Chapter III: Commercial Peach-Growing in America (1)

Text size

Commercial peach-growing began in America early in the Nineteenth Century. About this time, it will be remembered, budded trees began to take the place of seedlings. Named varieties appeared as a consequence of budding and, as nurseries sprang up in the settled parts of the country, varieties multiplied at a rapid rate. After the year 1800 we read less about peaches as food for hogs and less about peach-products for assuaging the thirst for strong drink. As cities and towns built up, market demands increased and money-making began to quicken the charms of peach-growing. With the coming of extensive plantings and intensive culture in commercial orchards, new and menacing pests and other problems began to appear at every turn. Before the middle of the century, commercial peach-growing was in full swing in the Chesapeake peach-belt and in its infancy in several westward regions. Stories of great success now filled the papers, "peach kings" abounded, and, with the return of good times following the Civil War, fruit-growers indulged in a saturnalia of peach-tree planting. The rouge of speculation made the industry doubly attractive. An account of the rise of commercial peach-growing in America cannot help but be of interest and, besides, it is only by the study of the past of the industry that we can draw safe conclusions for the future.

Peach-growing on a commercial scale in the United States began in what is known as the Peninsula, consisting, technically, of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey but horticulturally, because of similitude of soil, climate and products, taking in a bit of Virginia, touching eastern Pennsylvania and running up to Long Island. All of this region, including the southern reaches of the Hudson, may be considered as one commercial territory. The peach began its undisputed supremacy among fruits in the orchards of the Peninsula as early as orchards were planted but, beginning with 1800, the industry pushed ahead with leaps and bounds so that the figures at times remind one of Alice in Wonderland when she drank from the magic bottle and immediately grew to gigantic proportions.

In 1800 an orchard of 20,000 trees was set in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, the product to be used in brandy-making.[191] The last peach-grower to engage in the liquor business seems to have been a certain Mr. Bayley in Accomack County, Virginia, the tip of the Peninsula, who in 1814 planted 63,000 trees which six years later yielded fifteen gallons of brandy per 100 trees, worth $2 per gallon--not profitable unless the seed were sown in rows, as was probably the case, and the seedlings permitted to crowd rather closely.[192] One of the first large orchards planted in this region to supply city peach-markets was that of a Mr. Cassidy who set an orchard of 50,000 trees in Cecil County, Maryland, about 1830.[193] The product of this orchard went to market in sailboats and large wagons. The industry was not in full swing in this region until the fifties when orchards were planted all along the water courses in Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne counties, making a continuous forest of peach-trees two miles back from the rivers.[194]

The peach-industry in Delaware seems to have begun, according to Mr. Charles Wright,[195] in 1832 at Delaware City, when a twenty-acre orchard of budded trees was set by Messrs. Reeves and Ridgeway, which by 1836 had increased to 110 acres. The receipts from this orchard in a single season were as much as $16,000, the fruit bringing in Philadelphia from $1.25 to $3 per three-peck basket. Other notable orchards of these early times mentioned by Mr. Wright are those of Major Philip Reybold and Sons who, beginning in 1835, by 1846 had 117,720 trees on 1090 acres near Delaware City from which 63,344 baskets of peaches were shipped in August, 1845; in Kent County, John Reed began planting as early as 1829 and several years later had 10,000 trees of Red Cheek Melocotons. In 1848 the peach-crop in Delaware was estimated at 5,000,000 baskets, chiefly from New Castle County. Peach-yellows, first a serious pest around Philadelphia about 1800, became epidemic in northern Delaware in 1842 and, little by little, the center of the peach-industry shifted southward from Middletown in the late sixties to Smyrna; a few years later it had reached Wyoming and in the nineties it was as far south as Bridgeville.

It is interesting to follow the ups and downs of the peach-industry in the Peninsula. Epidemics of yellows, a succession of cold winters, over-production, transportation difficulties or expense, San Jose scale, have all been factors powerful enough at various times to make or mar the fortunes of those engaged in growing peaches. Indeed, in following the history of this fruit on the Peninsula, one is forced to declare that peach-growing is gambling pure and simple. Take, for example, the building of the Delaware railroad. Peaches were scarcely planted in the interior parts of the Peninsula, away from water-ways, until the building of this road in the sixties and seventies, when the yield increased so rapidly that 4,175,500 baskets were shipped by rail in 1875, the total yield being 8,782,716 baskets[196]--fortunes followed the completion of the railroad only to be lost in subsequent over-production.

New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and southeastern New York rather slowly followed the lead of Delaware in commercial peach-growing. New Jersey, according to census reports, reached her zenith in peach-growing in 1899 when there were 4,413,568 peach-trees in the State which produced 2,746,607 bushels of fruit giving her third rank among the states of the Union in production. Ten years later the State had dropped to fourteenth. The peach seems to have been neglected in eastern Pennsylvania as a commercial crop, possibly because a good start was never made on account of the early appearance of yellows. In southeastern New York and on Long Island, peach-growers have usually followed the fortunes of their neighbors in New Jersey who have ever grown on a much larger scale.

To show how quickly the peach gives returns and how great the return from the capital invested, the following figures, savoring a good deal of American boastfulness of dollars and cents, are illustrative:[197] "The peach farms in Upper Delaware and Maryland have returned to their owners the most fabulous amounts for their investments far exceeding in profit any other staple crop that has been raised in the Middle States, and on a scale never before heard of in this or any other country. Some of the orchards containing from 1000 to 1300 acres have netted their owners from $20,000 to $30,000 annually. A peach orchard in New Castle county, Delaware, of 400 acres, netted the owner in one crop, $38,000. One in Kent county, Maryland, of some 600 acres, produced a crop paying $31,000, and the same orchard in 1879 yielded $42,000. In 1873, the Delaware Peach Growers' Association reported that there were sent from the Delaware peninsula to the northern markets of Philadelphia and New York 1,288,500 baskets of peaches, or 2577 car-loads by the railroad. Adding the quantity shipped by steamers and sailing vessels, and the amount canned, the actual quantity amounted, in the aggregate, to 2,000,000 of baskets. In 1872, the whole district, comprising the Eastern Shore of Maryland, marketed 3,500,000 baskets. The late Col. Wilkins, on Chester river, Kent county, Maryland, had 1350 acres in with peach trees, numbering 137,000, producing in bearing years from $30,000 to $40,000 annually."

