126 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MY METHOD OF GROWING PEACHES. 



(OSCAU W. BRA MAN, GRAND RAPIDS.) 



The time is at hand when it is no longer possible to grow fruit with 

 success ^^dthout giving- it onr best attention. This is particularly true 

 of the i>each. 



The apple has been exalted to its rightful position as "King of all 

 fruits," which jiosition none would dare take from ; along side by side 

 the apple, wherever you travel up and down this l)road land of ours, 

 east or west, north and south, we find King Apples hel]> mate, his blush- 

 ing bride, the delicate yet beautiful luscious j)eacli, fulfilling her mission 

 in the horticultural world of providing for her growers the necessities 

 and luxuries^ of life and gladdening the hearts of every home of which 

 she is a guest in our cities. 



Therefore let us study her Avants and, needs, let us give her all the pro- 

 tection she requires, let us study her habits of life, let us diagnose her 

 disease so that we may be better able to nourish and protect her, thus 

 enable her to return to her husbandmen the best she has in store for 

 those who care for her. 



My- methods of caring for the peach are along six different distinct 

 lines. They are as follows: Location, Pruning, Spraying, Tillage, Fer- 

 tilization, Thining, Control of Contagious Disease. Let me say right 

 here, that entire success cannot be secured if any one of them are neglect- 

 ed or overloolved. 



LOCATION OP ORCHARD. 



The ideal location must be a high elevation of gradual slope either 

 west, north, or east, rolling enough to allow the Avater to. run off and yet 

 sufficiently level to avoid washing of the soil, as I Avant to keep this 

 orchard well cultivated and Avell fed. 



I like a soil varying from a sandy to a clay loam, underlaid with an 

 open red clay subsoil. Such soil usually has been covered Avith Avliite 

 oak and a sprinkling of hickory timber. 



PRUNING. 



In pruning the young peach orchard start right. ' GroAV the trees with 

 low heads. Porim the head with from three to fiA^e branches from tAventy- 

 four to thirty-six inches, usually about thirty inches angle. Care should 

 be taken that no crotches are formed when shaping young trees. 



For the first three or four years the pruning should consist in keep- 

 ing the head fairly o])en and in a symmetrical form, cutting back the 

 branches that are making too strong a groAvth. When the trees are ready 

 to bear, the heads should be thinned out so as to admit the sunshine and 

 proAade a free circulation of air: this helping the fruit to color and 

 lessening the injury from fungus diseases. All limbs that are likely 

 to cross or rub against each other should be cut out. If this rule is ad- 

 hered to annually, it will lessen very much severe pruning in after years. 



