292 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



speaking, good loamy soil and an elevated one, with good water and frost 

 drainage, is best. 



As to preparation of the soil, the peach wants just as good soil prepara- 

 tion as any other crop. The success of any business in soil culture 

 depends largely upon the thoroughness of the preparation of the soil. 

 Too many of us, in the hurry to get in our trees or plants, think that 

 shallow or careless plowing, or even the planting of some grain crop, 

 W'ill answer. It will answer, but it is not best. If the ground is ever to 

 be thoroughly plowed and thoroughly prepared, that time is just before 

 the tree goes in. If there is the least bit of shade of hardness in the sub- 

 soil, it will pay to subsoil the land, and it pays at least to plow it deeply 

 and well. 



As to how to plant the trees, how far apart, that is a local question 

 largely. How much land do you own? What is your ambition? Is 

 your ambition to get the jnost beautiful fruit, the most perfect specimens 

 of peaches, regardless of quantity ; or is it to get the greatest quantity you 

 can from a given area? How are you going to prune, and how are you 

 going to do a great many other things? And, as I said, what is your 

 acreage, large or small? As to how you shall plant, some will say 15 

 feet apart, some will say 18, some 20, some 25, some 30, and I know a 

 "crank" by the name of Hale who says 13. That depends upon condi- 

 tions. In my orchard in Georgia, of 100,000 trees and 50,000 more going 

 in this winter, the trees are all 13 feet apart. My Connecticut orchards, 

 some of them, are 12, some in the original planting were 16 to 18, but 

 they vary. It depends upon the man, and it depends upon the acreage 

 that you have. Just how we get at that w^ill come in the question of 

 pruning and other questions. 



Then the question of marketing, it seems to me, ought to be considered 

 before you plant; and yet, with the railway lines and the ease of shipment 

 to distant points, if you are on a line of railway, it does not matter what 

 your market may be, except if you are going to supply the loral market 

 and nearly all your fruit is going into one near-by market, where you 

 can stay and make a name and reputation, and get close to the consumer, 

 then a greater variety, beginning with the early and extending through 

 to the very latest varieties has to be planted. If, on the other hand, you 

 are a double-headed monster and trying to do general farming and two 

 or three other kinds of business as well, you would better concentrate 

 your fruit on one or two varieties that you can gather all in two or three 

 weeks and ship it off in carload lots to distant points. All those things 

 have to be worked out by the man, and the markets must also be worked 

 up by the man. 



You have great fame down here in Kalamazoo — a great celery town, 

 known the world over. I have traveled through there on the line of the 

 road, perhaps as often as some of you who live a hundred miles away. 

 I have tried to hammer into those boys who sell at the trains a great 

 bunch of celery, 16 or 18 heads in it, for five cents, that it is all nonsense. 

 If they would put a quarter of a cent's worth of salt with it they could 

 get ten cents and make a hundred per cent, profit over what they do now. 

 Thc-y flood the trains every day, all through the fall, with superb celery, 

 and an abundance of it, at a nickel per bunch, and they could sell more 

 of it at a time if they put a quarter of a cent's worth of salt and brains 