Commercial peach-growing in the South is of recent development--its history is known to all pomologists of the present generation. It began in the seventies, the impetus being given by the introduction of a number of early, bright-colored, very showy peaches that could be marketed in northern cities in May and June. It took years, however, to develop means to send these peaches to market and it was not until in the nineties that the perfection of refrigerator cars and rapid transportation was such that the southern crop cut any figure in the peach-markets. The introduction of the Elberta in the seventies may be said to be another stone in the foundation of the peach-industry in the South. After Georgia became a factor in the culture of this fruit in America in the nineties, the State was followed in lesser degree, by South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas. In most of these southern states the peach-orchard is so near the cotton-plantation--often the two are interplanted--that the owners rob Peter to pay Paul in the care of the two crops. But this is not always the case, and at its best the southern peach-orchard is the consummate flower of modern commercial peach-growing.

The peach-industry in Connecticut is a recent development, as in the South. As late as 1880 the crop was negligible in the State; in 1889, 37,295 bushels were grown; 61,775 in 1899; and 417,918 bushels in 1909. This, considering the smallness of the State and the very uneven surface of much of it, is a rather remarkable development. Winter-killing, which takes place about one winter out of four, is the chief drawback but the high prices received from nearby markets make the peach, despite the occasional off-year, a profitable crop. Connecticut peaches are characterized by large size, bright color and good quality. From Connecticut the industry has spread into Massachusetts where all conditions are essentially the same.

Peach-growing in New York has never been spectacular. Along the lower Hudson before the Civil War and again a decade after it there was a thriving peach-industry such as there was in New Jersey and Delaware. A peach-industry is first of all dependent on quick transportation--the fruit must move. This meant in early days that there must be nearby markets and water transportation--western New York had the latter but not the former. Peaches, however, were early grown, in fact, as we have seen, were cultivated by the Indians, in the lake regions of western New York. In 1828 the Domestic Horticultural Society, the third such organization in America, was organized in Geneva, having for its field ten counties in western New York.[198] The Monroe County Horticultural Society was organized in 1830,[199] and in 1831 the _Genesee Farmer and Gardener's Journal_ came into existence. These institutions bore fruit, more literally bore orchards, and a taste for horticulture, which, together with the nurseries that by this time were being established in the salubrious climate and excellent soil of western New York, gave a perfection in fruit-growing long unrivalled in America and now equalled only in California.

Of the history of commercial peach-growing in western New York, it can only be said that there has been such an industry since 1800. The product of the orchards of the first quarter-century went, for most part, to the brandy-still, for the second quarter it was used at home and for local markets and from then on, since 1850, or a little before, the region has been well to the front in the peach-markets of eastern United States. Changes in the commerce of the continent have made great changes in the peach-industry in New York. In 1825 the opening of the Erie Canal made western New York the granary of eastern United States--wheat was more profitable than peaches. Twenty-five years later millions of bushels of wheat from the plains, carried through the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal to the sea, began to drive wheat out of western New York and make the peach more profitable. This is a fine illustration of the fact that transportation is often as important a factor as soil or climate in the profitable production of a crop. Until figures were taken by census enumerators, the history of the peach-industry could be written only by giving innumerable items taken at random from newspapers of the times. The present status of peach-growing in this region is to be discussed in a future chapter.

Another large commercial peach-region is to be found along the shore of Lake Erie in Ohio. The peach has been cultivated very generally in Ohio since the first settlements there more than a century ago and the industry assumed commercial importance in a dozen or more centers as early, at least, as 1867, when the assessors' returns showed a total crop for the State of 1,402,849 bushels.[200] But what is now known as the peach-belt along the shores of Lake Erie is largely a growth of comparatively recent times, much of the land now covered with peach-orchards having been originally planted to vineyards. Possibly the region was at its zenith in the nineties, the plantings here contributing greatly to putting Ohio in third place at this time among the states of the Union in the production of peaches.

Michigan furnishes an interesting chapter in the history of the peach-industry. The industry was started in what is now the Michigan peach-belt by an Indian trader who planted a pit in 1775 near St. Joseph. From this tree sprang seedling orchards, one of which, near Douglas at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River, numbered 300 trees. There were no budded trees until 1834. A conjunction of several factors now gave peach-growing a tremendous impetus in the State. Chicago, growing with leaps and bounds, demanded peaches; the soil and climate of western Michigan were found to be ideal for this fruit; between the supply and demand was quick and cheap transportation by water. Shipments began in 1834 to Chicago and, as this and other western cities grew, peach-planting in Michigan progressed as probably never before in any other part of the world. In the seventies peach-yellows swept like a wave of fire over the southern portion of what is now the belt, driving the industry northward until at Traverse City the peach reached its highest northern limit in the eastern states. With better control of the yellows, peach-orchards were again planted in the southern parts of the belt and the industry continues to thrive, though with the ups and downs incident to this fruit wherever grown.

Another large peach-growing area lies in southern Illinois extending across the Mississippi into Missouri and Kansas. Westward, in Colorado, Utah, California, Oregon and Washington, are the world's newest peach-orchards, all of which have arisen to commercial importance within recent times. In southern Illinois and Missouri, however, even before the Civil War, peach-growing had assumed sufficient magnitude to be called an industry. The present standing of these later peach-areas may best be compared with that of the older regions by a tabulated report from the United States Census Reports which is herewith printed. In the fluctuating figures of this table one sees the exploitation of the peach. What other tree-crop in the whole world could show more ups and downs in the brief space of thirty years? No state holds first rank two decades in succession; in fifteen states in 1910 there were more trees not of bearing age than there were in bearing; there were more peach-trees in the United States in 1900 than in 1910; the figures most graphically attest the shifting of peach-regions; decreasing numbers represent misfortunes--most often yellows, or San Jose scale, a freeze, or overproduction; increasing numbers stand for a newly discovered advantage. By these tokens we better realize the speculative nature of peach-growing.

