PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 291 



US. A man will grow rich in giving. So, I say, the first essential thing is 

 the man. The man must be right first, before he can make a success, or 

 a very great success, of fruit-growing in the future. 



Then, of course, the next thing is the location. There are a great many 

 more acres of suitable peach land in America than you and I ever 

 dreamed of. Do not get the idea that the area that is susceptible to 

 proper peach development is rare. There are thousands and thousands 

 of acres that a few years ago we never thought of being suitable for peach 

 growing. Ordinarily there is no necessity of going into this question of 

 the soil and location for peaches ; but for the best development of a great 

 variety, a good, sandy, loamy soil is best. As I said yesterday, there 

 are a few varieties of the Crawford type that a dry loam or a stiff clay 

 suit better. Elevated lands, lands where there is good drainage, are 

 essential, but it is not necessary to have a very great elevation; but if 

 there is an abrupt elevation, where the frost may run off, as well as water^ 

 it is desirable. When you are looking for a good peach orchard, look for 

 a place where the water and frost can run off — open drainage for the 

 frost, if possible, but it is not absolutely essential, because frost is freaky. 



As Brother Craig has gone, perhaps I can criticise the figures he gave 

 us as to the hardiness of the fruit buds. There is no reliability to be 

 placed upon a single year's test of that. 



As to varieties of land, I remember a little case in one of my own or- 

 chards a few years ago. Our Connecticut farms are rolling lands, and 

 we have to pick out five, ten, or twenty acres where we can get them,^ 

 and put them into peach trees. Now, before this time I believed that 

 elevated lands and northern slopes were best, but there came howling 

 northwest weather, twenty degrees below zero, for two days, the wind 

 blowing strong; and at that time, blowing as it did from the northwest 

 so strongly, it seemed to me that the live buds would not be found there, 

 that the north side would be the one to suffer. That was the proper 

 condition, according to theory. As a matter of fact, one orchard on a 

 level plain that had the sweep of that northwest wind, had a good crop- 

 of fruit on the outside rows on the north side, and it kept growing less 

 until we got to the south end of the rows, where there was not any fruit 

 at all. Now, that proved one thing. If I had had only that orchard, I 

 would have believed it; but I came back up home, three miles distant, 

 but with the same open sweep and the same valley, and the north side 

 did not bear, and away down under the hill, where it was protected from 

 the wind, we had a full crop. If I had had but one orchard I would have 

 known a heap about how the frost treated that; but as I had two of them 

 working in a directly opposite way, I did not know anything more at out 

 it than you do now. So there are local conditions that will creep in all 

 the time, and we can not lay down any rule as to the absolute hardiness of 

 varieties, one compared with the other. 



Professor Craig had in his list that he gave you today, the last I think 

 it was, Alexander, Hale's Early, and one or two of those peaches that 

 are in most sections of the country among our most hardy kinds; but in; 

 His first list he had Oldmixon and some others which are somewhat more 

 tender the country over. So we can not lay down any rule as to just the 

 soil in which to plant and just what the location shall be; but, generally 



