641 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



lime iu the slag from wliieli we are getting better development of 

 buds, better foliage tliroiigh the growing season, where we have 

 u.sed basic slag freqiu'iitl v. iluui wlivre we have used any other form 

 of phosphorus, and 1 am salislicd phosphorus, i)otash aiul a moder- 

 ate amount of nilrogen are essential elements of building up good, 

 strong tree growth. ' 



Again, the pruning is an important matter. \'ery close ])runlng 

 at time of planting; in fact, down to a single stalk, a well headed 

 tree with three or nun-e branches to it, no forks, growing it to its 

 full limit the lirst year; after one year's growth a cutting of two- 

 thirds or three-fourths, thinning out of crowding branches first, and 

 then shortening in the others, two-thirds or tliiec-fourtlis the lirst 

 year, and then away she goes. Next year ])ro})er thinning out to 

 make bioad, spreading head, a much less shortening process, one- 

 third to one-half. The third summer, if you have got the healthy 

 tree you should have, and feed and cultuie you should have, you 

 will get an enormous growth, and if you will go in there in your lati- 

 tude, which is similar to ours in Connecticut, about the middle of 

 July or towards the first of August, just as vigorous growth has 

 about ceased, but before growth has ceased entiiely, and cut out all 

 your crowding branches, shorten in the stronger branches — this is 

 done just before the fruit buds begin to form, — you will cause the 

 formation of an enormous amount of fruit buds on those tr^es. 

 That summer pruning is a shocking process, but it is a splendid 

 process to bring a peach orchard into bearing when it is able to bear. 

 Some of my scientific friends tell me that sunrmer })runing is all 

 wrong, but we take the risk of winning out on it, and I have always 

 won out, since 1 began to practice the summer pruning of peaches. 

 I don't know wdrether I want you to go and say. Hale tells you to 

 prune the third summer, but I have done it and made it very profit- 

 able. 



The question of varieties perhaps you will touch by asking some 

 questions. The growing of fruit, as touched upon by the pro- 

 fessor this morning, applies perhaps better to the peach than any- 

 thing else. We all have some things we pat ourselves on the back 

 for, and I am weak like the rest of you. I have done some things 

 in the way of marketing, I think 1 have done better than any- 

 body else, so far as I know, and 1 am not telling this because T am 

 any more honest than any of the rest of you, but when my first 

 orchards came up to bearing, with borrowed money I went to New 

 Jersey and Delaware and Maryland as the peach centres and the 

 commercial centres, and studied their nrethods of picking, packing 

 and marketing of peaches. I went home with the lesson, and I 

 don't wonder that their peaches didn't pay some of them ; they sold 

 too low in price. Whatever attempt at grading there was, sim- 

 ply to bring a fcAv of the largest and best to the top always, and gen- 

 erally one grade of fruit as it came from the orchard, except a few 

 of the inferior ones thrown out, and if thei'e Avere any big ones, 

 those were on the top. I went home convinced — I was hard up 

 then; there was a big mortgage on the place at that time, more 

 than the thing was worth— but desperate to get money, mean skin- 

 ning Yankee as I was, desperate to get money; it seemed to me the 

 only way to get money was to take those peaches and carefully grade 



