. It has been found very diffi- cult in actual practice to use them without danger to the plants. The winter treatment with kerosene emulsion, first described, is therefore especially and strongly advised. HEADING OFF THE PEACH BORER. When borers once get into a peach tree there is nothing to do but — to cut them out. No application can be made to the outside of a tree to kill the borers inside of it. The proper way is to keep them out from the beginning. No young trees should be set out until they have been examined for borers, and no tree injured by them should be put in. The trees should be wrapped with a double thickness of newspa- per when set out, so that at least fifteen inches of the trunk above ground is covered, and this wrapping should remain until the middle of September. When the wrappings are taken off, the trees should be closely examined, and if any borers have made their way in above the papers they should be cut out. Thereafter the trees should be annually protected by paper wrap- pings, put on not later than the first week in June, and preferably before the Ist of that month; this protection to continue each year to the middle of September. Hydraulic cement mixed with skim-milk is equally effective, and may be preferable on young trees. Itis sufficiently lasting, and cheap, and any borers attempting to enter above it are at once seen, since there is nothing to shelter them. In tying on papers do not use too strong or stiff a twine. Peach trees grow rapidly and may become girdled, unless the twine is some- what yielding and breaks under a moderate strain. A little retying may be required in August on young, rapidly growing trees. Such are the results of elaborate inquiry and tests at the New Jersey experiment station, as summarized by Prof. John B. Smith in bulletin No. 128. 80 THE KANSAS PEACH. NEW PEACH-TREE DISEASE. In the Michigan Fruit-grower, Mr. Gardner Avery has the follow- ing article regarding a new peach-tree disease, which has appeared in some of the orchards of Michigan: I saw in a recent issue, in the report of the Lowell horticultural meeting, that S. E. Tucker exhibited some new growth of peach trees thit had dead spots in the bark. I have never seen anything in your paper or any other that treated on this subject. I know something of this disease, and I feel that it is a subject which ought to be discussed, and that thoroughly, too. I know nothing of this disease scientifically, but experimentally, I am sorry to say, I know more than I wish I did about it. It is worse than the yellows and the San Jose scale combined, for it spreads faster and leaves none unaffected. We are taking out a block of 1500 trees, nine years old this spring, that are nearly dead at this writing. The disease commenced the second year after setting, in Barnard variety, which has been affected more severely than the other varieties, with the Chilis as a close second. The Smock seems to be mostly proof against the disease. I have tried to find the name, cause, and remedy, but have made a failure thus far. Mr. Morrill thought the cause was climatic, and I see that Mr. Tucker has also been inclined to think it was climatic, but changes his mind since we have had no severe weather the last winter. Mr. Sneathen is inclined to think that it is a fungous disease, and he says that others think it is caused by barn-yard manure. Now, my trees are ruined, and I have never applied barn-yard manure to nearly all of my orchard, and those that had manure applied to them are no different from the rest. In this belt of peach country there are a few orchards that are not affected, but they are isolated ones. This proves two things: First, that the disease spreads from tree to tree; second, that it is not caused by rigorous weather, or they would all be alike, under like conditions; whereas some of the orchards on the lowest ground have escaped, while orchards on the higher sites are nearly dead. Generally, those on clay are worse than those on sand, but when it gets in they all go sooner or later. Dry weather is a healer while wet weather is a deadener to the trees. Iam inclined to think that we would not have gotten very much from our trees that we are taking out if it had not been for the drought three years since; this kept the disease in check, so that we harvested a good crop. All of the above points to a fungus as the cause; and we have had THE KANSAS PEACH. 81 our coats off laboring with it as a fungous disease. We have kept all the dead wood trimmed out, and sprayed them early with sulphate of copper and later with Bordeaux mixture, with no perceptible dif- ference. We hada first-class apparatus for applying these remedies, and applied them with the hope of curing the disease; but, as I said, we are taking them out now, and have become a little discouraged with another block, located some distance away, that is four years old and affected with these little brown spots in the bark that Mr. Tucker speaks of. I think that all of these orchards, which are similarly affected, will give evidence in the future of worse symptoms than dead spots in the new growth, unless there is a remedy found. BLACK SPOT ON PEACHES. This fungus is quite common over the state, mostly affecting late varieties, more especially on seedling fruit. It first appears as black, sooty-like spots of varying size, generally on one side of the specimen, often covering one entire side of it. Fic. 18. Black spot of peach ( Hill’s Chili). The side becomes dwarfed, the skin becomes hard, and shrinks and cracks open sometimes to the stone, and the flesh on the affected side is useless, and the whole fruit valueless for market and of little value for family use. Bordeaux mixture is the only thing known that will hold it in check. The formula is four pounds of sulphate of copper and six pounds of lime, diluted with at least fifty gallons of water, and applied with any of the spray pumps. . —6 82 THE KANSAS PEACH. THE CURCULIO. From a Texas Experiment Station Bulletin. While we have had very fair success in spraying plums for the cur- culio with the arsenical compound, our success in spraying peaches does not encourage us to recommend it. As before stated, the peach is very susceptible to injury from the use of these poisons, and the quantity used must be very small, probably one pound to 200 gallons of water, and then some lime must be mixed with it. We prefer the jarring method for the peach. If the insects are jarred down into sheets early in the morning they do not fly readily, and may easily be caught and killed. The trees can be jarred for something less than five cents per tree. When the wormy fruit falls to the ground it is a good idea to turn hogs in to eat it up, which greatly prevents the insect next year. GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR SPRAYING PEACH TREES FOR PEACH ROT. From a Bulletin of the Delaware College Agricultural Experiment Station. : For the treatment of peach trees, the following brief directions are given: 1. During the winter or very early in the spring remove from the trees and gather and burn all mummified fruit. 2. Very early in the spring it will be well to spray the trees thor- oughly with a solution of copper sulphate (bluestone ), one pound of bluestone to twenty-five gallons of water. 3. When the fruit-buds begin to swell, spray either with the ace- tate of copper solution or the Bordeaux mixture. 4. Just before the fruit-buds open, repeat the latter. 5. When bloom begins to shed, spray with Paris green, three: ounces to the barrel of water; to this add about a quart of whitewash (milk of lime); or with Bordeaux mixture, adding to each barrel three ounces of Paris green. 6. In ten days or two weeks repeat the latter. 7. When fruit just begins to color, spray with copper acetate solu- tion. 8. Repeat the latter in a week or ten days. In preparing the Bordeaux mixture, especial stress is to be laid on the advantage of preparing beforehand a barrel of strong bluestone solution, made so that each gallon of the solution will contain say two pounds of bluestone. THE KANSAS PEACH. 83 It isa great advantage to buy the bluestone coarsely pulverized, as in this form it dissolves so much more rapidly. In this condition, and with hot water, a large quantity of a concentrated solution of the bluestone can be made very quickly. It is also well to have another barrel filled with slaked lime or whitewash. By slakinga given quantity of lime for each barrel of the whitewash, provided the same is well stirred, it will be easy to tell about what weight of lime is in each gallon, and thus the necessary quantity can be readily added by measure. In spraying use a nozzle which gives a misty spray ; wet every part, but drench none. It is better to spray on a cloudy or partly overcast day, or when the sun is not too hot; thus the foliage is less apt to be injured. EXPERIMENTS AND DEPRAVITY. From “Spraying for Peach Rot,” in Bulletin No. 19 of the Delaware Experiment Station. Mr. Townsend says : “I experienced great trouble in keeping people out of the orchard, and in some places along the road the trees were stripped of every sound peach. This applied equally to those sprayed and those not sprayed. Pilfering has continued from the time the fruit commenced to turn red until the day it was gathered. I had intended to ship in carriers, but found that because so much of the largest and most attractive fruit had been stolen from the trees it would not be profitable to so ship. The road is the main thorough- fare leading from Milford to the bay shore, and has a heavy travel over it. The extent of this pilfering is shown from the fact that from the twenty-one sprayed Amsden trees, near the center of the orchard, I expected to pick as many peaches as from twenty-eight sprayed trees near the road; on the contrary, I only obtained a little over one- half asmany. This aforesaid prospect held good until Saturday. On Sunday I employed a man to watch along the road for the passers, and did not suppose that they would come into the center of my orchard by the back road; but they did. My neighbor informed me- on Monday that seven carriages drove into my orchard from the back road inside of two hours on Sunday morning, and that in the after- noon several squads of boys visited it. One fact was certain— that the fruit was not there. I am satisfied that spraying will save the peaches; but placed as I am ona public thoroughfare, I shall take out the early fruit.” This experience of Mr. Townsend’s shows one of the drawbacks hable to attend work of this kind. Blissful ignorance of what may 84 THE KANSAS PEACH. effect experimental work when we are not there to see may be more comforting, but we can never be certain that trees bearing attractive fruit are not more or less pilfered unless hedged in by some impassa- ble barrier. “SE ~PR ACE A strange trio of diseases we have, says a writer in the Michigan Fruit Grower. “Yellows” throughout the country, “little peach” in Michigan and “rosette” in Georgia are all of very similar nature. The secret of nearly every fruit-tree disease has been discovered; the fun- gus, spore or bacterium has been captured and has been carefully studied, although some of them, such as the pear blight microbe, do not yield to any treatment with which we are at present acquainted. There has nothing yet so baffled the investigator as “yellows” and its two brethren. “Little peach,” a disease closely related to “yellows,” and which is more prominent in the southern portion of our peach belt, seems to be gaining ground. In response to an appeal to the depart- ment of agriculture, an expert, probably Dr. Erwin F. Smith, will come to Michigan to investigate the disease. Doctor Smith, it will be re- membered, wrote a monograph upon “yellows,” and is probably the most able man to take hold of this mysterious disease in the country. SPRAYING FOR PEACH LEAF-CURL. From the Canadian Horticulturist. Mr. W. M. Orr, in 1898, was the first in Canada to try whitewash- ing his peach trees in winter season with a view of preventing the curl. His success was very marked, and was given to the public in his annual report. This spring Mr. A. H. Pettit, of Grimsby, sprayed his large peach orchard first in February, and then again in March, using for first application one peck of lime to forty gallons of Bor- deaux mixture, and the second time one-half bushel. One row right through the orchard, embracing nearly every variety, was left un- sprayed. As the growth began the result became more and more ap- parent, every row being free from curl except the one unsprayed, on which the foliage was considerably affected and the ground beneath was strewed with dead leaves, while under the others none could be seen. Numerous visitors studied the effects of the treatment and were convinced of its effectiveness, and believe that, had the season been a wet one, the difference between the treated and untreated trees would have been still more marked. THE KANSAS. PEACH. 