HOW TO GET THE TREES 



45 



They are dried, packed and extensively sold to nur- 

 serymen. These seeds vary enormously in quality. 

 Some are very large and run few to the bushel ; 

 others are small and give fully twice as many trees 

 for each bushel of seed; some have a high percent- 

 age of viability ; others germinate very poorly. 



The southern or natural seed is collected from 

 "wild" peach trees, mostly in North Carolina, South 

 Carolina and Tennessee. These pits are much 

 smaller than those from the budded varieties such 

 as are sold from the canning factories. They there- 



YOUNG TREES INTERCROPPED WITH STRAWBERRIES 



fore yield from two to four times as many trees to 

 each bushel of seed. This is a consideration of con- 

 siderable importance to large propagators. The 

 seed also gives a large percentage of germination 

 and a very vigorous, even growth of stocks for 

 budding. Nearly all nurserymen consider it dis- 

 tinctly superior to the canning factory seed ; but the 

 old theory that seed from a wild tree was necessa- 



