l80 THE AMERICAN PEACH ORCHARD 



Yet some of these omissions he can make good in 

 other ways, by intensive culture and personal care. 

 He cannot pick and choose a climate especially 

 adapted to peach growing. He has to live and grow 

 peaches where his home is. But he can choose an 

 elevated spot with good air drainage instead of 

 planting his peaches and other fruit trees in a low, 

 frosty pocket. He cannot have the widest choice 

 of soils, but he can use the best he has, preferring 

 a warm, light, well-drained side hill to a heavy clay 

 bottom. He cannot have a power sprayer, but he 

 can do just as good work with a hand pump, and he 

 can watch his few trees more closely to see what 

 their particular needs are. He cannot have a pick- 

 ers' strike at harvest time, and he is quite likely to 

 be satisfied without it. 



The maker of a family orchard should begin by 

 selecting a favorable site, reasonably convenient to 

 the dwelling house. It should be on high land, with 

 a good slope. The soil should be coarse, perhaps 

 gravelly, but rich in plant food, without being silty, 

 clayey or heavy. It should be well drained; and if 

 the drainage is not perfect enough, tile should be 

 put in to make it so. The area should also be capa- 

 ble of thorough cultivation. The home acre should 

 be a garden rather than an orchard; but a good 

 orchard requires that perfect tillage proverbially 

 characteristic of a garden rather than that general 

 neglect represented in many so-called orchards. The 

 various systems of neglect, known as seeding down, 

 mulching, etc., widely practiced in apple orchards, 

 are wholly unsuited to the management of peach 

 trees and particularly bad in a family fruit garden. 

 After the best bit of land about the farm has been 

 selected it must be put in the pink of condition and 

 kept so. 