8d WINTER PROTECTION OF THE PEACH. By Pror. J. C. WHITTEN, in Bulletin No. 38 of the Missouri Experiment Station. SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 1. In.Missouri, winter-killing of the fruit-buds of the peach is usually due to the unfavorable effects of freezing after they have been stimulated into growth by warm weather during winter or early spring. 2. This early swelling and growth of the buds is due to the warmth they receive, is practically independent of root action, and may take place on warm, sunny days in winter, while the roots are frozen and dormant. 3. Peach fruit-buds may safely endure a temperature of ten or twenty degrees below zero, provided they mature well in autumn, are entirely dormant, and the cold comes on gradually. 4, Zero weather may kill fruit-buds that have swollen during pre- vious warm days, or that were not properly ripened in autumn. 5. Shading or whitening peach trees to prevent their absorbing heat on sunny days opposes [retards] growth of the buds, and is, conse- quently, a protective measure. 6. Shading the trees with board sheds enabled peach buds to sur- vive the winter uninjured, when eighty per cent. of unprotected buds were killed. Trees protected in this way blossomed later, remained in bloom longer, set more fruit in proportion to the number of appar- ently perfect flowers, and held their fruit better than any other trees on the station grounds. This is the most effective means of winter protection tried at the station, but it is beopeply too expensive for commercial orchards. 7. Whitening the twigs and buds by spraying them with white- wash is, on account of its cheapness and beneficial effects, the most promising method of winter protection tried at this station. 8. Whitened buds remained practically dormant until April, when unprotected buds swelled perceptibly during warm days late in Feb- ruary and early in March. Whitened buds blossomed three to six days later than unprotected buds. Eighty per cent. of whitened buds passed the winter safely, when only twenty per cent. of unwhitened buds passed the winter unharmed, Thermometers covered with purple material registered, during bright, sunny weather, from ten to over twenty degrees higher than thermometers covered with white material of similar texture, thus im- dicating that whitened peach twigs might be expected to absorb much less heat than those that are not whitened. 86 THE KANSAS PEACH. WINTER-KILLING OF PEACH BUDS. One of the most serious drawbacks to peach growing in some parts of Missouri [and Kansas | is the winter-killing of the buds. In many parts of the state serious winter-killing is not frequent, and magnifi- cent crops of peaches, particularly of certain varieties, are reasonably sure. In other portions, however, killing of the buds is sufficiently common to cause frequent loss of peach crops. Probably in every part of the state the peach is in enough danger from unfavorable win- ter conditions to make the question of winter protection one of con- siderable economic importance. Even where a good crop is reasonably certain. the fruit-buds are often weakened during the winter. CAUSES OF WINTER-KILLING. Low temperature, and consequent severe freezing, is often the direct cause of winter-killing of the fruit-buds of the peach. Peach buds, however, have often withstood a temperature of ten degrees, or eyen twenty degrees, below zero and subsequently produced flowers and fruit. On the other hand, five degrees below zero has sometimes en- tirely killed the peach buds throughout considerable areas. This shows that other conditions besides mere cold weather must be stud- ied in attempting to ascertain the causes of winter-killing of buds or plants. Imperfect ripening of the wood and buds in autumn renders them more susceptible to injury from cold weather. This imperfect matu- rity may be caused by late cultivation, or by warm autumn rains, which prolong the season of growth. Often the dry weather and cool nights of August induce partial ripening of the wood and buds. Sub- sequent rains and warm weather induce an autumn growth that is somewhat akin to a spring awakening; so much so that occasionally some of the flower-buds burst into bloom in autumn. Sudden change of temperature is always more dangerous than gradual change. A sudden drop from our ordinary winter tempera- ture to five degrees below zero, particularly if accompained by strong wind, is more severe on peach buds than a gradual fall to ten or fifteen degrees below zero. Sudden thawing is sometimes more damaging than sudden freezing. Buds and twigs are also unfavorably affected by bright sunlight during times of low temperature. Growth of buds during warm weather in winter renders them very susceptible to injury from subsequent freezing. This is the most common cause of winter-killing of peach buds in this state. It very often happens that a warm spell as early as February causes the peach buds to make considerable growth. If growth starts to any great ex- tent the subsequent cold weather is almost sure to kill the buds. The peach is quite easily stimulated into growth by warm days, even in THE KANSAS PEACH. 87 winter. The purple color of the twigs favors the absorption of heat during sunny days. Purple-twigged varieties are more easily stimu- lated into growth, and they bloom slightly earlier than the green- twigged varieties like Snow. Peach buds sometimes remain dormant throughout the winter and suffer from late spring frosts after they have begun to blossom. METHODS OF WINTER PROTECTION EMPLOYED. Numerous methods of protecting peach buds during winter have been tried, with more or less success. Layering, or bending down, in autumn, and covering with soil, mats, pine branches or other protect- ing material has been resorted to. To facilitate bending down the trees are usually headed low, the roots are cut on one side of the tree, the tree is then bent over in the direction opposite the cut side, and may be quite readily laid on the ground. This should only be prac- ticed on trees that have been bent down each year after setting. If an old tree is treated in this manner for the first time it may seri- ously impair its vigor. The Lowa station advises shaping trees to be thus protected by training the trunks horizontally along the ground and. allowing the upright head to form several feet to one side of the stump. Grown in this position, the prostrate trunk may be twisted sufficiently to allow the head to be laid over on the ground. Some growers are reported to have successfully laid the peach by planting the young tree so its roots are guided laterally, in two oppo- site directions, by a trough-shaped piece of sheet-iron embedded in the ground. The roots in this position may be twisted sufficiently to permit the laying of the tree. Coating the buds by spraying with glue and other sticky substances has been tried, with the hope of affording winter protection. “Baling,” or drawing together the branches as closely as possible in a vertical bundle and wrapping them with coarse grass or corn-stalks, has been tried with some suc- cess, Whitening the twigs and buds by spraying with whitewash has been given more attention at this station than any other means of protection. [ The results are summed in Nos. 7 and 8 above.—SEc. | 88 THE KANSAS PEACH. AN EFFORT AT LAWMAKING. The following law, in the form of a ‘“‘bill,’ was introduced in the lower house of the legislature of 1899 and passed by a vote seventy- six to two, but it failed to get through the senate for lack of time to consider it. We need some such law, and it is hoped that the next legislature will enact this or something better: Aw Act to promote and protect the horticultural and agricultural interests of the state by creating a state entomological board. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas: Section 1. There is hereby created a state entomological board, which board shall consist of the associate professor of entomology of the University of Kansas, the acting professor of entomology of the Kansas State Agricultural College, and the official entomologist of the Kansas State Horticultural Society. The members of this board shall be designated as state entomologists, and shall serve upon this board without remuneration other than that each may receive as occupant of said professorships or official entomologist. The said board shall meet on the third Tuesday of March each year and organize by the election of a chairman and sec- retary, who shall hold such offices until the annual meeting of the board there- after. Sec. 2. Whenever it shall be known to any one of these state entomologists that there exists in any locality of the state an insect seriously pernicious to the horticultural or agricultural interests of the state he shall report the matter to the chairman of said board, and said chairman shall personally inspect premises reported to be infested, or appoint one of the members of said board to inspect said premises. The members of the said board are hereby empowered to enter upon infested premises, use such means and employ such assistance as will in- sure the eradication of noxious insects, their eggs and larve. Sec. 3. Before beginning the work of extermination, the owner of the infested property, his agent or tenant, must be notified; and in case of objection by said owner, his agent or tenant, to the findings or procedure of the state entomologist conducting the inspection, an appeal shall be taken to the board of county com- missioners of the county wherein infested premises are situated, and their deci- sion shall be final. An appeal must be taken within three days, and shall act as a stay of proceedings until it is heard and decided. Sec. 4. The expenses attached to the inspection of infested or probably in- fested localities, together with material and labor employed in destroying perni- cious insects, shall be met by the board of county commissioners of the county m which said premises are located, and said board of county commissioners shall pay said expenses, upon presentation of itemized statement of expenses by the state entomologist conducting the work, out of any funds not otherwise appro- priated. In case it is deemed expedient to destroy infested plants or trees, no indemnity shall be allowed for said plants. Src. 5. In case any person or persons interfere with the members of the state entomological board in the performance of their duties, or fail or refuse to exe- cute the directions of the said board of county commissioners after an appeal, the said person or persons shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be fined in any sum not exceeding $100. It shall be the duty of the county THE KANSAS PEACH. 89 attorneys of the several counties of the state to enforce the provisions of this section. Sec. 6. Whenever a resident nurseryman desires his trees, scions and all such stock as is commonly known as nursery stock inspected for pernicious insects, he shall communicate his wishes to the chairman of the said board, and said chair- man shall arrange with one of the members of said board for the inspection of said nursery stock or said chairman shall personally inspect said stock. The time of inspection shall be arranged at a date convenient for said nurseryman and state entomologist conducting the inspection. If, after careful examination, said state entomologist finds no insects pernicious to said stock, either upon said stock or upon premises whereon said stock is located, he shall, upon payment of expenses incurred by said inspection, issue certificate of inspection to that effect. Sec. 7. The secretary of said board shall keep a full record of the work done by said board, or the members thereof, the places inspected, and the result thereof; also a record of all certificates of inspection issued, to whom issued, and date of issue. Sec. 8. All acts inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed. Sec. 9. This act shall take effect from the date of publication in the official state paper. 