THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 63 



did not dare to recommend to the people, because in Michigan the white 

 peach is not a vahiable peach on the market. 



Mr. Hale: Then you are supplying a low grade market. When you 

 get to a high grade market you will grow white peaches always. 



A Member: I am not saying anything about the quality of the peaches. 

 The Waddell is very good, but, for all that, you cannot in Michigan sell 

 fruit buj^ers a white peach; and all the growers along the lake shore will 

 stand by me in that respect. The Champion is one of the white peaches 

 that sell fairly good, but it has never proved as good a seller as one of the 

 yellow varieties. 



Q. How are these varieties for shipping? I find a white peach is a very 

 poor shipper. 



Mr. Hale: We grow them on a large scale and ship from Georgia all over 

 the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and they are good shippers. 

 The Champion is the poorest of the lot; that is a very thin skinned peach 

 and not a good shipper. The Waddell is preferable to Carman as a shipper; 

 and the Belle of Georgia is fully as good a shipper as Elberta. If I were 

 planting peaches in Michigan this coming spring, I assure you, whether your 

 market wanted white peaches or not, I should plant white peaches more 

 extensively than yellow ones. 



Mr. Hutchins: With reference to soils; I think if there is a state in the 

 Union, so far as my knowledge goes, that has diversities of soils, Michigan 

 is one. In Allegan county, there was one field that was perhaps — oh, in a 

 distance of thirty rods there was a gradation from a heavy clay to a fairly 

 light loam; and a number of varieties of peaches running right across this 

 field; the field was level and the treatment was entirely the same. A big 

 feature of it was that on the one side the peaches set so full they required 

 thinning; as we come to the loam soil the peaches fell off until that which 

 was the most loam had no peaches at all; It seems to me there is a very 

 suggestive point as to the character of soil as it affects hardiness. 



DISCOURAGEMENTS AND SUCCESSES IN PEACH CULTURE IN 



THE MICHIGAN FRUIT BELT. 



(f. m. barden, south haven.) 



Peaches were first grown in Michigan at St. Joseph upon trees that were 

 set about the beginning of the nineteenth century. The peach tree seems 

 to have been necessary to the successful pioneer in this region, as nearly 

 every settler possessed at least one. No attempt was made to grow more, 

 as there was neither access to market, nor a knowledge of the commercial 

 value of the fruit. However, when in 1840, Captain Curtis Boughton began 

 to buy peaches and take them across to Chicago, where he sold many of 

 them at $45 per barrel, the whole country immediately caught the peach 

 fever. Here was the first great success. A crop had been discovered that 

 required simple culture and' gave fabulous returns. An immediate effort 

 was made to improve the quality, and the Crawford type soon superceded 

 the seedlings. The result was an increase in the shipment of choice fruit, 

 from a hundred baskets in 1840, to several thousand in 1855. 