PEACH-PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES, 1890-1910

======================================================================
| Number of trees of bearing age | Trees not
| | of bearing
States +----------+----------+-----------+ age,
| Eleventh | Twelfth |Thirteenth |Thirteenth
| Census, | Census, | Census, | Census,
| 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1910
----------------------+----------+----------+-----------+-------------
New England: | | | |
Maine | 1,607| 9,592| 5,102 | 3,320
New Hampshire | 19,057| 48,819| 57,571 | 35,213
Vermont | 1,966| 4,993| 5,492 | 2,187
Massachusetts | 87,004| 301,405| 154,592 | 162,114
Rhode Island | 11,816| 48,063| 39,342 | 30,795
Connecticut | 88,655| 522,726| 461,711 | 338,608
Middle Atlantic: | | | |
New York | 1,014,110| 2,522,729| 2,457,187 | 2,216,907
New Jersey | 4,413,568| 2,746,607| 1,216,476 | 1,363,632
Pennsylvania | 1,146,342| 3,521,930| 2,383,027 | 2,179,386
East North Central: | | | |
Ohio | 1,882,191| 6,363,127| 3,133,368 | 2,092,300
Indiana | 953,980| 2,925,526| 2,130,298 | 1,145,479
Illinois | 783,910| 2,448,013| 2,860,120 | 739,358
Michigan | 1,919,104| 8,104,415| 2,907,170 | 2,991,090
Wisconsin | 387| 6,967| 4,163 | 4,148
West North Central: | | | |
Minnesota | 334| 1,626| 1,571 | 3,837
Iowa | 82,238| 516,145| 1,090,749 | 283,308
Missouri | 1,999,474| 4,557,365| 6,588,034 | 1,404,429
North Dakota | ..... | 2| 90 | 604
South Dakota | 78| 1,080| 1,815 | 5,259
Nebraska | 144,701| 1,055,959| 1,188,373 | 263,882
Kansas | 4,876,311| 5,098,064| 4,394,894 | 620,709
South Atlantic: | | | |
Delaware | 4,521,623| 2,441,650| 1,177,402 | 212,117
Maryland | 6,113,287| 4,017,854| 1,497,724 | 805,063
District of Columbia| 1,521| 149| 330 | 1
Virginia | 1,218,219| 1,939,113| 1,585,505 | 780,551
West Virginia | 450,440| 1,695,642| 1,424,582 | 1,441,188
North Carolina | 2,133,004| 2,773,788| 2,661,791 | 861,042
South Carolina | 711,138| 1,136,790| 1,336,142 | 349,790
Georgia | 2,787,546| 7,668,639|10,609,119 | 1,531,367
Florida | 235,936| 354,208| 290,850 | 156,782
East South Central: | | | |
Kentucky | 1,205,866| 2,884,193| 2,245,402 | 1,110,744
Tennessee | 2,347,699| 2,749,203| 3,163,737 | 1,190,727
Alabama | 1,280,842| 2,690,151| 3,177,331 | 838,866
Mississippi | 878,569| 1,856,748| 1,726,298 | 724,895
----------------------+----------+----------+-----------+-------------

PEACH-PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES 1890-1910--_Continued_

NEW TYPES OF PEACHES

The capacity of species to split into types, using types in a broad sense, is, we all agree, one of the greatest assets of cultivated plants. Through diversity of types come adaptabilities to soils and climates and variety in the crop, to mention but two of the essentials of standard crop-plants. New types afford the material from which greatest progress comes in fruit-growing. In common with all fruit-growing, peach-growing has received impetus from time to time from the introduction of new and distinct types. In the middle of the Nineteenth Century, three previously unknown types of peaches, each divisible into horticultural varieties, were brought to America. All three have had important effects on the peach-industry in America.

_North China peaches._--Not very distinct from the Persian peaches at the outset, its outliers running into some of the other groups as well, "North China" is now but little more than a name for a conglomerate lot of varieties grown everywhere in America except in the sub-tropic parts of the Gulf States. The North China race includes varieties characterized by fruits of large size, great beauty, tender skin and flesh, good quality and vigorous trees which bear abundantly and regularly. The group has received careful study at the Delaware Experiment Station, an account of it by G. Harold Powell having been published in the Thirteenth Annual Report from that Station in 1901. Powell prefers to call the group Chinese Cling rather than North China.

The peaches put in the North China group are so nearly akin to those in the Persian group that it is difficult to place varieties. All agree, however, in taking the European Shanghai, the American Chinese Cling, as the type-variety and, though it is probable that travelers or missionaries brought pits of some of these peaches from northern China a century or more ago, the known history of the group begins with the variety just named as the type. It is a pleasure to give Robert Fortune, the indefatigable collector of Chinese plants for the London Horticultural Society, credit for introducing these peaches into western countries. In 1844 Fortune collected a fine, large, delicious peach near Shanghai and in the autumn forwarded pits and a plant in a pot to London. The pits were sown and the seedlings produced fruit in 1852 and from among these a sort was selected and called Shanghai.[201] Pits from this first collection were probably sent to France, for the name appears in the early fifties in the pomological literature of this country.

The first American reference to the Shanghai is found in 1851[202] when fruits were exhibited at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in Boston by R. Choate with the statement "peach from a tree imported from Shanghai." More definite are the facts of an importation made by Charles Downing in 1850. Early in that year Downing received potted peach-trees from the British consul at Shanghai under the names "Chinese Cling" and "Shanghai," supposed to be two sorts but proving to be identical. One of these trees was sent to Mr. Henry Lyons, Columbia, South Carolina, and this bore fruit in 1851.[203] From Downing's stock the variety was quickly and widely distributed and the horticultural magazines of the time gave the new peaches wide publicity, so that, from this and other importations which were made from time to time by various persons, these peaches from northern China were universally grown in the peach-orchards of America within a quarter of a century of their introduction.

_South China peaches._--Those who have read the descriptions of Chinese peaches in Chapter 1 (pages 14 to 21) recognize at once the beaked varieties of South China, especially those growing about Canton. These peaches, common enough in China and cultivated there for centuries, reached occidental countries only in the middle of the Nineteenth Century. They came to America as seeds from Dr. J. T. Devan, Canton, China, to Mr. John Caldwell, Newburg, New York,[204] and were introduced into Europe probably by M. Montigny, French Consul at Shanghai, who sent seeds to the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1852.[205] In recent years a number of fresh importations of seeds and plants of these honey-flavored, beaked peaches have been made by the United States Department of Agriculture.

