44 Peach-Growing 



may prevail in certain zones farther down towards the 

 valley. This line of reasoning applied to the orchard in 

 Plate VII suggests that were the mountain on which the 

 orchard is located some hundreds of feet higher, a limit of 

 elevation would be reached where the temperature factor 

 would preclude the growing of peaches and which would not 

 be counteracted by atmospheric drainage. 



Yet another factor of some importance is slope or aspect 

 — the points of the compass towards which the site inclines. 

 The preferred slope for a peach orchard has been much 

 discussed, but cannot be settled in any dogmatic manner. 

 The question admits of no direct answer. No one slope is 

 preferable under all conditions and in all regions. In fact, 

 the influence which a particular exposure may have in the 

 success of an orchard is probably much over-emphasized 

 in the popular mind. 



As a rule, it is doubtless safe to assume that a site having 

 a moderate slope in some direction is to be preferred for 

 orchard purposes, other things being equal, to one that is 

 level. One having a slope will usually have better drainage 

 of soil and atmosphere than a level area ; but so far as these 

 factors are concerned in the abstract, one slope may be as 

 good as another. 



An orchard that occupies a site which slopes away from 

 the prevailing wind may be afforded a certain amount of 

 protection therefrom in some cases, and in some regions 

 there are well-marked soil differences on the different slopes 

 of the ridges. These differences may be such as to make 

 one slope better adapted to peach-growing than another. 



Probably in the minds of most fruit-growers the chief 

 difference between the slopes in their relation to fruit-grow- 

 ing is assumed to be a matter of temperature. That differ- 