90 THE KANSAS PEACH. GROWING PEACHES IN KANSAS. On the pages following will be found experiences, conclusions and advice from quite a number of the older peach growers in Kansas, The state is divided into four fruit districts, corresponding to the four quarters, and the reports, or interviews, are classified according to those districts. They are, all of them, worthy of careful study and consideration. Through the experience of others we may learn much. THE FIRST DISTRICT. W. H. Tucker, Effingham, Atchison county, has lived in Kansas thirty- nine years, and now has an orchard of 125 bearing peach trees and 200 seedlings not yet bearing. His trees have been planted from six to fifteen years, in a black, sandy soil, which he is not sure is best; he would prefer the red clay soil near Missouri river. Does not regard any particular slope as essential. His budded varieties are Amsden, Heath Cling, Early and Late Crawfords, Crosby, and E]l- berta, and he would recommend this list to others. He would plant one- or two- year-old trees, 15 x 30 feet, cut back to two feet, using all the roots they may have. Has headed in bearing trees, and says they did better than the others. His Amsden are often ripe for July 4. Says the extreme cold of February, 1899, in- jured the tree growth and killed all the fruit-buds. Some years his peaches cook on one side in hot sun. Curculio troubles his peaches some; has not tried spray- ing. ‘His peach trees are between apple trees. He grows no crop among them: allows swine to pasture among them. Picks carefully in baskets and sends to market in same—generally half bushels. He retails them, obtaining sixty cents to one dollar per bushel. Says they would not pay planted largely in his locality, if the experience of the last fifteen years is to be repeated. He lets the swine have the culls. H. M. Rice, Muscotah, Atchison county, a Kansan for twenty-nine years, has twenty bearing trees set five years, and fifty set three years, growing on sandy loam, which he considers the very best for them; says any slope willdo. He is growing Elberta, Crosby, and some others, bought of a reliable [?] nurserymap, yet not true toname. Says he has not had experience enough with properly named varieties to advise others what to plant for market or family. He prefers good one-year-old trees, set 15x15 feet, cut to a walking-stick. Says Elberta cooks on sunny side while on the tree. Not troubled with insects. Says the leaves on his peach trees all curled up last spring [1898], which he thonght was caused by excessive wet weather. The rot was also very bad last year and de- stroyed many peaches. He grows potatoes and clover among his trees, and allows no live stock to roam among them. Has sold a few at home, at one dol- lar per bushel. Says, further, ‘‘the great curse of the fruit-tree planter is the substitution of inferior varieties [and seedlings] in tree orders by nurserymen.”’ He bought 100 trees in twelve varieties, only two of which came true as ordered — of one other he is uncertain —and, although he ordered no very late varieties, he THE KANSAS PEACH. 91 had a tree that last fall was full of peaches when the first snow fell, October 16. {A valuable trait; call them Snowball.] He ordered early peaches, and his earli- est came middle of August. He says, when he sets out a big peach orchard, the nurseryman who sells him the trees must give a bond that they shall be true to name. Why not? If a man contracts to build a house he gives a bond to do just as he agrees to. If a-man buys 1000 peach trees, paying good money for them, and cultivates them three or four years, his orchard should be worth at least $1000, but finds when they bear that the nurseryman has unloaded on to him a lot of ‘‘odds and ends.’’ Why not make him give a bond? An honest nurseryman would not object. Ifheis not honest, the more reason why he should be bound for damages. [There is certainly some good hard sense in this propo- sition.— SEC. } B. F. Oxley, Morrill, Brown county, has 200 peach trees; 150 of these are seedlings; ‘‘all of medium, some of fair, quality.’’ They are on ordinary black loam. Says it is not good, as it causes too much wood growth. He would prefer light clay, with an east or northeast slope. His budded fruit is Elberta, Cham- pion, Crosby, Alexander, Amsden, and Crawford’s Late; but he would discard the Crosby. For market he would advise Elberta, Champion, Stump, Crawford’s Late, Amsden, Alexander, Hill’s Chili, and Wonderful. Sets one-year-old trees, 12x16 feet apart, pruned to a ‘‘stick’’ twenty inches high, and roots trimmed when too long, bruised, or broken. His earliest are Alexander and Amsden— last of June. Latest is Crawford—lst to 10th of October. Cold of February, 1899, killed most all the trees to the ground; no particular variety escaped. Some Elberta on south side of orchard ‘‘cooked”’ on sunny side while on the tree. Has some curculio on early freestones. Never sprayed any. Has noticed no other insects. Some of his trees had leaf-curl bad last spring [1898], with consequent loss of fruit. Cultivates in sweet corn, beans or potatoes the first year. Never allows live stock near them. Thinks irrigation would pay. Sold best fruit at $1.50 to $2 per bushel. Says they would pay well with a crop once in three years. Geo. A. Wise, Reserve, Brown county, has lived in Kansas twenty-nine years; has over 300 bearing peach trees, 250 of which are seedlings. All of his seedlings are of fine quality. He selected his seed, planted it, and is pleased with the results. His trees were set out in the spring of 1893, in black loam soil, on south slope. His budded trees are all Elberta. He proposes to set this spring [1899] some Alexander and Champion. He is an enthusiast on Elberta and rec- ommends only the above three varieties for all purposes. He would set out two- year-old trees, and never any older than three years. His trees are planted north and south, two rods apart, between the rows in his apple orchard. At planting time he cuts back some and trims broken limbs or roots. The extreme cold of February, 1899, injured all his seedlings much more than Elberta; not a seedling escaped. The curculio troubles his freestones mostly; has no other insects or dis- eases. He grows corn among the trees until they begin to bear: then seeds to clover. He allows all kinds of stock among the trees at certain times but not for permanent pasture. Picks in baskets and buckets, and sells to neighbors in the orchard, who help to pick them. Sold last year at fifty cents to one dollar per bushel. Never has any refuse; ‘‘everything goes.” John Reed, Longford, Clay county, has been in Kansas twenty-one years, and now has 200 peach trees: 100 of them are seedlings; twenty of these seedlings bear choice fruit. His other trees have been planted from four to eight years: 92 THE KANSAS PEACH. some are growing on sandy land and some on heavy loam. He would prefer a rich, sandy soil, so that roots could run down good and deep. Does not care much for slope, but if he had a choice would take north. He has neglected to keep track of the names of his trees, but thinks every farmer ought to keep a record of the trees he plants, and then he could give the facts about them. He intends planting a new orchard this spring, and has sent for quite a variety. He plants eighteen feet each way, cutting back the tops and the scraggy roots only. He thinks that trees that are inclined to bear too heavily should be headed in. No curculio in his orchard, nor other insects or diseases. Grows no crop and al- lows no live stock among the trees. Does not irrigate. Has not marketed any; his family pick and use them as they desire. There is a good demand at home at from fifty cents to one dollar per bushel. He says further: ‘‘A few years ago the peach crop was a failure so often that farmers quit planting them, but we have had fair crops of peaches for the last four years. Mr. Secretary, I am not a stickler after law, but I must say that some of our Kansas nurserymen must get out of existence, as myself and neighbors received a lot of peach poplars last spring. You would have thought they were grown in a glass house. I think the sooner such nurserymen get out of business the better for Kansas, as I am satis- fied we can grow fruits as well as anywhere, and with less labor, if our nursery- men will only do us justice.”’ A. D. Arnold, Longford, Clay county, has been in the state twenty-one years. He now has 250 peach trees in bearing, from twelve to fifteen years of age; have been completely cut off once, and formed new tops. Of these 200 are seedlings, but of inferior quality and size. They are on a black loam with clay - subsoil, which he says answers very well, but he would prefer sandy bottom. Does not think any slope essential. His budded varieties are Bokara, Crosby, Elberta, Hale, Globe, Mountain Rose, Wheatland, Stump, Wonderful, Champion, and Alexander; he would recommend the Elberta as best for market. He would prefer two-year-old trees, trimmed just enough to shape well, and bruised roots clipped. His Alexander comes in June, his Mountain Rose in July. The cold of February, 1899, killed the tips of the new wood. Many of his peaches cook on sunny side, without regard to variety. Has no trouble with curculio or any in- sects or diseases, excepting borers. Grows nothing among his trees, and allows no live stock among them. Markets at home, at about fifty cents per bushel, feeding all refuse to swine. Believes if choice budded varieties were used it would pay to plant largely for market. A. Munger, Hollis, Cloud county, a resident of Kansas for sixteen years, says he has 4200 peach trees, planted from three to fifteen years, on sandy soil un- derlaid with a black loam of drift formation: thinks any soil is good that does not get too dry, and any slope good. Twelve hundred of his trees are bearing, of the following varieties: Sneed, Alexander, Triumph, Early June, Hold-on, El- berta, Heath, Old Mixon, Stump, Fox Seedling, Summer Snow, Salway, Fitzger- ald, Greenboro, Rivers, St. John, Mountain Rose, Steadly, Crawford (Early and Late), and Crosby. He expects to sort these over and reject some. He advises planting for market Alexander, Elberta, and Early June, and for family would add some later varieties. He would plant trees one year from bud, 12x15 feet, and thin out when they crowd. Trims to a switch and clips broken and bruised roots. Believes in heading in bearing trees annually. His earliest are Early June, July 1 to 4 (has not yet fruited Sneed). Says freezing hurt the immature, unripened wood on all varieties. Curculio troubles the Early June; has not tried THE KANSAS PEACH. 93 spraying. Says box-elder bugs sometimes collect on juicy peaches and spoil them. Borers trouble his treessome. Says there has been but little leaf-curl for seventeen years, but in 1898 his trees were generally affected by it, to the de- struction of the fruit. He grows only rye among the trees and plows it under in the spring. Allows no live stock but poultry among his trees. Has sold seed- lings at twenty-five to fifty cents per bushel; budded fruit from $1.50 to $2 for choice. Thinks it would pay well to plant largely for market. Geo. R. Barnes, Chapman, Dickinson county, a resident of Kansas for twenty-eight years. He has only a few trees now of bearing size; many years. ago he grew seedlings enough to gather them by the wagon-load. He now has Amsden, Alexander, and Crosby. The seedlings he had and some now growing are very fine, good size, luscious, and cannot be beaten for family use. He would recommend, for market, Elberta, Crosby, and Dean’s Orange [a Saline county seed- ling]. He would plant young trees never over two years old, sixteen feet apart each way, and thinks the nurserymen should trim them to stubby proportions, cutting off all long and broken roots, making all symmetrical. He does not headinor prune bearing trees. His Alexanders ripen July 4, and Heath is his latest. Thinks the cold of February, 1899, killed the tops of the trees. Says hot, dry winds cook his late peaches sometimes. Has some trouble with curculio; has had peach-tree leaf-curl from wet feet. He says borers at the collar are the worst pest he has. Says the trees will not grow with crops among them; and no live stock but fowls should be allowed among any fruit-trees. For two years past peaches have sold for fifty cents per bushel. As to planting largely for market, says it is doubtful as several have tried it and quit. J. D. Hazen, Leona, Doniphan county, is an old settler, having resided in Kansas over forty years. Has 300 bearing peach trees fifteen years old; 100 of these are seedlings, but none of his seedlings are of superior quality. His trees are on high, clear land, which he firmly believes is the best. He prefers northeast slope. He has also 100 young trees set out. He has several varieties, but has lost the names. For family use, he says plant for the seasons, to have them from earliest to latest. He sets two- to three-year-old trees, sixteen feet apart; prunes some, cutting about a foot off the top, and does not trim the roots at planting nor the tops of bearing trees. All were injured by cold of February. The sun cooks many of his late peaches on one side. The curculio troubles his Crosby most; has never tried spraying. Has nodisease on fruit or trees. Allows horses to pasture among the trees. Picks from ladders by hand, and markets in half- bushel baskets, retailing at about fifty cents per basket. Feeds culls to hogs. Does not think it would pay to go into growing peaches largely in his locality. A. H. Griesa, Lawrence, Douglas county, thirty-two years in Kansas, has 275 peach trees, 200 of bearing size, all choice budded varieties, planted from three to eighteen years, on black prairie soil, which he thinks good; says any slope is good if it drains well. He is growing Early Rivers, Elberta, New Pro- lific, Ringgold’s Mammoth Cling, Grey’s Rareripe, Shippers’ Late Red, Stevens’s Rareripe. He has discarded Early and Late Crawford, Hale’s Early, Troth’s Early Red, Early York, Heath Cling, Tong-pa, Heath Free, Morris White, and Haines’s Golden. He would recommend for market and family use Early Rivers, Elberta, New Prolific, Bray’s Rareripe, Emma, Ringgold’s Mammoth Cling, Grey’s Rareripe, Shippers’ Late Red, and Stevens’s Rareripe. Put out only trees one year from bud, sixteen feet apart each way, cutting away most 94 THE KANSAS PEACH. all limbs and mutilated roots; heads back severely after a hard winter. His earliest are Alexander, Amsden, Arkansas Traveler, etc., but says they are no good—curculio is too fond of them. His latest is Bray’s Rareripe. Says leaf- curl prevails during cold, wet seasons, but has done no permanent injury. No crops or live stock allowed among his trees. Picks by hand into ten-pound grape baskets, and sells to central Kansas grocers; gives culls to pickers. Says good kinds always pay. Says the greatest injury was done in October, 1898, by the snow and the cold succeeding it; the trees were not prepared for it. Says fur- ther: ‘‘No doubt old trees are most seriously injured, which will make room for new plantings of better kinds, and in time revive tree planting. The profits in peaches fail because the kinds are no good. Experts here make a good profit on special varieties not in the old lists.”’ T. J. Brewster, Lawrence, Douglas county, has only a few trees, on upland. He is growing Arkansas Traveler, Elberta, Heath, Snow, Early and Late Craw- ford. Believes Elberta and Heath best for market or family. Plants 10 x 20 feet, pruning tops to correspond with mutilation of roots. Has not tried heading in. Says twenty per cent. of new growth was killed by the cold weather. No insects of any kind trouble his fruit. Does not believe there is a diseased peach tree in the county. Grows potatoes and corn among young trees: prefers potatoes. A|- lows calves and hogs in his orchard, but keeps large animals out. Believes irri- gation would be a great help at times. He receives one dollar per bushel at home. Thinks they would pay if planted largely in his vicinity. P. Voorhees, Lawrence, Douglas county, has 2700 peach trees: 1800 of these in bearing, on dark upland soil, which he thinks is good, although he thinks in a wet season a red land may be better. He likes a north or eastern slope. He is fruiting Alexander, Triumph, Sneed, Early and Late Crawford, Early Rivers, Japanese Dwarf Blood, Mountain Rose, Early Michigan, Emperor, Orange Free, Summer Snow, Lorents, Late Rose, Lemon Free, Lemon Cling, Wilkin’s Cling, Bonanza, Gold Dust, Bequet’s Late, Bray’s Rareripe, Crosby, Old Mixon Cling, Old Mixon Free, Moore’s Favorite, Troth’s Early, Champion, Pride of Franklin, Chair’s Choice, Beers Late, Wonderful, Early York, Steadly, Hale’s Early, Stump the World, Salway, Elberta, Foster, Globe, Smock, Golden Rareripe, Grey’s Rareripe, Reed’s Early Golden, Jennie Wosthen, Connet Early, Bishop Early, Wheatland, Horton’s Rivers, Greensboro, Fitzgerald, Belle of Georgia, Boyds, Iron Mountain, Emma, Walkers, Variegated Free, Couper, Skillman’s Beauty, Fox Seedling, Stevens’s Late Rareripe, Bokara, Christiana, Ward’s Late, Reeves’s Favorite, Hill’s Chili, Wager, Susquehanna, Minnie, Bilyere’s Late October, and many others. He has tried and discarded Early and Late Craw- ford, Foster, Early Rivers, Troth’s, Wonderful, Bokara, Summer Snow. He rec- ommends, for market, Horton, Rivers, Mountain Rose, Stump, Old Mixon Free, Grey’s Rareripe, Elberta, Beers Smock, Globe, Lemon Free, Lemon Cling, Crosby, Gold Dust, Wilkin’s Cling (sometimes called Ringgold’s Mammoth), Bonanza: for family, Alexander, Early Rivers, Mountain Rose, Reeves’s Favor- ite, Stump, Elberta, and Smock. Sets trees one year from bud, pruned toa stick two feet high, with roots severely pruned, set eighteen feet apart each way. Believes in heading in bearing trees; says all were injured by cold winter, and will never fully recover. His earliest are Sneed, Japanese Dwarf Blood, July 1. Latest: Bilyere’s Late and Bonanza, in October. Planted to have peaches every day from July 4 to October 10, and did it in 1898, with a large crop. Curculio sometimes troubles his early freestones. Elberta has curled badly for two years THE KANSAS PEACH. 95 past. Has had ‘signs’ of yellows, but always dug and burned the suspects. Allows no live stock in, and plants only cultivated crops. Cultivates thoroughly, from spring to July. Picks from ground or ladders into baskets, and markets in peck baskets when available. Packs systematically and all of a size, rejecting small or imperfect ones, which he finds readily salable at bakeries and restau- rants for immediate use, and to families for peach butter, at about twenty-five cents per bushel. His best markets are Lawrence and Topeka. Two grocery- men in Lawrence handle for him from 50 to 200 baskets per day. Prices vary from fifteen to thirty cents per basket. Says certain varieties would pay if planted largely. Is so well satisfied with varieties named that he will replant all killed trees with same varieties. David Brown, Richmond, Franklin county, has 550 peach trees—500 of these are twenty years old; half are seedlings; they are on red soil, which he prefers. Says any slope will do. His varieties are Alexander, Stump, Crawfords, Early York, Rareripe [?], Crosby, and White Heath Free; all of which, except- ing Alexander, he recommends for all purposes. He sets one- or two-year-old trees, sixteen feet apart each way, without pruning; trims bad roots. His Alex- ander comes on June 20, and White Heath Cling in October. This latter some- times ‘‘cooks’’ on the tree. Curculio troubles his early varieties of freestones: never has leaf-curl, yellows, or any diseased trees. His best market is Ottawa: he sells in one-third-bushel crates, discarding all undersized or defective ones. averaging eighty cents. Says they will pay if planted largely. Lets culls rot. Says, further, ‘‘ people have become careless about peach trees, and let their orchards run down.”’ William Cutter, Junction City, Geary county, has lived in Kansas twenty- eight years; has 2000 bearing peach trees, from three to thirteen years planted, and 1000 younger ones. They are growing on high and low lands, but he claims the higher is the better, with north and east slope. Grows too many varie- ties to mention. Has discarded Bokara No. 3, all ‘‘ blood’’ peaches, Crawford's Early, Globe, and others. He recommends, for market, Elberta, Mountain Rose, Champion, Salway, Heath Cling, and Crosby: and for family use would add some early varieties. Plants only one-year-old trees, 12x16 feet apart, pruning to a stick two and one-half feet high; has tried severe root pruning with success. Believes in heading in well, especially if injured by cold. His earliest is the Sneed; latest the Bonanza, October 15. The cold of February, 1899, killed the nursery trees, and severely injured the bearing trees—many are dead. Curculio bothers the earliest always. Has sprayed, but it did no apparent good. Other insects that trouble his peaches are wasps, tree-crickets, and grasshoppers. No insects on trees. Some leaf-curl comes and goes: does no damage. Grows mel- ons and potatoes among his trees fora few years. Allows no live stock in on pur- pose — finds live boys will get in at night [ bless the boys; he was once one]. Picks in eight- to ten-pound baskets, and markets in ten-pound baskets and one-third- bushel crates, mostly without wrapping, rejecting all overripe, small or specked ones. Markets as near home as possible. He wholesales to storekeepers, receiv- ing from one to two dollars per bushel. He thinks it would pay well to plant largely in his locality. He gets his refuse dried for half. J. W. Williams, Holton, Jackson county, has lived in Kansas forty years, and grown many peaches; he now has but twenty-five bearing trees and eight or ten in bud on three town lots. Has retired from active, hard work, but his ex- 96 THE KANSAS PEACH. perience is valuable to our coming horticulturists. He fruits six seedlings of choice quality and good size. His bearing trees are from six to nine years old, growing on black prairie soil underlaid with hard-pan. This happens to be all the soil he has, but he would prefer a soil rather sandy, underlaid with a porous subsoil, with a northern slope.. He is growing mainly Amsden and Elberta, and, if planting over; would discard the Amsden, as it is too sour and insipid and rots badly on the tree. He would recommend for all uses the Elberta, Hill’s Chili, Large Yellow York, Early and Late Crawford, Old Mixon Free, Heath Cling. His preference, if any, is for the first and last named. He would plant two-year- old trees, sixteen feet apart each way, pruning pretty closely, and cutting all large roots back pretty short. He heads in all bearing trees, so they will not break down when full of fruit. His earliest is Amsden, July 10, and Alexander, about August 1. His latest is a seedling called ‘‘Shields.’’ The extreme cold of February, 1899, bursted the bark on old trees and killed tender twigs. Some- times a few of his peaches scalded or cooked on one side in hot sunshine. Cur- culio troubles his early varieties. Has sprayed, but could see no benefit in it. No other insects trouble his trees or fruit. Had some leaf-curl, but did no ap- preciable damage. Never saw a case of yellows. Grows small fruits under and among the trees: allows no horses or cattle among them, but turns hogs in oc- casionally to eat up fallen fruit. Picks carefully by hand into baskets, and packs in peck baskets for market, when in good condition and not too ripe, rejecting small, soft and unshapely ones. Markets at home in Holton at retail, from fifteen to thirty cents per basket. If handled right, he thinks they would pay if planted largely in his vicinity. He feeds refuse to hogs. R. D. Osborne, Soldier, Jackson county, a resident of Kansas thirty-two years, has 2275 peach trees; 275 of them are not in bearing; about 400 are seed- lings, of which perhaps 50 are valuable: 2000 are of bearing size; the varieties are Champion and Crosby. He has never had any other variety, and says ‘‘ there may be a better market peach than the Crosby but I could not name it’’; and ‘*they are good enough for me.’’ His ground, which he thinks is just right, is a gravelly loam, with clay subsoil and an eastern slope. He plants one-year-old trees, fifteen feet apart each way, only trimming injured roots. He thinks head- ing in the best way to manage bearing trees. Fears the cold of February, 1899, killed most of his trees. He will cut top within one foot of trunk. Has no trouble with curculio or other insects excepting borers. Knows no diseases. Grows corn among the trees for two years, afterwards nothing. Allows swine in for a short time after fruit is gathered, to consume the culls; no stock at any other time. Picks in small baskets, and sold some last year at sixty cents a bushel for budded, and twenty-five cents for seedlings. He thinks it would pay to plant largely in his vicinity. H. Roberts, Perry, Jefferson county, forty-one years a resident of Kansas, with 200 peach trees growing on a mellow, reddish upland; believes it suits them well. He prefers such land made fertile by plowing-in green crops. Any slope but southwest is good. His varieties are mostly Elberta. Plants trees one year from bud, twenty-five feet apart, cutting away from one-third to one-half of top, and leaving all roots in good order. Curculio troubles both free and cling if early. Grasshoppers are sometimes troublesome. He thinks leaf-curl largely due to hard winter weather. Grows nothing but weeds or red clover under the trees, and allows no live stock inside. Picks with care, rejecting all unsound fruit. His nearest market is best. Sells any way he can, but never puts any out to be sold on com- THE KANSAS PEACH. 