1884.] PEACH EXPERIENCES. 19 



Mr. Gold. I would ask Mr. Augur to be a little more 

 explicit in describing the location of his last peach orchard. 



Mr. Augur. I will do so. Our eighth orchard, which con- 

 tains about 1,800 trees, is on the summit of one of the high- 

 est hills in the State, except some of the hills in Litchfield 

 County. Perhaps I would make an exception of Cream Hill 

 and some others, but we are three miles from the Connecti- 

 cut River, and 625 feet above the river. From the location 

 of that orchard, we see the cupola of the State House in 

 Hartford ; we see Mt. Tom and Mt. Holyoke in Massachu- 

 setts ; we have the full blast of the air from the Adirondacks. 

 The orchard has a northern exposure, a portion of it a little 

 to the northwest and another portion a little to the northeast. 

 But our reason for planting on this high land was to escape 

 the late frosts in spring and the early frosts in autumn, and 

 also to secure a more uniform temperature winters — in such as 

 this, — when we have warm weather in December or January. 

 The last orchard which we planted, which is a year younger 

 than the last mentioned, is on a hill not quite as high, which 

 has an eastern slope. There we have about 225 trees. That 

 land is better. The other orchard is on land worth about $34 

 an acre. It cost us that ; in some parts of the State it would 

 not have cost more than $10 an acre. In fact, I have seen 

 land which has been bought for planting peach trees, and 

 which probably will be planted next spring, at |10 an acre, 

 which is really better than ours ; but as we are nearer to the 

 markets, the land is proportionally higher. But it is not 

 remarkably good land. It is land that, on the whole, is a lit- 

 tle below the average, and still we find it answers a very nice 

 purpose for peaches. The land upon which the other orchard 

 is situated is worth, I presume, a hundred dollars an acre. I 

 would not by any means object to pretty good land for 

 peaches, if it lay right. I am having a little more of that 

 feeling than I did. I don't believe we can raise fruit, or any- 

 thing else, out of nothing. If the land is naturally poor we 

 make it good enough to produce what we want. 



Mr. D. K. Croffut of Derby. I would like to know if Mr. 



