STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 317 



plums began to be affected as early as 1835 with, the black knot 

 and other enemies, which in the course of a few years nearly de- 

 stroyed the trees. Since that time, growing this excellent fruit 

 has been accomplished in most places only by intelligent and 

 persevering work in fighting its enemies, and then in many, if 

 not the majority of cases, the perseverance of its enemies tires 

 out the patience of the would-be grower, and the crop is given 

 over as not worth the cost of so much time and labor. 



My early recollections of peaches are, that we all had all we 

 cared to use, and that the hogs had a good time with the balance 

 of them. The average quality was not, of course, equal to those 

 of to-day. The peach growing district fifty years ago was almost 

 entirely limited to small portions of the states of l!^ew Jersey, 

 Delaware and Maryland, and even in these states, to be of any 

 market value, they were restricted to within hauling distances 

 of New York and Philadelphia, or within a near distance of the 

 steamboat landings, as there were no railroads at that time run- 

 ning through the inland portions of these states. 



PEACHES AND PLUMS. 



One of the incidents connected with peach growing in those 

 days may be worth relating. It is something over fifty years 

 since that an enterprising Jerseyman concluded that it 

 would be a nice thing to buy up the entire croj) of the country, 

 and in that way get control of the market, or in other words get 

 up a corner on peaches. As the operation required more money 

 than he had of his own, he pursuaded his widowed mother, who 

 had some property, his brothers and sisters, and some of his 

 wife's relations to back him up in his brilliant scheme of com- 

 pelling the people of the United States to eat high-priced 

 peaches or to do without them. He commenced operations by 

 purchasing and making small payments on, what he supposed 

 was enough of the large growers' crops to give him the control 

 of the market. Peaches did not go np worth a cent, but did on 

 the contrary go down almost immediately to less than he had 

 agreed to pay the growers for them in the orchard. The public 

 generally probably never knew of any corner on peaches, but 

 the originator of the scheme and his friends soon found them- 

 selves very effectually cornered. Judgments that buried them 

 all in hopeless and irretrievable ruin was the result. It may be 

 seen from this incident that the desire for making money at the 

 expense of the public is not the exclusive growth of the last 

 twenty-five years. 