97 mission. Prices range from fifty cents to one dollar per bushel. Does not think they would pay if planted largely. Fears almost total destruction from cold of February, 1899. E. M. Gray, Perry, Jefferson county, has been in Kansas forty-one years, and has 15,000 bearing peach trees, six years planted, on high, dry, ashy up- land, with clay subsoil, and likes that best. Would prefer a gentle southern slope. He grows for market, and advises others to plant, Early Rivers, Alex- ander, Elberta, Early Oneida, Crawfords, Beers Smock. For family use he would advise adding seedlings, Triumph, and Greensboro. He plants one- year-old trees, 15x20 feet apart, pruning away one-half of the top. He believes in heading in bearing trees; says Sneed is his earliest, and Smock comes about September 20. His trees are uninjured by the cold of February, 1899. but fruit- buds were damaged. Curculio troubles his early peaches, but he has not tried spraying. No other insects or diseases trouble his trees or fruit. Prefers corn as a crop among the trees, but allows no live stock among them. Ships in both erates and baskets, about one-half-bushel size, and retails at home at fifty cents to one dollar per bushel. Dries the best culls. Does not believe it would pay to plant largely in his locality. Lou Miller, Perry, Jefferson county, has cultivated Kansas soil for thirty years, and has now a peach orchard of 600 trees, ninety of which are seedlings. Of these seedlings fifteen or twenty bear large, choice fruit. Only 100 of his trees are now of bearing size, having been planted six to fifteen years, on a gray loam soil, which he says is a disadvantage, as he would prefer a deep, rich soil on a northern slope. His budded fruit is Stump the World, Salway, and Heath Cling. He would advise for all purposes Elberta, Stump, Salway, Triumph, and Late Crawford. Plant one-year-old trees, 20 x20 feet. Prune mangled roots and trim top to balance. Has not tried heading in bearing trees. He has a good unnamed seedling that comes in by July 4, and another that comes in the last of October. He says the extreme cold of February, 1899, killed the yearling growths to the ground, but his two-year-olds are all right. Curculio troubles his early freestones only. Never saw yellows. Grows corn or vines among his trees fora few years. Never! no, never! allows live stock among them. Picks and markets as first and second quality, in half-bushel baskets, rejecting wormy ones, and retails in Topeka at fifty to seventy-five cents per basket. Can tell whether it pays to plant largely ‘‘ when he tries it.’’ E. P. Diehl, Olathe, Johnson county, has been in Kansas thirty-five years, and always a horticulturist. Has 300 bearing peach trees and twenty-five younger. Grows no seedlings for fruit. His trees are seven years old, and grow- ing in black loam. He prefers a mulatto land, with north slope. He is growing Amsden, Elberta, Mountain Rose, Old Mixon Free, Crawford’s Late, Heath Cling. He would recommend for all purposes the Elberta, Mountain Rose, George the Fourth, Crawford’s Early and Late,and Heath. Always plants one-year-old trees, twenty feet apart, pruning the top very lightly and the roots if necessary. He thinks heading in the best way to treat bearing trees. His earliest is Amsden, and latest Heath Cling. Says the extreme cold of February, 1899, injured all trees and killed many. His peaches often ‘‘cook’’ on sunny side while on tree. Curculio troubles his early and medium varieties; has sprayed for them and says it did good. He is troubled with borers. Savs his trees are affected with yellows when the nights are very cool. Grows nothing and allows no live stock among —7 98 THE KANSAS PEACH. his trees. Picks carefully by hand and packs in one-third-bushel crates. Sells on commission mostly in Omaha; bring eighty cents to one dollar. Don’t think they would pay in quantity. J. C. Beckley, Spring Hill, Johnson county, thirty-one years in Kansas, has only 125 peach trees; 25 of them are seedlings; they are from six to eight years old, planted on mulatto soil; but he would prefer high top, level land, with loose, dry soil, naturally well underdrained, and reasonably enriched with de- cayed vegetable matter—such land as is well adapted to the growth of corn. Would like some protection on the south side. He is growing Crosby’s Early, Elberta, Alexander, Crawford’s Early and Late, Stump, Foster, and Heath Cling; and has discarded Amsden, Hale’s, Old Mixon Free and Cling, as they rot so badly. Ward’s Late dried up on the trees. He recommends Crosby’s Early and Alexander for early, Stump and Foster for medium, and Heath Cling, Globe and Crawford’s Late for late. Thinks it best not to have too many varieties. He plants two-year-olds, twenty feet apart, pruning the tops about one-half and the lacerated or damaged roots. He has of late years headed in bearing trees, and likes it. Says curculio troubles his early freestones. Tried spraying, but there was ‘‘too much rain.’’ Says peach buds are killed, but his trees are not hurt, ‘‘as they are protected on the north.’’ As to diseases, he says: ‘‘For several years the peach orchards of Kansas have been injured by the leaf-curl, which is a fungous disease that is only present in spring when the weather is cold and wet. Asa result of the work of this fungus, the leaves become swollen, puffed, and curled, and soon drop from the trees. If the attack is severe, much of the fruit may also drop. The disease is quite wide-spread, and may appear at any point where the climatic conditions for two or three weeks after the opening of the buds are favorable to its development. Peach trees are also often at- tacked by brown rot, scab, and black spot, which are also of a fungous nature, and do great harm to the fruit. Owing to the fact that rot is most troublesome in warm, muggy weather, at about the time the early varieties are ripening, it is a difficult disease to control by spraying.’’ He grows potatoes, sweet corn or other crops that require thorough cultivation for three years; then sows to clover. Never allows any live stock among them. He markets in boxes loosely, rejecting ‘‘all such as I would not want to buy myself.’’ Retails in home market, averag- ing about one dollar per bushel; feeds all culls to the hogs. He continues: ‘ sameiecte -eview oe 47 Olden frit. s5.scee ses oe setae Boman vws.& 27 Old Maxon Glintg 2 <: Scctemict-sa Bese oo 145 Milas Mixon Hreesits cee te ees sea ee 145 Mraneep ree cnickoss cons aes vetoes 145 Orchard, great, Southern Pines...........- 49 sir of Roland Morrill ................ 44 Origin, legend Of -..<....=- .ccccs= ee wae a see- 7 Parasites of twig-borers...........--....--. 76 Peach belt in Michigan ................ 31, 38 Peaches in apple orchard ...........-....-- 51 es CULIOUSANULGS . 6 foncccens oe see Oe es PTA CULINS tai eet cic cele Me Shee leisgeale's 52 a number of fruits to a tree ........ 52 Picking and packing .......-.....----.-.--- 36 Hic leled see ae ete Oe came s eaietncroms nas aaueiatee 151 Picquet’s Late...........+-- cece se cere reece: 146 BIGE as nos tare cies aus wes Moecin street Renee 151 TEST teste Siisce bine de sce Paap ee et eo ok oP PLAN GL Bernas bccn ows erp eer Moe HAT ‘© preparation of suil .............+. ---- 11 Plantine Grees...323 jones ete eowaestercee- 2 AS Se (ifs €\s)u ie) Waa Ae oie io Ogee 16, 35 “Will it Pay to Plant?’ by A. Chandler... 31 Popular varieties in Kansas .......-..----. 38 J ue New Jersey........-.- 38 Premature blossoming ...........-.-++++++- 25 Preparation of pits. .... 2.0.0. --00se-s ee eees 11 WY formeadtabled-ce-.2.- <2 tore aly! PTOSELVGG ee ore teens ae en traiae os ee 152 Preventives for peach twig-borer ......-... 76 iProtitableierchardecc.cs s+ sen- sce eee sor STS 3k Props to prevent breaking ...............-- 4t Protection,,methods Of. -2..-% \.r..c- sem ee eae 87 Pruning.......-. 16, 28, 33, 35, 38, 40, 41, 43 ee Ciibilng BACK cmos ec aeeaeiete ale le 43 us heading 1 OWecsmeox ea s eee ee oe 5L oe POOP. aehataly cise weieisces PE Se DAIeoT;, ~ 40 TET G bla pain aro Soir oanb amines Sa pemeed nose sere 152 Recipes — standard: Bnitterin. 222 ates eee sale one ae 150, 153 Manned iesvk ca cuon tacos steele cee eeat ae ee 150 Gobpblenw ee esos a ie 150, 152 Praamamiesedeeeoeey sna .adoweaen meets 152 HMoeboales see iee ek scat aa wise a ae olee 151 Mangoes........ rinses PISA SESS 150 Marmalade. :.;<. 2. «2222222022 150,-451) 152 IM prin ses we eos nse oS acta Ne eee 151 Peaches a la strawberries........-..-- . 150 Pickled.2o.ceceisnte cos oe Seeketene Bees 151 ip is cic dceeeciawe ein ot asemeoeaienee vedas 151 IRTOSBEVOGLA tees ces ceasete ener eee: 152 MAGNE: Magers ei stecierse ayeasjasee wae aaeee els 152 SMI AAAs Som IORERDe A DnoS nantoccadoct 152 Bed Rareripecec. seeekk. soo abe eric 146 IREGVES Se AVOLIbGs.ss2 saisocates Soto tse tienes 146 Ringgold’s Mammoth Cling................ 146 BRIVELS cern cates ee te nv Be Pa elo alana 140 Re OCASDIAVINE TOE) has 6 cisciec as te ene 82 Root PrANID Geese saa hace ano siele oe cia ce pass era RB rei NA Ta Jo Hosta io vele’ a prance meee ree wie 147 Sallie WaLrells isk oki ee mesa Semtecatetoe eedes 146 _ THE KANSAS PEACH. Seedlings —do they bear when budded va- rietios fail 2A. Se seis saa tele oot eee Shipley’s Late. :..:/.025.02: ohchuiateond Sta aaa oe Silver Medal'istc. scrote itvaciens see aee Smock: Freési jee hes seest oth sdanopetaee aval preparathlionsOh sates .wste eck ase ** of Michigan peach belt® 2)... 222.8%. Southern Pines—great orchard............ SPODLO...cc . Paioe de corel oni ce wet atrehe see Galas ate Spraying forLcotrecetc.ce es sre. oe eee cee re SSvlent-curllhist Gat tin scene sei Statistical map. sie-ets ee bee oe taees Steadley.cc shee eee oe ee ee Saas AI Stephons’s Rareripessseesocoe ee oleae Strawberries from peaches..............--- Stringfellow on root pruning .......... Stump-the Worldes- sess. soso ee Summer ‘Snow <. Soss sates aoe rtd ee sees Summary, New Jersey... ..-ccs.2ec%esecacs os Secretary’S*c rsh ve ewee ase e eae. Susquehanna: ts..s +225 NEN ene ta! (Phinning: 5... vee Tillotson Trees: Time for planting:.-.2 vers soe ton vee 16, Buy of reliable nurserymen ........ 16, Breaking dOwni.....-.22s ease tere nee CropsiAMONL, 6 ce oe- ceccuiceee nee 9, Cutting: backsei...s2.scecceas foe eee Hiardiest ie ..csck 5 sac cpacts teen tees Hardiness Heading in How to grow Longevity 2. ossedeevivewe aces eee et cbr Number-anistates...csacce tence meee Number. of fruitsiontc.t pease cere eee INTAITSE IY. (fscicrac cee concten tela, demaetsns Seen Purchase and setting..............% ! Setting: diiccescaiiee raec pelea eee Setting in apple orchard............... Thinning on..... 9, 18, 35, 38, 5 Vitality: Ofecss..5cscc? o¢naien cetera es Volunteer. scwcd sop ssstisewn's etree eee NOLOS‘ON: <...2)- - elect eee aia Troth’s: Barly, Red... .22-./-.c0asedie coe eke Wi =DOLOL histascts a/o\2, viniwo-c scorers arn ete eer Warierated reo sc...-2ass5.seeee eee i= a8 Varieties, description of: Alexander osscaccivwses ace eeetees ote es Barker's Rareripe:...cessneee oe ee es 8, Beatrice vos .csccctassseteesseee eee eees ; THE KANSAS PEACH. Varieties, description of: BBTRONS Hoses racecars altese wiclctereie c1aise Sled Bilyer..;.... Cae eat Marinctee hentite Oder eae 139 BISHOD Asan ok sae eeesetun becedescseees 139 Bolkarar NOisiceuerscv ence cclste stele ve celades 139 ROMA ZA Rosy ke iiaae coe sete ee Ubtclevicts fate 139 BPAY WINGO atonsccovetwtah sl cedeienacceay 139 BYP esis Maven siesta. cwesiccentieenvlooeels 139 BLIPES SMEG WAV cciics sabe Geeta vere slectes 139 Carpouter’ sd te) rvs twos cecrveeersuies es 139 Shams, Chole cease as clesetea we naee koe Champions. sso eee nbs esses Oueeaa sas. 139 Chinese: Clingseios-: saon wcaeaces lee es 139 Christian ae eee aatcariencentahce snroseeeee 139 @olomiblaersc tess sons oc neon et oben cence 140 Wonnet’ eWbatercasaiceneseoveice been noes es 140 Crawiordis Marky. igs cetavessastee ce: 140 Crawiordes Wuatepe seescdweteweee roses 140 CrimsonsBeantyit vcs to. eo ohcdas vetese de 140 Crosby 222. ps2. cetera nia decks cea alee 140 Dean's Oranee seas eccceeseenes eat 10, 140 HatlyeAdmixanlorn ac o-naes acemaccet eee 149 HarlysMichtgams celvetcacecaetec eens 140 MarlyyRivers.2cce pee eat oe ane eee 140 HarkyiVork sean ace sete neat eel eas 141 oY ove) wT Te Ae en Ae to ee Sk ie 27, 141 LD lias sbi Ges 8 ey A Ed ore ae La ee Ce oa 141 NAPE LOL sate nae setece cetevine Rata 141 EIZOGISIOL Ses oor. hee COREL ce caida hee ee 141 anil ysMavOrihe sae nse neitsectee wer ter hae 142 UZ RO Lal ee ase paar ok tetas aa else a eee 142 HGS UCT arrasecis Saat ae alan ine Alas lob io 141 HW OxSHSCCGLIN Bs oe er temra ae asides err eee 141 George: the Hourthy .,- . sack nen ecineen 143 IW osllofey a bru es eects Ai INET Thee na 144 wapan Dy wart: bs lOOdmseses sec: 58, 144 JeNMe WOLtLNCH. ca. tastes Be oi nnee eeae 144 ESC Luster ack tesa ien de hacia iets cect 144 Wemom Cling te wes. «cts. eaten ate te 144 ord "Palmerston sensrie neck atten 144 MOrent Zonas cess ened kate arses 144 Marys! COICO. 5. Sees iecla cerse een cient 145 Malocotontes dessa. nets rcs atelaes ieee 145 IMiNNIBY Se. aco vette eet canoe nat ae 145 Mise brates saci: eee ccee ee caer aeeis 145 Moore's Havorite:.. ices sdeeieticaseavesee 145 MorrisiWhiters-csccneeusie ete oa caet dein 145 Mountain. Roses sn.ccehensnes anaes 145 Old Mixon Clingstone................. 