No. «. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 211 



hoi-licultuial results iudkatc cleai-l.y that oiebardiug is largely a 

 local problem. Hence the successful orcliardist must be an experi- 

 menter in the true sense, and a student of local conditions. 



The Department of Horticulture at State College is already at 

 work experimenting on the fundamentals of apple culture, and is 

 ready to help men in planning, carrying out and interpreting experi- 

 ments bearing on the improvement of the apple industry. 



THE PEACH: HOW TO RAISE AND MARKET. 



Bv l>K. J. H. FrNK, Boy er town. Pa. 



The subject allotted me is one of such vast importance, and so 

 diflicult to handle, that it is with diffidence I stand before this in- 

 telligent audience and give methods of raising and marketing this 

 fruit commercially. Of all our fruits, there are none that are more 

 susceptible to sudden changes, to climatic conditions, to variations 

 of soil, fertilizers, cultural methods, etc., than the peach. 



HISTORY. 



It is only within recent years that the peach has been raised com- 

 mercially outside a prescribed area. It v^as formerly thought that 

 Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey comprised the entire peach belt; 

 but it has gradually widened until there is now scarcely any section 

 throughout the southern, middle and northeastern, as well as the 

 western and southwestern portions of the United States, that can- 

 not, and does not grow this delicious fruit in its highest state of 

 perfection for home use and commercially. In fact, these states, that 

 once held the honor of being the great peach states, produce at the 

 present time a very small proportion of the millions of baskets con- 

 sumed annually in oni- large fities. 



Peaches were raised commercially in the United States more than 

 a century ago. It is quoted in a bulletin issued by one of the states 

 that peach raising in Delaware dated back to 1832, when the first 

 orchard was set in Delaware City. But this is an error, as peaches 

 were raised commercially in Kent county, Delaware, previous to 

 1807. At that earlv date orchards of'fiftv to seventy acres were 

 planted, and the industry was carried on extensively many years 

 previous to this. 



In the Memoirs of the Philadelphia Society of Agriculture, whicli 

 was formed in the year 1785, in Volume I, published in the year 

 1815, on page 188, there is a communication from Richard Peters to 

 Dr. James Mease, Secretary of the Association, giving an ac- 

 count of their methods of raising peaches. From these writings we 

 find these pioneers in peach raising were as far advanced as the 

 majority of the present generation in the raising of peaches and the 

 method of peach culture. 