A composite picture of South China peaches shows the following characters:

Tree of medium size, upright-spreading; branches leaving the trunk at an angle of about fifty degrees and curving upward; buds quite prominent; flowers always large and very abundant, pale pink, base of petals darker pink; leaves small, long, narrow, pointed, finely serrate, conduplicate, distributed all along the limb, dark green, in fall slightly tinged with red. Fruit small, oval, yellow or white blushed with red, slightly flattened; skin adhering to the flesh; suture very deep in basin, but does not extend more than one-third the way down; apex long and recurved; flesh white or yellow; flavor a peculiar honey-sweet; stone free or cling, long-pointed, generally curved.

As yet these honey-flavored peaches are grown commercially only in the Gulf States, the notion prevailing that they cannot be grown in the North. Quite to the contrary they do exceedingly well as far north as Geneva, though undesirable because of smallness of fruit and lateness in ripening. Of the score of the descendants of the original Honey, several are in bearing on the Station grounds, Climax, Imperial, Pallas and Triana being illustrated in _The Peaches of New York_. All but two or three of the varieties that are put in this group originated in Florida and most of them come from the grounds of G. L. Taber, Glen Saint Mary, of that State. An excellent bulletin, No. 73, from the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station, published in 1904, by F. C. Reimer, gives a full account of these peaches.

Is the beaked character permanent? That regions in time give rise to racial strains must have occurred to all who have read the preceding pages. The peach acquires distinct varietal characters in every great geographical region in which it is grown. Possibly in no other character is the change greater than in the long, pointed, erect or recurved apex in common parlance called the beak. As a rule, the farther south the more pronounced is the beak and the more oblong is the fruit. In this respect, southern peaches, taking them as a whole, are as markedly different from New York peaches as are the long, crowned, angular-topped apples of the Pacific Northwest from the rotund fruits of the Atlantic Northeast. The four sorts of honey-flavored peaches described and illustrated in _The Peaches of New York_, named in the foregoing paragraph, illustrate this well, none of them being nearly so abruptly conical as specimens coming to us from the South. Peaches in China, evidently, show the same modification, for those discussed in the previous group are as markedly rotund as those in this group are conic and beaked. It is a fair inference, then, that the beaked character of the peach, counting time in generations of the tree, is permanent only in southern climates.

_Peento peaches._--Another group of these Chinese peaches, not very different from the South China varieties we have just given an account of, is composed of the score or more sorts showing relationship to the variety, Peento. These may be rather indefinitely described as follows:

Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading; branches willow-like, branching at an angle of about forty degrees; flowers large, pink, opening early, often at a low temperature and very irregularly; leaves narrow, long, finely serrated, with reniform glands; inclined to be evergreen; fruit sub-globose except in Peento which is flattened endwise; skin white and mottled with carmine, parting readily from the flesh; flesh white or yellow; flavor sweet, with a peculiar almond taste; stone occasionally flattened endwise, either free or cling. This race is adapted to sub-tropical parts of the Gulf States where it ripens from May 1st to June 1st.

The Peento, which gives name to this group, is without doubt a descendant of the flat peaches of China, common enough as we have seen. The first tree, however, came from Java to England where it was first grown by John Braddick under the name Java peach.[206] William Prince,[207] Flushing, Long Island, imported the variety to America some time previous to 1828 and grew it to the number of twenty trees. The peaches from Prince's importation seem to have been lost and the variety did not appear again in America until 1869 when P. J. Berckmans,[208] Augusta, Georgia, brought seed from China, from one of which came the Peento. Peento peaches in America are peculiar to Florida, where all of the score or more varieties but the Peento have originated. This group of peaches has been well described by H. Harold Hume in Bulletin 62 of the Florida Experiment Station from which the description given above is an adaptation.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] De Candolle, Alphonse _Or. Cult. Plants_ 222. 1885.

[2] Meyer, Frank N. _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =No. 107=:862. 1915.

[3] Feb. 4, 1916.

[4] De Candolle, Alphonse _Or. Cult. Plants_ 228. 1885.

[5] Chinese Literature, Edited by Epiphanius Wilson Bk. I:126. 1902.

[6] _Ibid._ Bk. IX:148, 149. 1902.

[7] _Ibid._ Bk. XIII:161. 1902.

[8] Cibot, Pierre Martial _Mém. concernant l'hist. les sciences_ etc. _des Chinois_. =II=:280-293. 1777.

[9] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants._ =No. 102=:823-825. 1914.

[10] Knight Thomas Andrew _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =3=:1. 1820.

[11] _Gard. Chron._ 531. 1856.

[12] _Gard. Chron._ 27. 1863.

[13] Darwin _Ans. and Pls. Domest._ =1=:357. 1868.

[14] Carrière, E. A. _Variétés De Pêchers_ 25-33. 1867.

[15] De Candolle, Alphonse _Or. Cult. Plants_ 229. 1885.

[16] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =227=:20. 1911.

[17] _Ibid._ =227=:47. 1911.

[18] _Ibid._ =233=:76. 1912.

[19] _Ibid._ =233=:77. 1912.

[20] _Ibid._

[21] _Ibid._

[22] _Ibid._ =233=:78. 1912.

[23] _Ibid._

[24] _Ibid._ =233=:80. 1912.

[25] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =242=:27. 1912.

[26] _Ibid._

[27] _Ibid._ =207=:62. 1911.

[28] _Ibid._ =233=:76. 1912.

[29] _Ibid._ =233=:78. 1912.

[30] _Ibid._

[31] _Ibid._

[32] _Ibid._ =106=:26. 1907.

[33] _Ibid._ =132=:80. 1908.

[34] _U. S. D. A. Bul. of For. Pl. Int._ =No. 32=:19. 1910.

[35] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =233=:77. 1912.

[36] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Inv. of S & P. I._ 21. 1915.

[37] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =66=:95. 1905.

[38] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Inv. of S. & P. I._ 32. 1914.

[39] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =106=:50. 1907.

[40] _Ibid._ =137=:31. 1909.

[41] _Ibid._ =233=:78. 1912.

[42] _Ibid._ =137=:31. 1909.

[43] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =No. 59=:404. 1911.

[44] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =66=:102. 1905.

