218 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



then is to select the exposure which, everything else being equal, has given 

 best results for a term of years. 



THE SOIL AND ITS PEEPARATION. 



The location and exposure have so much to do with the successor failure 

 of a peach orehard that they are considered here, before the matter of soil 

 is taken up. This seems to be eminently proper, as, while a variety of soils 

 will give good results, peaches can not be grown with success unless they 

 have a suitable location. It is often said that any good corn or potato soil 

 will do for peaches, but while this may be true it is well to be more explicit. 

 The ideal soil for peaches is a well drained, rich, sandy loam. Not only 

 is it as well or better adapted to the growth of the tree than any other, but 

 they are more sure to bear, will ripen earlier, and the fruit is larger, of bet- 

 ter quality, and superior in flavor to those grown on a clay, or clay loam. 



Peaches are very susceptible to the presence of water at their roots, and 

 unless the land has thorough natural drainage it should be freed of its 

 surplus water by means of tile drains. The fact that heavy soils are likely 

 to be somewhat wet, owing to their having an impervious hard-pan, is 

 another reason in addition to those above given, why peaches are prefera- 

 bly grown on a light soil. If well drained and at a suitable elevation, good 

 results can, however, be obtained on a clay soil. 



While a location where the land is in sod can be selected and the trees 

 set the same season, it is better to give at least one year to preparation, 

 using the land for some hoed crop. If it can be secured, a clover sod 

 turned under in the fall is excellent for an orchard, or for any fruit crop. 

 On light soils, where the sod is thin, it can be brought into fair condition 

 for the trees if plowed the fall previous to planting. Before the trtses are 

 set it will be well to replow, although a thorough dragging will answer. 



Except in very favorable locations, it is hardly safe to set peaches on 

 new land where there is much vegetable matter in the soil, as it is likely to 

 cause a rank and late growth, which is likely to be winter-killed. After 

 one or two crops have been taken off from the land, the trees can be safely 

 planted. Another reason for delay is that the soil is so light, owing to 

 the presence of the partially decayed roots and leaves, that unless care is 

 taken to obtain clear loam to pack around the roots, the trees are likely 

 to dry out. The leaves and other litter, however, are excellent to place 

 around the trees, upon the surface, as mulch. 



METHODS AND DISTANCES FOR PLANTING. 



When only a few trees are to be set, the holes can be dug with a spade, 

 but for a large orchard, labor can be saved if two furrows are run so as to 

 open up all of the rows in both directions. This will allow the trees to be set 

 at the intersections of the rows, without the labor of digging the holes 

 by hand. The trees may be planted at various distances and be arranged in 

 several ways. When planted in squares, some growers place the trees as 

 close as sixteen feet each way; very few plant at less than eighteen feet, 

 however, and a majority are now setting their orchard3 with trees at least 

 twenty feet apart, requiring about one hundred and nine trees per acre. 



In some localities it is a common practice to plant in rectangles with the 

 trees from twenty by eighteen and twenty by sixteen feet to twenty by 

 fifteen, or as near as eighteen by twelve feet. At the last distance, the 