145 Old Mixon Freestone................-.. 145 OLrangetWhreeitas.) ces oo ietaes esneniee 145 Varieties, description of : Picqnetis Wate ese iecit oats geass da Seek 146 Regd! RaKrOuipe’ tee savctos nocoe teeseee eeaaen 146 Reeves’s Mavoritei cc: se osc cseneses sees 146 Ringgold’s Mammoth Cling............ 146 SalliewWiorrellee eds sens ncce descents 146 SALWAY cectyvse ae else Sone ee eee ae eee 146 Shipley’s}LaterRed iyi. tosses se oreesess 146 Dilver Mod alt fesse caetavateaecites nee 146 Smock Freestonenc ccs sccse des eet 146 SHCGUN nwacmexc ume tce octet ses 48, 50, 147 STO Wire ere ca sulsteh ea evele aera eis ate sere eee 147 Steadleyiece, saeco. wars ohe ots ae ee 147 Stephens’s\Rareripe. 2 225:.: en. es Pees 147 SteJobm st cadceeetesee case nee eee 147 Stump the Worldiarcc- os. vss ade wsee. 47 SUMMGE ONO Witiee cece teas ee eee 147 SUSQUEMAING Mec Sass tasey visa ite eee 147 TANT DER sacks Sass es hook aes eee 147 DH LGESGM ae aistcrseil sao eie aeiince aera 148 FEPLCLIN Pls Mio. cas io arstak ose eel sl eee 147 roti stanly Accs: saa hae ores oa ee 148 WMariocated: ree. .cch vec eect 2 148 WAR OT noranes cen reals ceca eee ae 148 Wiardisiate’ cee. c cn eeen oe eee 148 Wihteatlands san cecheseeeccne sce 148 Wihite Im porialincsscdsceentan cena ese 149 Wallkims's{ Climates rte te as on 148 Wronderitilicimemost tern seen antes 149 Wrandotte Chieh sce imenic. sone ceeeaeas 149 Vellows Std Oli tepsiaae cost oiecincbteenes 149 Varieties in general: Pi. Mangas 9. Saeteck aed enn aesee eee 149 PATO IGS cas sos seeker tas omer nee 32 Hardinessice tates sot eee staat ee 7, 42, 59 Notes on— BD DSrharoscesere eee ation eee ae eke 48 Greensboro; stasctatrns Goteawies shear eee 49 Japaie BlOGd asqene aa tr acess ese eae 58 ESO CE Gy cece mera ntee ea a ae 48, 50 MPI M Plies cases ore cath Oe ate 49 ODL an yet ceeo ae none ee ae 35 Popular, imi Nese Jersey. 2.2. weet cok « 38 Recommended— LOLIMAWRAS balers ccutes oreo ar roeeae awe 10 LOTGMSROM Eee). eae ei ee oe ie 520 Wittality Gitrecsi 1G. aerossieeslcsecia eeisene 58 Wolunteer trees closes cce 26s eae eos 59 WW ALOR sc No ac eine: sloctsteisles Sees Usa ee sateaues 148 Ward’ Staten cwints aaeenteiacmicts pene aoe eens 148 Wheatland." <5. eee, See Sad ee eee . 148 White Impertal s.aecciec antec cc ann imal & 149 Walloins?s Clings Gecisectsseus emer tot ceciaoee one 148 “Will it Pay to Plant?’’—A. Chandler..-. 31 Winter/budding scene sass eee es oe 22 CO EMIGG DHS. was cins.ocee tele ee'ss Ody. OO See) PVrOotveCthlODyecs aca sists civsnciceltenes <6 8, 87 ‘¢ methods of protecting ............. 87 Wonderials ss: rctesce cienmecste i tatine sania tabes 149 WirappinzipoacheSscrcG cnascseewisce:esenee 56 WY ANGOLTOME DIOL 6.9. ae seictart aco ehee is: < ctor, sie"s 149 Vollawis cas) ONV: os a4. cesta acdtouok ess aes 149 Wells. cc crasen cae ctae ces serdion fo ae peewee 59. Vigrich Waly cr “ceyecir ene stance ances iabiescatilae sires 141 W. Y. MORGAN, — STATE PRINTER, — ¥ _ TOPEKA. ry THE PLUM © IN KANSAS, WITH A CHAPTER ON THE PRUNE. | HOW TO GROW THEM. EVERY LANDOWNER SHOULD GROW SOME. WHY NOT? THEY ARE EASILY GROWN. © Lisrary : y NEW YORK FHEY ARE PROFITABLE. BOTANICA] THEY ARE GOOD TO EAT. GARDEN a COMPILED AND REVISED FOR THE KANSAS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, By WILLIAM H. BARNES, SECRETARY, State Capitol, Topeka, Kan. LSS OEE DB We Oise AVA SSE 1900. THE PLUM IN KANSAS, WITH A ‘CHAPTER*‘ON, THE PRUNE. HOW TO GROW THEM. EVERY LANDOWNER SHOULD GROW SOME. WED Ys IN GUiny THEY ARE EASILY GROWN. THEY ARE PROFITABLE. THEY ARE GOOD TO HAT: COMPILED AND REVISED FOR THE KANSAS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, By WILLIAM H. BARNES, Srecrerary, State Capitol, Topeka, Kan. iS SiO Ss oY {Eon SAC ay. 1900. PRESS OF ; ; W. Y. MORGAN, State PRINTER. Topeka, 1900. RS cos Del Sa eee Bg POs INTRODUCTORY. Ir should rank fourth on our fruit-tree list. The improvements in this fruit during the last quarter of a century have been as wonder- ful and progressive as in any horticultural line. The introduction of the Japan plum marked a new era, and the crossing of it upon our natives has resulted in giving us some fine fruits as large as peaches, free from “pucker” or astringency, and of fine grain and flavor—ele- gant dessert fruits. California has made a great name and market for her plums—mainly hybrid Japan—and while our winters may occa- sionally play havoc with the plum tree, yet our state can grow as fine plums as any in the union. Plum trees must be well cultivated and, if necessary, sprayed lib- erally. Their greatest enemy is the curculio; the jarring process, if persisted in, will conquer the “little Turk.” Small plum orchards planted where poultry have a run are quite sure to produce abundant crops. Our horticulturists mostly plant the Wild Goose; this, to do well, should have a potent consort or fertilizer, like Robinson, Potta- watomie, or others. Our sixty or seventy correspondents differ in a few minor points. One declares that our native plums always grow in thickets; therefore he planted his plum orchard that way ; another planted three trees in each hole; some plant only ten feet apart; others eighteen to twenty feet. We have inserted many articles _ showing profit in plums. We have also added quite a uumber of articles showing up one or more varieties in a special light, proving their particular value in favored localities. As we have inserted mat- ter from many states in the far East, the South, the far West, and the North, our horticulturists should study all the special conditions of climate and location, and not plant blindly, thinking success lies en- tirely with the variety. Climate, soil, location, cultivation, thinning, each has a bearing as well as has variety. This work is not issued as an infallible guide, or “how to get rich growing plums in Kansas,” but to start a line of thought among a thinking people; although an occasional chance here and there may be unsuccessful, yet to our state as a whole it may and surely will be a grand success. Our state pays for this work in the hope that it may result in giving an impetus to the plum industry. SECRETARY. 4 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. WHAT IS A PLUM? DEFINITION IN THE STANDARD Dictionary: The edible drupa- ceous fruit of the Prunus domestica, and of several other species of Prunus; also, the tree itself, usually called plum tree. The Bullace, the Damson, and the numerous varieties of plum of our gardens, although growing into thornless trees, are believed to be varieties of the blackthorn, produced by long cultivation. Two or three hundred varieties of plums derived from the P. domestica are described ; among them the Green Gage, the Orleans, the Damson, the Purple Gage or Reine Claude Violette and the German Prune are some of the best known. Among true plums are the Beach plum (P. maritima) and its crimson or purple globular drupes. Bullace plum. Chickasaw plum, the American P. chicasa and itsround-headed drupes. Orleans plum, a dark-reddish plum of medium size, much grown in England for sale in the markets. The wild plum of America (P. americana), with red or yellow fruit—the original of the lowa plum—and several other varieties. Among plants called plum, but of other genera than Prunus, are the Australian plum ( Cargillia arborea and C. australis), of the same family with the persimmon. Blood plum, the West African Hama- tostaphes barteri.» Cocoa plum, the Spanish nectarine. Date plum. Gingerbread plum, the West African Parinarium macrophyllum. Gopher plum, the Ogeechee lime. Gray plum. Guineaplum. Indian plum, several species of Hlacourtva. DEFINITION IN THE CENTURY ENCYCLOPEDIC Dictionary: (1) A fruit of any of the trees called plums; specifically, the fruit of the tree of the genus Prunus, distinguished from the peach and apricot by its smooth surface, smaller size, and unwrinkled stone, and from the cherry by the bloom on its surface and commonly larger size. Plums are of use chiefly as a domestic fruit (the Green Gage being esteemed the best of all varieties), and as a dried fruit in the form of prunes. Locally a liquor is manufactured from them, and sometimes an oil is expressed from the kernels. (2) One of several small fruits of the genus Prunus, forming the section Prunus proper. The numerous varieties of the common gar- den plum are often classed as P. domestica; but all these, together with the Bullace plum, known as P. insititia, are believed to be derived ultimately from P. spinosa (P. communis), the blackthorn or sloe of Europe and temperate Asia, in its truly wild state a much- THK PLUM IN KANSAS. 5 branched shrub, the branches often ending in a stout thorn. Plum wood is useful in cabinet-work and turnery. The plum is chiefly cultivated in France (in the valley of Loire), in Germany, and in Bosnia, Servia, and Croatia. Im America the plum suffers greatly from the ravages of the curculio. The Japanese plum (JP. japonica), though not insect proof, is a valued acquisition in California and the southern United States. Cherry plum: A cherry-like form of the common plum, the variety P. myrobalana. Also called Myrobalan plum. Wild plum: Any undomesticated plum. Specially (a) the P. spinosa. (6) In eastern North America, the wild yellow or red plum, or Canada plum, P. americana; it has a well-colored fruit, with a pleasant pulp, but tough acerb skin; is common along streams, and sometimes planted. (c) In western North America, P. subcordata, whose red fruit, which is large and edible, is often gathered. (d) In South America, Pappea capensis. (e) In New South Wales, a tree, Sideroxylon australis, with drupaceous fruit, some very tall, having a hard, pretty marked wood, available for cabinet purposes. PLUMS IN GENERAL. From Thomas’s ‘American Fruit Culturist.”’ In no branch of pomology has greater progress been made the past twenty years than in the improvement and development of our native plums and in the introduction of foreign varieties. The bringing in of the Japanese plums marks an era in fruit culture in the United States. PropaGation: Seedlings.—As with most fruits, plums rarely come true from seed, although some varieties vary but little from the parent stock. The stones should be selected from the choicest kinds, and treated in planting precisely as directed for the peach, but greater care must be exercised to prevent their drying, which occurs much in consequence of their smaller size and thinner skin. It is better to crack them, without which many will not vegetate the first year.— Stocks.—The stocks heretofore used for growing plums have generally been seedlings of the domestic type (especially the Myrobalan, or Cherry plum), which, when the varieties of the European plums do well, are usually satisfactory, although upon light or unfavorable soils they are apt to produce feeble and slow growing seedlings. For the Southern states the Chickasaw stock is preferable, and in the Northern states and throughout the country generally seedlings of the best of the americana group, in consequence of their greater hardiness, are 6 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. most desirable of all. Peach stocks, used in the past to some extent, are now seldom propagated upon. All trees grown on Chickasaw stock are inclined to sucker. Plums of the domestica group grafted upon native stocks are said to grow so poorly as to overtop the stock, and become liable to injury from strong winds. GRAFTING AND Buppine: Crown grafting is recommended by most of the experiment stations. The scions should be cut in the fall, three or four buds to each. Putin the scions early in the spring, before there are any signs of the buds starting. Budding must be done while the stocks are at the period of their most vigorous growth, provided sufficiently matured buds can be found, which is usually soon after midsummer. If deferred, the bark will not peel freely and the buds will not adhere. CuLTIVATION: The best soil, usually, is a strong, rich, clayey loam. On many light soils the tree grows with less vigor, independently of which the crop is more frequently destroyed by the curculio, a per- vious soil affording a more ready place of shelter for the young in- sects on their escape from the fallen fruit. A few varieties are well adapted to rather dry as well as light lands. Applications of potash and ground bone, as usual with other fruits, is of advantage in in- creasing the fruitfulness of the plum. In planting orchards a suitable distance is one rod apart, giving 160 trees to the acre. The ground should be manured and kept well cultivated, as the plum, especially when young, is sensitive to the effects of the weeds and grass of neglected culture. Impotency: It is well known that some of the native varieties are so deficient in fertile pollen that they are almost incapable of fertiliz- ing themselves. It is therefore advised that trees of the domestica class be planted with them, mixing them in the rows or groups. CLASSIFICATION : With but comparatively few exceptions the varie- ties of plums grown in gardens and for commercial purposes may be included in five groups. As this work aims to be of a practical rather than scientific character, these only will be considered. They are: 1. The americana group (P. americana). Comprises a class of hardy, vigorous young trees, the wild forms of which are found grow- ing throughout the Northern states. The fruits differ widely in all their characteristics. 