[45] _Ibid._ =233=:80 1912.

[46] _Ibid._ =233=:80. 1912.

[47] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =103=:828. 1914.

[48] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =66=:189. 1905.

[49] _Ibid._ =66=:306. 1905.

[50] _Ibid._ =142=:21. 1909.

[51] _Ibid._ =66=:95. 1905.

[52] _Ibid._ =66=:95. 1905.

[53] _Ibid._

[54] _Ibid._

[55] _Ibid._ =233=:47. 1912

[56] _Ibid._ =242=:12. 1912.

[57] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =137=:31. 1909.

[58] _Ibid._

[59] _Ibid._ =137=:46. 1909.

[60] _Ibid._ =66=:191. 1905.

[61] _Ibid._ =162=:50. 1909

[62] _Ibid._

[63] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =51=:4. 1910.

[64] _Ibid._ =60=:411. 1911.

[65] _Ibid._ =60=:412. 1911.

[66] _Ibid._ =62=:431. 1911.

[67] M. Cibot, a French missionary, writing nearly a century and a half ago in his memoirs concerning the Chinese (=II=:280-293. 1784), gives the following account of peaches with which he was familiar in China at that time:--

"Peaches are distinguished by size and color, the shape and earliness of their fruit. There are some whose flesh is white, some greenish, some a delicate yellow, some a yellow orange and some marble; some are round, some oval, some lengthened to a point like a crow's beak. Peaches are heard of weighing two pounds or even more. The largest ones I have seen were scarcely three and a half inches in length and diameter; as to earliness, in the middle provinces there are peaches almost as soon as cherries. It is still more astonishing that some varieties do not ripen here till October, and that there is a secret by which they can be kept till January, just as fresh, just as beautiful, and just as delicious as if right off the tree."

[68] Ikeda, T. _The Fruit Culture in Japan_ 32, 33. 1907.

[69] Loureiro, _Fl. Cochin._ 315.

[70] Royle, _Illust. Bot. Himal._ 204.

[71] Hooker, Sir Joseph, _Jour. of Bot._ 54. 1850.

[72] Hendricks, P. J. P. _U. S. D. A. Bur. Pl. Ind. Bul._ =97=:72. 1905.

[73] Meyer, F. W. _U. S. D. A. Bur. Pl. Ind. Bul._ =132=:80. 1908.

[74] _Montreal Hort. Soc. Rpt._ =12=:64, 65. 1886-87.

[75] Schuyler, Eugene _Turkestan_ =1=:296, 297. 1876.

[76] Lansdell, Henry _Russian Central Asia_ =1=:223. 1885.

[77] Lansdell, Henry _Russian Central Asia_ =1=:277. 1885.

[78] _Ibid._ =1=:608. 1885.

[79] _Ibid._ =2=:83. 1885.

[80] Bostock and Riley _Nat. History of Pliny_ =3=:296. 1855.

[81] Bostock and Riley _Nat. History of Pliny_ =3=:296. 1855.

[82] _Ibid._ =3=:293, 294. 1855.

[83] De Candolle Alphonse _Or. Cult. Plants_ 225. 1885.

[84] Duhamel Du Monceau _Trait. Arb. Fr._ =2=:1-2. 1768.

[85] Leroy _Dict. Pom._ =6=:10. 1879.

[86] Bostock and Riley _Nat. History of Pliny_ =4=:508. 1856.

[87] Leroy _Dict. Pom._ =6=:10. 1879.

[88] Cecil, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn _A Hist. of Gard. in Eng._ 3. 1910.

[89] _Ibid._ 38. 1910.

[90] _Ibid._ 48. 1910.

[91] Gerarde _Herball_ 1446, 1447. 1633.

[92] Parkinson _Par. Ter._ 580, 582. 1629.

[93] This early Spanish publication is to be found in the Library of Congress under the title _Molina's Vocubalario en Lengua Castellana y Mexicana_ (1571). Mr. W. E. Safford, economic botanist in the United States Department of Agriculture, has been kind enough to translate Molina's reference to the peach. Mr. Safford writes:--

"On page 83a (the pages of Molina are numbered only on one side, and this is the reverse of page 83) I find as a definition of the fruit of Melocoton (Peach) the following:--_xuchipal durazno_ (red peach), _cuztic durazno_ (yellow peach), _xocotl melocoton_ (plum peach). I translate _xocotl_ "plum", because the Mexicans applied this word to many plum-like fruits, or fruits more or less acid in distinction to _tzapotl_, the general term applied to sweet soft fruits. The words cited are all hybrid compounds of Nahuatl and Spanish. Whatever may be the value of these citations, they establish the fact that the peach was undoubtedly introduced into Mexico before 1571."

[94] _Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad Route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, War Department_ =3=:122. 1854.

[95] _Bul. Tor. Bot. Club_ =12=:85-86. Aug. 1885.

[96] Hilton, William, A Relation of a Discovery lately made on the Coasts of Florida. 1664, Force _Hist. Tracts._ IV: =No. 2=:8.

[97] Bartram, William _Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida_ 343. 1791.

[98] Bartram, William _Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida_ 405. 1791.

[99] _Ibid._ 421. 1791.

[100] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =3=:127. 1771.

Peter Kalm is so often mentioned in the fruit-books published by this Station that readers are entitled to know something about him. Kalm was a Swede, born in 1715, died in 1779, who was sent by the Swedish government to travel in North America. He landed in 1748 and spent the next three years in travel in the settled parts of the New World devoting himself to the study of the plant and animal life, the natural phenomena, resources and agriculture of the Middle and Northern States and Canada. On his return to Sweden, Kalm published an account of his travels in America which was afterward translated into German and then into English. To him we are indebted for much valuable information in regard to the beginnings of agriculture and horticulture in the middle of the Eighteenth Century in America. Kalm was a student of Linnaeus and the great botanist perpetuated his memory by naming our beautiful mountain laurel, _Kalmia_.

[101] Le Page Du Pratz, _Hist. La._ =2=:17. 1763.

[102] Hennepin _Nouvelle découverte d'un très grand pays_ etc., etc. 300. 1697.

[103] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =3=:79. 1771.

[104] Nuttall, Thomas _A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory During the Year 1819_, 79. 1821.

[105] _Ibid._ 101. 1821.

