260 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. ; 



THE PEACH. 



ROLAND MORRILL, BENTON HARBOR. 



LOCATING AND PLANTING THE ORCHARD. 



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OP PEACH CULTURE. 



Mr. J. H. Hale of Connecticut, an authority on peach growing, has laid 

 down ten basic principles for success in peach culture. He calls them 

 the "Ten Commandments of Peach Culture." They are so good and to 

 the point that I will read them. He says, "On these ten commandments 

 hang most of the law and all of the profits:"- 



(1) High, dry, sandy or sand-loam soil. 



(2) Careful selection of varieties most hardy in fruit bud. 



(3) Vigorous, healthy seedling stocks, budded from bearing trees of 

 undoubted purity and health. 



(4) Trees given entire possession of the land from the start. 



(5) Thorough culture from the opening of spring till the new growth is 

 well along. 



(6) Liberal annual manuring, broadcast, with commercial manures rich 

 in potash and phosphoric acid and lacking in nitrogen. 



(7) Low heading and close annual pruning for the first five years. 



(8) Keep out most borers with some suitable wash and dig out all 

 others. 



(9) Search for traces of the yellows every week of the growing season, 

 and, at first sign, pull up and bum every infested tree. 



(10) Thin the fruit so that there shall never be what is termed a full 

 crop. 



These commandments are so good that I have preserved them, and on 

 them I shall talk, because they are so close to my ideas. 



The question of climate is hardly worth discussing; it is what it is and 

 we cannot change it. But we have a great variety of soils, and, on the 

 lake shore particularly, some well adapted to peach culture, and some 

 not so well adapted. Therefore, the question of soils is well for us to 

 understand. We have soils ranging from heavy, damp clay, to a fine 

 drifting sand with very little fertility in it. I think either extreme is 

 undesirable, although I would rather go to the very light, poor soil, and 

 build it up with fertilizers than to take clay. Some dry clays do well, 

 but the clays that need underdrainage have not succeeded anywhere 

 nearly so well as those with a thoroughly natural undrained subsoil. 

 It is noticeable that trees grow well on such land, but they do not seem 

 to have the vitality. They become dark and gummy, and blackened, and 

 have dead wood in the center very young. The fruit never seems to obtain 

 proper development, and in cold seasons it often becomes almost an 

 entire failure, judging from a market standpoint. Still there are a great 



