2l6 THE AMERICAN PEACH ORCHARD 



several days at a time a reasonable profit cannot 

 be realized by shipping even good grades of fruit. 

 Canning always seems to be one of the most prom- 

 ising methods of utilizing such peaches, and many 

 growers have therefore established their private 

 canneries, some on a large scale, some in a smaller 

 way. 



The net result of many years of experience the coun- 

 try over seems to show that such private canneries are 

 not always a success, and that they are most likely to 

 be of use to owners of small or medium-sized orchards. 

 The extensive growers can usually arrange to turn 

 their surplus over to some established canning fac- 

 tory; and on the other hand the relatively large 

 canning plants which they would require for their 

 own use and the large personnel which they would 

 be obliged to organize hurriedly in case of need, 

 make too big and complicated an undertaking to 

 carry. The writer knows of one large orchard in 

 which a fully equipped cannery was installed at an 

 expense of several thousand dollars. It was used 

 one year during a glut ; but owing to inexperienced 

 management and untrained operatives, no profit was 

 realized. During the six years next succeeding, the 

 peach crop moved to market properly without any 

 glut, and the cannery was not called into requisi- 

 tion. When the time came again that the plant 

 might have been used, it was altogether worthless — 

 the woodwork had rotted down and the ironwork 

 rusted out. Practically it was a total loss. This 

 experience is not universal, of course, but it seems 

 to be fairly typical. 



On the other hand, the small grower who has 

 no very well-established shipping market, but who 

 depends largely on peddling his peaches to his 

 neighbors, is sure to find some year that peaches are 