[106] Lawson, John _History of Carolina_, 181-183. 1714. Reprinted at Raleigh, 1860. Lawson's History of Carolina contains the best description of the natural resources of the southern Atlantic seaboard published in colonial times. It is a book of nature rather than of history and one of fascinating interest which cannot be read without admiring and loving the author and mourning his sad fate. Poor Lawson was burned at the stake by the Indians in 1711. We cannot refrain from quoting his description of North Carolina as printed on page 79 of his history: "A delicious country, being placed in that girdle of the world which affords wine, oil, fruit, grain, and silk, with other rich commodities, besides a sweet air, moderate climate, and fertile soil. These are the blessings, under Heaven's protection, that spin out the thread of life to its utmost extent, and crown our days with the sweets of health and plenty, which, when joined with content, render the possessors the happiest race of men upon earth."

[107] _Works of Captain John Smith_, Ed. by Edward Arber, 887. 1884.

[108] De Vries, David Peterson _Voyages from Holland to America_ 50. 1853.

[109] Neil, Rev. E. D. _Virginia Carolorum_ 50. 1869.

[110] Evelyn, Robert New Albion, Force _Hist. Tracts._ =II=: No. =7=:31.

[111] Norwood, Col. A Voyage to Virginia, Force _Hist. Tracts_, =III=:No. =10=:5.

[112] Hammond, John Leah and Rachel or The Two Fruitful Sisters of Virginia and Maryland 1656, Force _Hist. Tracts_, =III=:No. =14=:13.

[113] _Works of Capt. John Smith_ Ed. by Edward Arber, 886. 1884.

[114] Bruce, Philip Alexander _Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century_ =1=:468, 469.

[115] Beverly, Robert _History of Virginia_. 259, 260. 1722. Reprinted in Richmond 1855.

[116] _A New and Accurate Account of the Provinces of South Carolina and Georgia._ Reprinted in _Collections of the Georgia Historical Society._ =1=:50-51. 1840.

[117] _An Impartial Inquiry into the State and Utility of the Province of Georgia_. Reprinted in _Collections of the Georgia Historical Society_ =1=:199. 1840.

[118] Oldmixon, John _The British Empire in America_ 2nd Ed. =1=:515. 1741.

[119] Oldmixon, John _The British Empire in America_ 2nd Ed. London. =1=:440. 1741.

[120] Watson _Annals of Phila._ =1=:46. 1856.

[121] Raum, John O. _History of New Jersey_, 108.

[122] Watson _Annals of Phila._ =1=:46. 1856.

[123] Acrelius, Israel _The History of New Sweden, or the Settlements on the River Delaware_. Stockholm, 1759. Translated from the Swedish by William M. Reynolds, D. D., Philadelphia, 1876, Vol. XI of the _Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania_ 151, 152.

[124] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =1=:71-73. 1770.

[125] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =1=:94. 1770.

[126] _Ibid._ =1=:222-223. 1770.

[127] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =2=:244, 245. 1771.

[128] Mss. in the library of Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y.

[129] David Thomas is now scarcely known in horticulture except as he is spoken of as the father of America's well-known agricultural, horticultural and pomological writer, John Jacob Thomas. Yet the father merits recognition for his work in agriculture and horticulture. David Thomas was a Quaker, born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in 1776. He became a civil engineer and moved to Aurora, Cayuga County, New York, in 1805 and began to practice his profession. Later he became one of the engineers in charge of the construction of the Erie Canal and still later performed a similar service in building the Welland Canal. Soon after, we find him a nurseryman and fruit-grower at Aurora. Throughout his entire life, his son writes, he was interested in horticulture, pomology and botany and by his writings on these subjects, published principally in the _Genesee Farmer_, then the leading agricultural paper in western New York, and in _Travels in the Western Country in 1816_, published in Auburn in 1819, David Thomas performed most valuable services in forwarding the cultivation of fruits. He was a corresponding member of the London Horticultural Society and of the Linnaean Society of Paris. His articles in the _Genesee Farmer_ and other agricultural papers furnish the most authoritative statements we have in regard to the early history of fruit-growing in western New York. The name of David Thomas ought long to be preserved by horticulturists of the State and country together with that of his illustrious son, John Jacob Thomas.

[130] _Mass. Records_ =1=:24.

[131] _Mass. Hist. Collections_ 4th Ser. =VI=:499.

[132] _History of the Mass. Hort. Soc._ 16. 1829-1878.

[133] _Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc._ 17. 1829-1878.

[134] Darlington, Wm. _Memorials of Bartram_ 81. 1849.

[135] _Ibid._ 93. 1849.

[136] _Ibid._ 177. 1849.

[137] John Kenrick, one of the pioneer nurserymen on American soil, began his business career by raising peach-seedlings. His nursery was situated in the towns of Newton and Brighton, Massachusetts, and was founded in 1790. As we have stated in the text, he early acquired the art of budding and possibly was the first, or at least one of the first, nurserymen to offer budded peach-trees for sale. In 1823, he advertised in the _New England Farmer_ thirty varieties of budded peaches five to eight feet high at thirty-three and one-third cents each. These thirty varieties must have included practically all of the named sorts then grown in America. It is interesting to note that he states in the advertisement that the trees were packed with clay and mats. It was in this year that William Kenrick, son of John Kenrick, became a partner of his father. Beside growing peaches, the Kenrick nurseries offered for sale other trees, vine and bush-fruits and ornamentals as well. The Kenricks were also extensive growers of currants from which they made currant-wine, their output in 1824 being 1700 gallons; in 1825, 3000 gallons and in 1826, 3600 gallons. The date and place of John Kenrick's birth cannot be learned. His death occurred in 1833 in the Kenrick mansion, built in 1720, standing near the nurseries. New England, and peach-growers everywhere, owe him a debt of gratitude for his services in horticulture.

