140 State Horticultural Society. 



Mr. Johnson — These remarks show the proper spirit. No man 

 is smart enough to know it all. By comparing experiments and by 

 practical work in the orchard, these questions can be determined. 

 It's very difficult to butt up against the practical experience of a 

 practical man in his own orchard. The critical time for spraying 

 is in the spring — about a ten-days' limit — and with a two to four 

 thousand pounds haul, in a wagon, the conditions are against you. 

 If you can remove this adverse condition, it is a step in the right 

 direction. Now, a dust outfit only weighs 180 pounds. This alone 

 removes many obstacles and puts the balance on the right side of 

 the ledger. 



PEACH GROWING ON MISSOURI RIVER HILLS. 



(L. v. Dlx, Jefferson Oity, Mo.) 



My experience in growing peaches during the last fifteen years 

 has taught me that there are several features about it that are 

 very essential to make it a success. Among these are location, soil, 

 varieties and cultivation. 



While you may plant in most any kind of location and any 

 kind of varieties, giving no culti\ation, and occasionally, when the 

 seasons are most favorable, get a light crop of inferior fruit, 

 such peach growing is not satisfactory in any manner whatever; 

 on the other hand, if we want to make a success of it, we must first 

 have a choice location and the right soil, for this means more to 

 the peach than any other of our orchard fruits grown. An ideal 

 one is a high elevation of land, as nearly level as possible, and 

 partly, or nearly, surrounded by valleys or deep ravines. Such 

 a location is less liable to frosts. The soil should be a good, sandy 

 loam, with red clay subsoil, and one that will produce from fifty 

 to seventy-five bushels of corn per acre, and as near like new 

 land as can be had. A piece of land that has been cleared of its 

 timber and kept in pasture until the greater part of the stumps 

 are partly or all decayed, is one of the best. 



It is useless to plant in old, wornout clay fields, no matter if 

 they have been made to produce good crops of grain by manuring. 

 Trees on such soil will be short-lived and not productive. 



My first impression was that the first and second ranges of 

 hills south of the Missouri river were of the very best locations 

 that could be had for peaches, but experience taught me that the 

 soil in these two ranges of hills would not produce as fine fruit, 

 nor of as good keeping qualities as the next ranges back. 



