EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 217 



are favorable, it will sink to the lowest possible level. A slope of a few 

 feet, down to a little pocket-like depression, will be of but little value as 

 this will soon fill with cold air. What is needed is a depression of consider- 

 able breadth or depth, or, if it is only a narrow valley, it should lead into 

 another one into which the cold air can have uninterrupted flow. For 

 this reason it is always desirable to have a stream, even though it be but a 

 small one, flowing through the lower ground. Judge Eamsdell of Trav- 

 erse City, in " Michigan and its Resources," mentions a well authenticated 

 case where a difference in temperature of eleven degrees was noticed in four- 

 teen feet elevation, where the lower level was in the form of a pocket, but 

 on his own farm he notes one instance of a difference of ten degrees in one 

 hundred feet elevation, where there was a gradual slope towards Traverse 

 bay. As he well says, "A hundred feet elevation, with open air drainage 

 to lower levels, may determine the difference between a crop of fruit and a 

 ruined orchard; and in enclosed valleys, or basins, twenty feet may do the 

 same." The truth of this can be seen when it is understood that peach 

 buds will withstand a temperature twelve or fifteen degrees below zero, 

 while the trees are often killed at twenty-five degrees below. As a rule a 

 hillside is preferable to a hilltop, as a location for a peach orchard, espe- 

 cially if the latter is of considerable extent, and level, both on account of 

 the better air drainage, and because the trees will be less exposed in severe 

 wind storms. 



Regarding the best exposure for a peach orchard, it is not possible to 

 offer any set rule, as the seasons and the locations vary to such an extent 

 that it would not apply in all cases, and in all seasons. In one year a north 

 slope will give better results than one with a westerly exposure, while the 

 next year it may be reversed. The following general statement may, how- 

 ever, aid the prospective planter of a peach orchard. While a westerly slope 

 has its advantages, near lake Michigan, as the influence of the water is more 

 marked on that side than on the other, it has the disadvantage of exposing 

 the trees to the full force of the wind and sleet storms from that direction, 

 which often cause great loss both of trees and fruit. The south slope is 

 seldom advisable, as there the temperature often rises so high in bright 

 days in winter, as to swell the buds, which are then likely to be injured by 

 the first low temperature; moreover, and this is perhaps the more com- 

 mon cause of injury, the buds start earlier in the spring, than on the north 

 slope, and are more likely to be destroyed by spring frosts. Another objec- 

 tion to the southern exposure, and one which also applies to an eastern slope, 

 is that the early morning sun will more quickly thaw out the frozen buds, 

 than it will when the trees are planted on the north or west side of the hill. 

 We can only take the average of the seasons and say that in sections, within 

 ten miles of the lake shore, where there is no intervening elevated land, 

 the first choice seems to be the westerly and the second the northerly expos- 

 ure, followed in order by the slopes to the east and south. In the southern 

 portion of the state, away from the immediate influence of lake Michigan, 

 there seems to be bat little choice between the east and west slopes, but 

 the concensus of opinion among fruitgrowers seems to place them in the 

 above order, except that, for some of the late sorts that barely ripen, 

 the westerly slope is generally chosen. As stated above, the climatic con- 

 ditions of a certain season may make one of the exposures, for the reasons 

 given, by far preferable to either of the others, while the following winter 

 may be so different, that the slope which was least adapted to success the 

 previous year will give best results, and the proper course to pursue 

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