[138] William Kenrick, son of John, of whom we have just written, was born in 1795 in the family mansion on Nonantum Hill in the town of Newton, Massachusetts. He was trained by his father as a nurseryman and in 1823 became a partner in the Kenrick nurseries, of which he soon after appears to have assumed control. The Kenrick nurseries, at this time, were probably the most extensive and the best known of any in New England. Besides growing the fruit-bearing plants of the time and such ornamentals as were then to be found in America, the Kenricks seem to have taken an enthusiastic part in the craze for the Lombardy Poplar which was then raging in America. The elder Kenrick must have been one of the early growers of this popular plant for in 1797 two acres of his nursery was appropriated to the Lombardy Poplar. The son, in his turn an enthusiast, succumbed to the silk-culture fad and seems in 1835 to have been one of the leading growers of the mulberry, _Morus multicaulus_ for feeding silkworms. In this year Mr. Kenrick published the _American Silk Growers Guide_, which is, in essence, a treatise on mulberry-culture. William Kenrick's most notable pomological achievement, however, was the publication of the _New American Orchardist_ which appeared in 1833. While not the best of the pomological manuals of the time, it is a valuable contribution to American pomology because of its full descriptions of the fruits of that date. Beginning with his father in 1823, William Kenrick continued in the nursery business for twenty-seven years, probably growing, importing and disposing of more fruit and ornamental trees than any other nurseryman in New England during this time. He died in February, 1872, at the ripe age of 77, having lived to see the orchards planted from his nursery come to full fruition and every part of New England made more beautiful by the ornamental trees and shrubs grown under his care.

[139] _Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc._ 33. 1880.

[140] Willich _Dom. Enc_. =4=:244-246. 1803.

[141] _Am. Farmer_ =1=:406, 407. 1821.

[142] Parkinson _A Tour in America_ =1=:212-219. 1805.

[143] An interesting account of peach-culture in Egypt is to be found in _Agr'l Jour. of Egypt_ 3:=Pt. 2=:134-137. 1914.

[144] _A Voyage to Virginia_ Force's Hist. Tracts 3: =No. 5=:10.

[145] _U. S. D. A. Invent. of Seeds and Plants_ =No. 32=:14. 1914.

[146] _Transvaal Agr. Journal_ =No. 10, 3=:336. 1905.

[147] Darwin, Charles _Voy. of a Nat._ =1=:154.

[148] Bertero, _Ann. Sc. Nat._ 2=1=:350.

[149] Oakenfull, J. C. _Brazil_ 358. 1913.

[150] Wight, W. F. _Proc. Soc. Hort. Sci._ =10=:122-133, 1913.

[151] _Agr. Journal of the Cape of Good Hope_ No. 2, =27=:197. 1905.

[152] Boucher, W. A. _Con. New Zeal. Fruit Growers_ 89. 1901.

[153] _U. S. D. A. Bur. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =137=:31. 1909.

[154] _Ibid._ =137=:48. 1909.

[155] _Ibid._

[156] _U. S. D. A. Bur. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =162=:50. 1909.

[157] _U. S. D. A. Invent. of Seeds and Plants_ =No. 32=:14. 1914.

[158] _U. S. D. A. Bul. of For. Plant Int._ =No. 60=:411. 1911.

[159] _Ibid._ =No. 60=:412. 1911.

[160] _U. S. D. A. Bur. of For. Plant Int._ =No. 60=:431. 1911.

[161] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =No. 113=:920. 1911.

[162] _Ibid._ =No. 114=:929. 1911.

[163] Wickson, E. J. _Cal. Fruits_ 308. 1889.

[164] Gregory, C. T. _Cornell Bul._ =365=:219-220. 1915.

[165] _Trait. Arb. Fr._ 35. 1807.

[166] Darwin _Ans. and Pls. Domest._ 2nd Ed. =2=:217. 1893.

[167] Hedrick, U. P. _Science_ =37=:917. 1913.

[168] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ No. =106=:858. 1915.

[169] _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =3=:1. 1820; =4=:396. 1822.

[170] See Duhamel _Traite Arb._ Ed. 2, IV: 112. 1809; Seringe in DC. _Prodr._ II: 531. 1825; Reichenback _Fl. Ger. Exc._ 647. 1830-32.

[171] De Candolle _Or. Cult. Plants_, 225. 1885.

[172] _Commentaries_ on _Dioscorides_, French Ed. of 1572. 159-160.

[173] Parkinson _Par. Ter._ 582, 583. 1629.

"I presume that the name _Nucipersica_ doth most rightly belong unto that kinde of Peach, which we call Nectorins, and although they have beene with us not many yeares, yet have they beene knowne both in Italy to Matthiolus, and others before him, who it seemeth knew no other then the yellow Nectorin, as Dalechampius also: But we at this day doe know five severall sorts of Nectorins, as they shall be presently set downe; and as in the former fruits, so in this, I will give you the description of one, and briefe notes of the rest.

The Nectorin is a tree of no great bignesse, most usually lesser then the Peach tree, his body and elder boughes being whitish, the younger branches very red, whereon grow narrow long greene leaves, so like unto Peach leaves, that none can well distinguish them, unlesse it be in this, that they are somewhat lesser: the blossomes are all reddish, as the Peach, but one of a differing fashion from all the other, as I shall shew you by and by: the fruit that followeth is smaller, rounder, and smoother than Peaches, without any cleft on the side, and without any douny cotton or freeze at all; and herein is like unto the outer greene rinde of the Wallnut, whereof as I am perswaded it tooke the name, of a fast and firme meate, and very delicate in taste, especially the best kindes, with a rugged stone within it, and a bitter kernell.

The Muske Nectorin, so called, because it being a kinde of the best red Nectorins, both smelleth and eateth as if the fruit were steeped in Muske: some thinke that this and the next Romane Nectorin are all one.

The Romane red Nectorin, or cluster Nectorin, hath a large or great purplish blossome, like unto a Peach, reddish at the bottome on the outside, and greenish within: the fruit is of a fine red colour on the outside, and groweth in clusters, two or three at a joynt together, of an excellent good taste.

The bastard red Nectorin hath a smaller or pincking blossome, more like threads then leaves, neither so large nor open as the former, and yellowish within at the bottome: the fruit is red on the outside, and groweth never but one at a joynt; it is a good fruit, but eateth a little more rawish then the other, even when it is full ripe.

The yellow Nectorin is of two sorts, the one an excellent fruit, mellow, and of a very good rellish; the other hard, and no way comparable to it.

The greene Nectorin, great and small; for such I have seene abiding constant, although both planted in one ground: they are both of one goodnesse, and accounted with most to be the best rellished Nectorin of all others.

