THE KANSAS PEACH. 39 



ill lower places. It is sometimes said that in these interior places 

 trees should not be set npon southern exposures, for in such places 

 the buds are likely to start too early in spring. This is no doubt 

 good advice ; but it should be understood that it may not apply to 

 lands within the influence of bodies of water of considerable size. 



CULTIVATION AND FERTILIZING OF THE PEACH ORCHARD. 



Having selected his land, the peach grower must look with the 

 greatest care to the cultivation and fertilizing of his orchard. Peach 

 orchards should never be cropped after the third year ; and if they 

 are planted upon sandy lands, which are best adapted to them, and 

 particularly if set less than twenty feet apart, they should never be 

 cropped from the time they are set. The only reasonable treatment for 

 the land in a peach orchard is very frequent stirring of the surface soil 

 from May until August, and thereafter, perhaps, a green crop, which 

 shall be plowed under the next spring. Never under any circum- 

 stances seed down a peach orchard ; never sow it to grain. Lack of 

 tillage is ruinous, and I am astonished that farmers do not see this 

 fact when bewailing the unprofitableness of their sod-bound, drouth- 

 sick and borer-cursed orchards. If there is any fruit which should 

 never be neglected it is the peach, and this is why careless men do 

 not succeed with it and why so many of the orchards produce only 

 debts and exasperation. 



But here comes a difficulty ; it is easy to produce an overgrowth 

 upon strong lands. The trees grow to a great size during the first few 

 years, their tops are full of heavy leaves, and the foliage holds very 

 late in the fall. These trees generally bear tardily, and, in some cases 

 they are never very productive of fruit. They run to wood. The 

 winds tear them to pieces. The first trouble lies in the land ; it is too 

 strong for the peach. The second trouble may be the too frequent 

 use of barn manures or other nitrogenous fertilizers, or too late culti- 

 vation in the fall. In 1889 I set several varieties of peaches in the 

 university gardens, upon soil which had been well manured in previ- 

 ous years, and the land has since been used for garden vegetables, 

 which have been well and sometimes even excessively manured with 

 stable manure. The trees have now passed their sixth summer, but 

 not one of them has borne two dozen peaches. Yet they are mod- 

 els of thrift, and their large, heavy leaves are as green this middle of 

 October as they were in June. Some of them have been entirely 

 ruined by storms, and now the lustiest one of the lot has got the yel- 

 lows ! 



I believe that the key-note to the proper fertilizing of peach or- 

 chards is potash and phosphoric acid, and not nitrogen. Ashes, mu- 

 riate of potash, bone fertilizers — these are some of the money-makers 



