106 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



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growth in trees. Begin the last of April or the first of May and stop 

 the first or the middle of August. We cultivate usually about twice 

 a week. Then we have a disk — an ordinary straight frame disk with 

 an extension top — so that in driving cornerwise through the orchard 

 it just fills the row and throws the dirt to the trees and reversing the 

 disk, draws it from them. In this way you can cultivate an orchard 

 that is trimmed low. Our orchard is trimmed low. (You noticed in the 

 photo that was shown you yesterday that this is so.) We go over about 

 eighteen feet. The horses walk in the middle of the row and in this way 

 no peaches are knocked off. One team will go over twenty or thirty 

 acres a day. 



In such seasons as last year when it was so dry, we harrowed every 

 other day, every foot of ground, and we did not suffer any from drouth. 

 Moisture was everywhere to be seen. 



Then there is the trimming. It is not necessary to say much about 

 trimming young trees. Just cut them off two feet above the ground. 

 If the shoots are thrifty, we leave one or two limbs with one or two 

 buds on. Do not cut too close to the tree or you may destroy the 

 bud close to the limb. 



Later on, in the trimming of the tree, form a well balanced head 

 with three to five strong leaders, and up to the growth trim symmetrical, 

 then when they get older you can do some trimming. We have a 10- 

 acre block of trees, twenty-three years old and we pick one-third of 

 these right from the ground and every peach can be picked from a 

 fourfoot ladder and not do any reaching. The balance of our bearing 

 orchard is 16 years of age, and they are all the same size. 



As to location we have a block of twenty-three year old trees that 

 stand on the highest part of our farm and have borne continuous crops 

 since they were four years old or nineteen consecutive crops, that has 

 made possible by leaf trimming for one thing and giving it plenty of 

 growing wood, so that no tree is allowed to overbear. The main thing 

 is not to allow the trees to become sappy or have a spongy growth. 

 Even there was a fair crop of peaches on these trees. 



As to varieties, I would not want you to have any of the varieties 

 that I have. Twenty-three years ago, we did not have the same ideas 

 of what was the right peach to raise or sixteen years ago. The forty- 

 acre block is set with our yellow peaches. AVe like the New Prolific 

 pretty well, Kalamazoo and Elberta. We have quite a lot of Gold Drop 

 peaches. They made us as much money as any trees we had in the 

 orchard. We have Gold-Drop trees that have yielded us nine or ten 

 bushels, and one year they sold at $1.75 per bushel, — that is at the 

 rate of about fifteen hundred dollars an acre, — and that compares 

 very favorable, I think with the Westers stories that come to us. The 

 Gold-Drop is good if not taken too far north. Perhaps the Elberta 

 is King of them all. 



Well, I don't know but I have told you all I know on this subject 

 of peach growing, and it can be emphasized and summarized in the 

 three points, first, we want the right man in order to make a success of 

 the business, and we want to get varieties that the public demand, lastly 

 a suitable location, and then there is no question but what any man 

 will certainly succeed as a peach grower in Michigan. 



