THE KANSAS PEACH. 41 



Michigan growers usually give much attention to cutting out the 

 small unprofitable wood from the center of the tree. This labor may 

 be greatly increased if heading in is practiced. Many orchards of 

 this state have suffered much during the last two years from twig- 

 blight in these central shoots. 



THINNING THE FRUIT. 



There is almost universal neglect in thinning the fruit in this state. 

 Every peach grower knows that good fruit cannot be grown upon 

 overloaded trees ; and yet he refuses to thin, and forthwith blames the 

 market ! It should be a rule that no two peaches should stand closer 

 together than five inches of one another. No work of the orchard 

 pays better than thinning the fruit, either in the price which the re- 

 maining produce brings in the market or in the vital energy which is 

 saved to the tree. Peach trees which are regularly thinned should 

 bear every year, barring injuries from winter or spring frosts. Grow- 

 ers seem to forget that this fruit must all be picked sooner or later, 

 and that the work is more easily done in June or July than in 

 September. The thinning should be delayed until the fruit is the 

 size of the end of one's thumb, for by this time the "June drop'' has 

 occurred, and the peaches can readily be seen and handled, 



MARKETING THE FRUIT. 



But if growers are negligent in thinning the fruit, they are too often 

 positively careless in marketing it. Even in this year of low prices, 

 fancily or nicely packed fruit has brought good prices, wholly inde- 

 pendent of its quality. The handsome boxes of California peaches, 

 containing sixty wrapped fruits, have sold from two to four dollars, 

 and yet they are generally very inferior in quality when they reach 

 our markets. Alongside these peaches, shijaped several thousand 

 miles, our [New York] peaches have sold from twenty-five to seventy- 

 five cents a half bushel. There are several faults with our handling 

 peaches. The 23ackages are too large. The fruit is not graded and 

 selected; in fact, it is not well grown. There are often no wooden 

 covers on the baskets, and, as a consequence, that part of the package 

 which should look the best is usually the most jammed and crushed. 

 In observing the markets this summer, I found that quite half the 

 packages were not full when they reached the salesman, and the 

 peaches comprising the two or three top layers had chased each other 

 around the basket until they were scarcely recognizable. The peaches 

 had evidently been dumped into the basket and they settled as soon 

 as placed upon the cars. Our method of handling peaches is the very 

 best advertisement of the handsome Pacific coast fruit. In that fruit 

 every individual peach is sound and perfect ; in Eastern fruit the 

 peaches often run through the package and are sold in the liquid [?] 

 state. 