2. The Wild Goose group (P. hortulana). This class has here- tofore been included in the americana, but it has recently been sepa- rated by Professor Bailey into an independent group, and includes the Miner type. 3. The Chickasaw group (7. angustifolia). It is found growing wild in the Southern states. THE PLUM IN KANSAS.’ 7 4. The European group (PP. domestica). Most of the finest plums which have been cultivated in the United States until quite recently belong to this class. They are all of European or Asiatic origin. Except in certain localities, they are invaluable. The Myrobalan and Marianna plums, which belong to this group, are largely used for stocks. 5. The Japanese plums (PP. triflora). These fruits were imported into the United States about twenty-five years ago, and have grown steadily in popularity. They are generally of large size, brilliantly colored, and excellent in quality. Many seedlings and hybrids from this stock are being introduced. They are not all equally adapted for all sections of the country. Some are not hardy North, some bloom too early, and others do not do so well in the Southern states as far- ther north. THE PLUM (Prunus domestica). Rosacee, of botanists. Prunier, of the French; Pfaumenbaum, German; Prugno, Ttalian; Ciruelo, Spanish. The original parent of most of the cultivated plums of our gardens is a native of Asia and the southern parts of Europe, but it has become naturalized in this country, and in many parts of it is produced in greatest abundance.* That the soil and climate of the Middle states are admirably suited to this fruit is sufficiently proved by the almost spontaneous production of such varieties as the Washington, Jeffer- son, Lawrence’s Favorite, etc.; sorts which equal or surpass in beauty or flavor the most celebrated plums of France or England. Uses: The finer kinds of plums are beautiful dessert fruits, of rich and luscious flavor. They are not, perhaps, so entirely wholesome as * There are three species of wild plum indigenous to this country of tolerable flavor, but seldom cultivated in our gardens. They are the following: 1. The Chickasaw plum (P. chicasa Michaux). Fruit about three-fourths of an inch in diameter, round, and red or yellowish red, of a pleasant, subacid flavor, ripens pretty early. Skin thin. The branches are thorny, the head rather bushy, with narrow lanceolate, serrulate leaves, looking at a little distance somewhat ike those of a peach tree. It usually grows about twelve or fourteen feet high; but on the prairies of Arkansas it is only three or four feet high, and in this form it is also common in Texas. The Dwarf Texas plum, described by Kenrick, is only this species. It is quite ornamental. 2. Wild red or yellow plum (P. americana Marshall). Fruit roundish oval, skin thick, reddish orange, with a juicy, yellow, subacid pulp. The leaves are ovate, coarsely serrate, and the old branches rough and somewhat thorny. Grows in hedges and by the banks of streams from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Tree from ten to fifteen feet high. Fruit ripens in July and August. 3. The Beach plum or Sand plum (P. maritima Wang). A low-shrub, with stout straggling branches, found mostly on the sandy seacoast, from Massachu- setts to Virginia, and seldom ripening well elsewhere. Fruit roundish, scarcely an inch in diameter, red or purple, covered with a bloom. Pleasant, but some- what astringent. Leaves oval, finely serrate. 8 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. the peach and the pear, as, from their somewhat cloying and flatulent nature, unless when very perfectly ripe, they are more likely to disa- gree with weak stomachs. For the kitchen, the plum is also very highly esteemed, being prized for tarts, pies, canning, sweetmeats, etc. In the south of France an excellent spirit is made from this fruit fer- mented with honey. In the western part of New York, where they are very abundant, they are halved, stoned and dried in the sun or ovens in large quantities, and are then excellent for winter use. For eating, the plum should be allowed to hang on the tree till perfectly ripe, and the fruit will always be finer in proportion as the tree has a more sunny exposure. The size and quality of thé fruit is always greatly improved by thinning the fruit when it is half grown. Indeed, to prevent rotting, and to have this fruit in its highest perfection, no two plums should be allowed to touch each other while growing, and those who thus thin them are amply repaid by the superior quality of the fruit. One of the most important forms of the plum in common is that of prunes, as they are exported from France to every part of the world. We quote the following interesting account of the best mode of pre- paring prunes from the Arboretum Britannicum : The best prunes are made near Tours, of the St. Catherine plum and the Prune d’Agen; and the best French plums (so called in Eng- land ) are made in Provence, of the Perdrigon Blanc, the Brignole, and the Prune d’Ast; the Provence plums being the most fleshy and hav- ing always most bloom. Both kinds are, however, made of these and other kinds of plums in various parts of France. The plums are gathered when just ripe enough to fall from the trees on their being slightly shaken. They are then laid separately on forms or sieves made of wickerwork or lath, and exposed for several days to the sun, till they become as soft as ripe medlars. When this is the case they are put into a spent oven, shut quite close, and left there for twenty- four hours; they are then taken out and, the oven being slightly reheated, they are again put in when it is rather warmer than it was be- fore. The next day they are taken out and turned by slightly shaking the sieves. The oven is again heated, and they are put in a third time when the oven is one-fourth degree hotter than it was the second time. After remaining twenty-four hours they are taken out and left to get quite cold. They are then rounded, an operation which is per- formed by turning the stone in the plum without breaking the skin and pressing the two ends together between the thumb and finger. They are again put upon the sieves, which are placed in an oven from which the bread has just been drawn. The doors of the oven are closed, and crevices are stopped around it with clay or dry grass. An THE PLUM IN KANSAS. 9 hour afterward the plums are taken out and the oven is again shut with a cup of water in it for about two hours. When the water is so warm as just to be able to bear the finger in it, the prunes are again placed in the oven and left there for twenty-four hours, when the operation is finished, and they are put loosely into small. long and rather deep boxes for sale. The common sorts are gathered by shak- ing the trees; but the finer kinds, for making French prunes, must be gathered in the morning, before the rising of the sun, by taking hold of the stalk between the finger and thumb, without touching the fruit, which is laid gently on a bed of vine leaves in a basket. When the baskets are filled without the plums touching each other, they are removed to the fruit room, where they are left for two or three days » exposed to the sun and air, after which the same process is employed as for the others, and in that way the delicate bloom is retained on the fruit even when quite dry. PROPAGATION AND CuLTURE: The plum is usually propagated in this country by sowing the seeds of any free-growing variety (avoid- ing the Damsons, which are not readily worked ), and budding them, when two years old, with finer sorts. The stones should be planted as soon as gathered, in broad drills (as in planting peas), but about an inch and a half deeper. In good soil the seedlings will reach eighteen inches or two feet in height the next season, and in the au- tumn or the ensuing spring they may be taken from the seed-bed, their tap-roots reduced, and all that are of suitable size planted at once in the nursery: rows, the smaller ones being thickly bedded until after another season’s growth. The stocks planted out in the nursery will ordinarily be ready for working the ensuing midsummer, and, as the plum is quite difficult to bud in this dry climate if the exact sea- son is not chosen, the budder must watch the condition of the trees and insert his buds as early as they are sufficiently firm, say, in this neighborhood, about the 10th of July. Insert the buds, if possible, on the north side of the stock, that being more protected from sun, and tie the bandage rather more tightly than for other trees. The English propagate very largely, by layers, three varieties of the com- mon plum—the Muscle, the Brussels, and the Pear plum, which are almost exclusively employed for stocks with them. But we have not found these stocks superior to the seedlings raised from our common plums (the Blue Gage, Horse plum, etc.) so abundant in all our gar- dens. For dwarfing, the seedlings of the Mirabelle are chiefly em- ployed. Open-standard culture is the universal mode in America, as the plum is one of the hardiest of fruit-trees. It requires little or no pruning beyond that of thinning out a crowded head or taking away decayed or broken branches, and this should be done before 10 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. midsummer, to prevent the flow of gum. Old trees that have become barren may be renovated by heading them in pretty severely, cover- ing the wounds with a solution of gum shellac, and giving them a good top-dressing at the roots. Soit: The plum will grow vigorously in almost every part of this country, but it only bears its finest and most abundant crops in heavy loams or in soils in which there is a considerable mixture of clay. In sandy soil the tree blossoms and sets plentiful crops, but they are rarely perfected, falling a prey to the curculio, an insect that harbors in the soil and seems to find it difficult to penetrate or live in one of a heavy texture, while a warm, light, sandy soil is exceedingly favorable to its propagation. It is also undoubtedly true that a heavy soil is naturally the most favorable one. The surprising facility with which superior new varieties are raised merely by ordinary reproduction from seed in certain parts of the valley of the Hudson, as at Hudson or near Albany, where the soil is quite clayey, and also the delicious flavor and great productiveness and health of the plum tree there, al- most without any care, while in adjacent districts on rich sandy land it isa very uncertain bearer, are very convincing proofs of the great im- portance of clayey soil for this fruit.* When the whole soil of a place is light and sandy, we would recommend the employment of pure yel- low loam or yellow clay in place of manure when preparing the border or spaces for planting the plum. Very heavy clay, burned slowly by mixing in large heaps with brush or fagots, is, at once, an admirable manure and alterative for such soils. Swamp muck is also one of the best substances, and especially that from salt-water marshes. Com- mon salt we have found one of the best fertilizers for the plum tree. It generally promotes its health and luxuriance. Insects AND DisEAsEs: There are but two drawbacks to the culti- vation of the plum in the United States, but they are in some districts so great as almost to destroy the value of this tree. These are the curculio and the knots. The curculio, or plum-weevil ( hynchenus nenuphar), is the uncompromising foe of all smooth-stone fruits. The cultivator of the plum, the nectarine, and the apricot, in many parts of the country, after a flattering profusion of snowy blossoms and an abundant promise in the thickly set young crops of fruit, has the frequent mortification of seeing nearly all, or indeed, often, the whole crop, fall from the trees when half or two-thirds grown. If he examines these fallen fruits he will perceive on the surface of each, not far from the stalk, a small semicircular scar. This scar is the * When this was written it was generally supposed that the curculio would not attack the fruit of plums growing on trees in clayey soil, but practical experience has shown that such is not the fact.— REVISER. THE PLUM IN KANSAS. 