l6 THE AMERICAN PEACH ORCHARD 



much more versatile. Carman or Mountain Rose 

 or almost any other variety may be grown in full 

 perfection from central Georgia to central New 

 York and Michigan. There are some varieties, of 

 course, which are plainly local in their preferences ; 

 but such localizations do not seem to be due chiefly 

 to requirements of temperature. It is possible, of 

 course, that a closer study of the physiology of the 

 leading varieties of peaches will reveal more definite 

 preferences, and that further experience will tend to 

 localize varieties, as it has in the field of apple 

 culture; but it still seems fairly certain that all the 

 standard varieties of peaches may be grown indif- 

 ferently over a pretty wide range of territory. 



KILLING OF BLOSSOM BUDS 



The commonest form of winter injury occurs in 

 the killing of the blossom buds, rather than in the 

 outright killing of the trees. This trouble is more 

 frequent for the simple reason that the blossom 

 buds are killed by much shorter and milder periods 

 of freezing. 



Bud killing falls into two very distinct cases, and 

 the distinction at this point is of material impor- 

 tance. In one type of injury the buds are killed by 

 freezing while in a more or less dormant st^te dur- 

 ing the winter; in the other type the buds are killed 

 by frost after they have partially or fully opened. 

 Temperatures of nearly twenty degrees below zero, 

 sometimes more, are necessary to kill dormant buds 

 of hardy varieties during the winter. On the other 

 hand a frost which lowers the temperature to 

 twenty-eight or thirty degrees for an hour or two 

 at blossoming time will sometimes serve equally 

 well to wipe out a crop and make the peach grower 