The white Nectorin is said to bee differing from the other, in that it will bee more white on the outside when it is ripe, then either the yellow or greene: but I have not yet seene it.

The Use of Nectorins.

The fruit is more firme then the Peach, and more delectable in taste; and is therefore of more esteeme, and that worthily."

[174] Darwin _Ans. and Pls. Domest._ 2nd Ed. =1=:357-365. 1893.

[175] Bretschneider E. _Bot. Explor. in China_ =2=:860. 1898.

[176] _Gard. and For._ =1=:153. 1888.

[177] Bretschneider E. _Bot. Explor. in China_ =2=:860. 1898.

[178] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ No. =115=:940. 1915

[179] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ No. =72=:516. 1912.

[180] _Prunus Davidiana alba_ Bean _Garden_ =50=:165. 1896; _Persica Davidiana alba_ Carrière _Rev. Hort._ 76. 1872; _Prunus Davidiana flore alba_ Wittmack Gartenfl. =44=:129. 1895.

[181] _Jour. Agr. Research_ =1=:147-177. 1913.

[182] _U. S. D. A. Seeds and Plants Imported_ Invent. =13=:173. 1908.

[183] _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =3=:380-387. 1820.

[184] _Ibid._ =5=:525-560. 1824.

[185] For a brief history of the life and pomological work of Gilbert Onderdonk, the reader is referred to _The Plums of New York_, page 392.

[186] _U. S. D. A. Rpt._ 648-651. 1887.

[187] _Tex. Sta. Bul_. =39=:826-832. 1896.

[188] _Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt._ 110. 1887.

[189] Waugh, F. A. _Systematic Pomology_, 178. 1903.

[190] Hume H. Harold _Fla. Sta. Bul._ =62=: 1902.

[191] Gould, H. P. _Md. Sta. Bul._ =72=:129. 1901.

[192] Wright, Charles _Cyc. of Am. Hort._ =3=:1240. 1900.

[193] Gould, H. P. _Md. Sta. Bul._ =72=:130. 1901.

[194] Shallcross, J. T. _Md. Hort. Soc. Rpt._ =1=:17. 1898.

[195] Wright, Charles _Cyc. of Am. Hort._ =3=:1238. 1900.

[196] _Am. Farmer_ July, 1878.

[197] Rutter _Cult. & Diseases of the Peach_ 81, 82. 1880.

[198] _New England Farmer_ =7=:174.

[199] _Mag. Hort_. =5=:12.

[200] _Ohio Hort. Soc. Rpt._ 61. 1869.

[201] _Jour. Lond. Hort. Soc._ 221. 1846; l. c. 265. 1852.

[202] _Mag. Hort._ 475. 1851.

[203] _Horticulturalist_ 286, 472. 1853.

[204] _Horticulturist_ =1=:382. 1847.

[205] _Rev. Hort._ 11. 1861.

[206] _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =4=:512-513. 1822.

[207] Prince, Wm. _Treat. on Hort._ 16. 1828.

William Prince, second of the name in American pomology and third proprietor of the celebrated Prince nurseries at Flushing, Long Island, was born November 10, 1766, and died April 9, 1842. His grandfather, a French Huguenot, was the founder of the establishment of which he became owner, and in which he made his reputation. Under his father, the first William Prince, the nursery at Flushing developed into a great commercial nursery, a private experiment station, a testing ground for American and foreign fruits and a botanic garden of American plants. The mantle dropped by William Prince, the father, at his death in 1802, fell upon the shoulders of William Prince, subject of this sketch, then just reaching the prime of life and one of the most brilliant and versatile pomologists the country has known. William Prince continued most successfully the work of his father in breeding new varieties, domesticating native plants and importing foreign fruits and ornamentals. During his supervision the Prince Nursery reached the height of its fame. It was conducted less for money than for love of the work. An attempt was made to grow every American and European plant-species having horticultural value. The catalogs published from the nursery by William Prince are among the best horticultural and botanical contributions of the first half of the Nineteenth Century. Besides these, William Prince is the author of the _Treatise on Horticulture_, published in 1828, and gave assistance to his son, William Robert Prince, in preparing his _Pomological Manual_ published in 1832. In the description of varieties in this text it will be found that many varieties of peaches were originated, introduced, imported or first described by William Prince.

[208] For a brief history of the life and horticultural activities of Prosper Julius A. Berckmans, the reader is referred to _The Plums of New York_, page 159.

PEACH-PRODUCTS

The magnitude of the peach-industry in the United States is better appreciated if figures showing values are given. The value of peaches and nectarines in 1909, for the United States, was $28,781,078, an amount surpassed by only one other fruit, the apple. The highest value for a geographical division is reported for the East North-Central States, the amount being $5,173,000, followed by the South Atlantic States with $4,888,000 and the Pacific States with $4,887,000. Of individual states, California with her enormous area, over most of which the peach thrives, ranks first, the value of the crop in 1909 reaching $4,574,000; the next most important State is Georgia, $2,183,000; the third, New York, $2,014,000; these followed in order of value by Michigan, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina, each with a crop of more than $1,000,000 in value.

The peach has greater commercial value in the United States than all other stone-fruits combined, the value of the crop in 1909, as we have seen, amounting to $28,781,078 while the value of the plum was $10,299,495; of the cherry, $7,231,160; of the apricot, $2,884,119; of the almond, $712,000. The consumption of peaches is increasing year by year. Until recently the peach has been considered a fruit of luxury, but large plantations, good care, quick and safe transportation and wide distribution now provide peaches for all who can afford to eat fruit.

The profits of peach-growing are occasionally so enormous that the publication of the figures is usually followed by excessive planting, with consequent over-production and low prices, followed, in turn, by scarcity and high prices. So, too, the peach is more at the mercy of the seasons than any other standard tree-fruit and winter freezes and spring frosts ruin crops in some part of the country every year and often such disasters are widespread. These ups and downs, however, instead of decreasing, seem to stimulate the peach-trade, probably, on the part of the grower, because gambling is a universal vice; on the part of the consumer, because he better appreciates peaches when the blessing is occasionally withdrawn.

Previous Next

Comments

The peaches of New YorkChapter III: Commercial Peach-Growing in America (1)

0%36 min left in chapter