11 crescent-shaped insignia of that “little Turk,” the curculio, an insect so small as, perhaps, to have escaped his observation for years, unless particularly drawn to it, but which, nevertheless, appropriates to him- self the whole product of a tree, or an orchard of a thousand trees. The habits of this curculio, or plum-weevil, are not yet fully and en- tirely ascertained. But careful observation has resulted in establish- ing the following points in its history : The plum-weevil is a small, dark-brown beetle, with spots of white, yellow, and black. Its length is scarcely one-fifth of an inch. On its back are two black humps, and it is furnished with a pretty long, curved throat and snout, which, when it is at rest, is bent between the fore legs. It is also provided with two wings, with which it flies through the air. How far this insect flies is yet a disputed point, some cultivators affirming that it scarcely goes farther than a single tree, and other believe that it flies over a whole neighborhood. Our own observation inclines us to the belief that this sect em1- grates just in proportion as it finds in more or less abundance the tender fruit for depositing its eggs. Very rarely do we see more than one puncture in a plum, and, if the insects are abundant, the trees of a single spot will not afford a sufficient number for the purpose; then there is little doubt (as we have seen them flying through the air) that the insect flies farther in search of a largersupply. But usually, we think. it remains nearly in the same neighborhood, or migrates but slowly. About a week or two after the blossoms have fallen from the trees, if we examine the fruit of the plum in a district where this insect abounds, we shall find the small, newly formed fruit beginning to be punctured by the proboscis of the plum-weevil. The insect is so small and shy that, unless we watch closely, it is very likely to escape our notice. But if we strike or shake the tree suddenly, it will fall in considerably numbers on the ground,.drawn up as if dead, and resembling a small raisin, or, perhaps more nearly, a ripe hemp- seed. From the Ist of April until August this insect may be found, though we think its depredations on fruit, and indeed its appearance in any quantity, are confined to the months of May and June in this climate. In places where it is very abundant, it also attacks, to some extent, the cherry, the peach, and even the apple and pear. Early in July the punctured plums begin to fall rapidly from the tree. The egg deposited in each, at first invisible, has become a white grub or larva, which slowly eats its way toward the stone or pit. As soon as it reaches this point the fruit falls to the ground. Here, if left un- disturbed, the grub soon finds its way into the soil. There, according to most cultivators of fruits, and to our own observation, the grubs or 12 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. larva remain till the ensuing spring, when in their perfect form they again emerge as beetles and renew their ravages on the fruit. It is true that Harris and some other naturalists have proved that the in- sect does sometimes undergo its final transformation and emerge from the ground in twenty days, but we are inclined to the opinion that this only takes place with a small portion of the brood which, per- haps, have penetrated but a very short distance below the surface of the soil. These, making their appearance in midsummer and finding no young fruit, deposit their eggs in the young branches of trees, etc. But it is undeniable that the season of the plum-weevil is early spring, and that most of the larvae which produce the annual swarm remain in the soil during the whole period intervening since the fall of the previous year’s fruit. Plum trees growing in hard-trodden court- - yards usually bear plentiful crops. The modes of destroying the plum-weevil are the following: ° 1. Shaking the tree and killing the beetles. Watch the young fruit, and you will perceive when the insect makes its appearance by its punctures upon them. Spread some sheets under the trees and strike the trunk pretty sharply several times with a wooden mallet. The insects will quickly fall, and should be killed immediately. This should be repeated daily for weeks, or so long as the insects continue to make their appearance. Repeated trials have proved beyond ques- tion that this rather tedious mode is a very effectual one if persisted in.* Coops of chickens placed about under the trees at this season will assist in destroying the insects. Dr. E. 8S. Hull, of Alton, Ill., has invented a machine for catching the curculio on a large scale for orchard culture, but not having seen it, we copy an extract from the Hearth and Home: “This is nothing but a gigantic white umbrella turned bottom up- ward, mounted upon an immense wheelbarrow, and split in front to receive the trunk of the tree which is to be operated upon. At the interior end of the split in front is a padded bumper, which strikes against the trunk as the operator wheels the barrow, first against one * Merely shaking the trees is not sufficient. The following memorandum, as additional proof, we quote from the Genesee Farmer: ‘‘ Under a tree in a remote part of the fruit garden, having spread the sheets, I made the following experi- ment: On shaking the tree well I caught five curculios, on jarring it well with the hand I caught twelve more, and on striking the tree with a stone eight more dropped on the sheet. I was now convinced that I had been in error, and call- ing in assistance and using a hammer to jar the tree violently, we caught in less than an hour more than 260 of these insects.’’ We will add to this, that to pre- vent injury to the tree a large wooden mallet should be substituted for a hammer, and it is better if a thick layer of cloth is bound over its head. A sharp, stun- ning blow is found necessary to readily dislodge the insect, and as such, when given directly upon the bark of the tree, often causes a bruise, it is found to be a good practice to saw off a small limb and strike the blow upon the stump. 9 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. 18 tree and then against another, and with two or three sudden jars fetches all the insects off the boughs into the white umbrella, which gapes widely open to receive them. Really, it is a most magnificent insti- tution, but for its practical success three things are necessary: (1) ‘That the land should be decently clean, and not overgrown with rank weeds four or five feet high. (2) That the orchard be a sufficiently large one to pay the interest on the prime cost of the machine. (3) That the tree have a clean trunk of some three or four feet.” 2. Gathering the fruit and destroying the larve. As the in- sect, in its larva or grub form, is yet within the plums when they fall prematurely from the tree, it is a very obvious mode of exterminating the next year’s brood to gather these fallen fruits daily and feed them to swine, boil or otherwise destroy them. A simple and easy way of covering the difficulty, when there is a plum orchard or enclosure, is that of turning in swine and fowls during the whole season when the stung plums are dropping to the ground. The fruit, and the insects contained in it, will thus be devoured together. This is an excellent expedient for the farmer who bestows his time grudgingly on the cares of the garden. THE KNOTS, OR BLACK GUM. In some parts of the country this is a most troublesome disease, and it has, in neighborhoods where it has been suffered to take its course, even destroyed the whole race of plum trees. The knotsisa . disease attacking the bark and wood. The former at first becomes swollen, afterward bursts, and finally assumes the appearance of large, irregular, black lumps, with a hard, cracked, uneven surface, quite dry within. The passage of the sap upwards becomes stopped by the compression of the branch by the tumor, and finally the poison seems to disseminate itself by the downward flow of the sap through the whole trunk, breaking out in various parts of it. The sorts of plum most attacked by this disease are those with purple fruit, and we have never known the green- or yellow-fruited varieties infected until the other sorts had first become filled with the knots. The common Horse plum and Damson appear to be the first to fall a prey to it, and it is more difficult to eradicate it from them than from most other sorts. The common Morello cherry is also very often injured by the same disease, and in some districts the sweet cherry also. There is yet some doubt respecting the precise cause of these knotty excres- cences, though there is every reason to think it is the work of an in- sect. Professor Peck and Doctor Harris believe that they are caused by the same curculio or plum-weevil that stings the fruit; the second brood of which, finding no fruit ready, choose the branches of this tree and the cherry. This observation would seem to be confirmed by the fact that the grubs or larve of the plum-weevil are frequently 14 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. found in these warts, and that the beetles have been seen stinging the branches. On the other hand, the following facts are worthy of atten- tion: First, in some parts of the country where the curculio has been troublesome for many years the knots have never been known; sec- ond, in many cases the knots have been abundant on plum trees when the fruit was entirely fair and uninjured by the curculio, even upon the same branches. These facts seem so irreconcilable with the opinion that the cur- culio produces both these effects, that we rather incline at present to the belief that, though the curculio deposits its eggs in the tumors on the branches while they are yet soft and tender, yet it is not to the curculio, but to some other insect or cause, that we owe this unsightly disease. Practically, however, this is of little account. The experi- ence of many. persons besides ourselves has proved most satisfactorily that it is easy to extirpate this malady, if it is taken in season and unremittingly pursued. As early as possible in the spring the whole of the infected trees should be examined, and every branch and twig that shows a tumor should be cut off and immediately burned. What- ever may be the insect, we thus destroy it, and, as experience has taught us that the malady spreads rapidly, we will thus effectually prevent its increase. If the trees are considerably attacked by it, it will probably be necessary to go over them again about the middle of May, but, usually, once a year will be sufficient. If any of the trees are very much covered with these knots, it is better to head back the shoots severely, or dig them up and burn them outright, and it will be necessary to prevail upon your neighbors, if there are near ones, to enter into the plan, or your own labors will be of little value. Pur- sue this simple and straightforward practice for two or three seasons (covering any large wounds made with a solution of gum shellac), and the knots will be found to disappear, the curculio to the con- trary notwithstanding. BOTANY OF THE PLUMS AND CHERRIES. By CHARLES E. Bessey, Pu. D. (Nebraska Horticultural Report.) Plums and cherries belong to the botanical genus Prunus, which in turn is a member of the family known to botanists under the name Rosaceew. The genus contains, all told, nearly 100 species, widely distributed in temperate and tropical countries north of the equator. Few, if any, species occur in a wild state south of the equator, and none whatever occur in southern South America, tropical and south- ern Africa, and Australia and the Pacific islands. The genus may be briefly characterized as follows: THE PLUM IN KANSAS. 15 C. AMERICANA Pius (Pseudoprunus). Flowers single or um- bellate, white or pale rose color; leaves in the bud folded lengthwise along the midrib.* Canaba Puium (P. nigra Aiton). A small tree, with broadly ob- long-ovate to obovate leaves, the leafstalks bearing two glands; calyx lobes glandular-serrate ; fruit oblong-oval, one to one and a quarter inches long, with a tough, thick, orange-red skin and yellow flesh; stone compressed. Original distribution: In Canada, from Newfoundland to the Assiniboin river, and probably in the northern portion of the United States. Since this species has been confused with the next one it is difficult to say what cultivated varieties have sprung from it. Professor Sargent says, in the Silva of North Amer- ica: “Some attention has been paid in Canada to selecting the best wild varieties for cultivation. Varieties of this species are propagated and sold by nurserymen in some of the Western states, and to it can be referred the well-known Purple Yosemite, Quaker and Weaver plums.” Common WILD Pium (P. americana Marsh.)