Winter Meeting. 299 



is set very thick on the limbs it should be thinned, leaving specimens 

 from 4 to 6 inches apart. I made a few tests this season. We 

 thinned our first when they were small and tender, with good re- 

 sults ; those thinned 20 days later paid for the work, but not with 

 as much success. Then later I tried an experiment with some trees 

 where the seeds were getting rather hard, with but little success. 

 Later on I thinned one tree within about two or three weeks of 

 ripening and took off 1,515 peaches, but I do not believe it paid for 

 the work. I believe in thinning early. 



As to cultivation, I had one orchard of about 1,400 trees that 

 was cultivated thoroughly. We worked it 14 times. In some places 

 there was a dust mulch of from 1 to 2 inches. It did not trouble 

 me much how many peaches the teams rubbed off, as the trees 

 were needing more moisture and less peaches; yet they had been 

 thinned. There was a neighbor across the road who said I was 

 foolish for thinning and wasting my peaches. I put my teams to 

 help cultivate his orchard, and he stopped them; said they were 

 dragging off too many peaches with teams, yet he had 1,500 trees. 

 He did not thin them, neither did he work them much. This being 

 the case, when the harvest came he clearly saw his mistake, for his 

 peaches were small and unsalable. But I had peaches that most 

 everyone liked, and I made good money and sold at much advanced 

 prices over other people who did not thin or cultivate. 



I remember going into a town with about 56 bushels of peaches 

 that I had hauled 28 miles over very rough roads. I arrived at 

 1 :30 p. m. on Saturday. I asked a party what he thought of the 

 market for peaches. He said he had lots of peaches at home that 

 he could not find any market for worth fooling with. I asked him 

 if he would help me sell on commission. He said no, but would 

 work for wages. I told him as I was a stranger in the town I 

 would hire him. So I drove on the street under the shade of a 

 big tree and began to give away from 1 to 3 peaches to everyone 

 that came near, white or black, and in five and one-half hours I 

 had sold my entire load for $53.00. So I sold four loads mostly 

 under the shade of that one tree for $207.00. Why did I sell them 

 when others could not? Because I made four gatherings of each 

 variety and graded each gathering into six grades, extra large 

 soft, No. 1 soft, No. 2 soft; extra large hard. No. 1 hard. No. 2 

 hard, and packed them in one-third bushel crates and had crates 

 marked with grade on end of crates, and had each priced accord- 

 ingly, so we could furnish the most exacting customer. 



