The Canadian Horticulturi^ 



Vol. xxxiri 



JANUARY, 1910 



No. 1 



Practical Principles for Profitable Peach Production* 



BEING a comirercial peach grower 

 in the Micliigan fruit belt, I shall 

 attempt to give briefly only the 

 common principles and practices of the 

 leading growers of our section. We at- 

 tempt no fancy methods — every dollar 

 expf-nded and every hour's work devot- 

 ed to the business is looked upon as an 

 investment. With most of us, [:each 

 production is a "bread and butter" af- 

 fair. Your own experiences with local 

 conditions will enable you to judge just 

 how far our methods can be followed 

 successfully in your several orchards. 



SOIL AND LOCATION 



While a good loam is our ideal soil, 

 we have good orchards on nearly all 

 kinds of soil. We do demand, however, 

 that all peach lands shall be well drain- 

 ed, both as to air and water, and, as 

 moderate ele\ations tend to furnish both 

 a good air circulation and water drain- 

 age, high or elevated lands are pre- 

 ferred. 



PREPARATION OF THE SOIL 



The ground to receive our baby trees 

 must be well stocked in advance with 

 suitable food to give them a vigorous 

 start. Plowing under clover or other 

 nitrogenous crops, before setting the 

 trees, furnishes humus, which is especi- 

 ally valuable in making the ground 

 spongy — capable of holding large quanii- 

 ties of water. 



VARIETIES 



The choice of varieties is largely a 

 local matter. Select those which do best 

 in your locality and which supply the de- 

 mands of your market. The large plant- 

 ings of peach in Georgia, Texas, etc., 

 have caused us to discard the early varie- 

 ties, especially the clings. In our sec- 

 tion the best commercial orchards in- 

 clude such kinds as the Yellow St. John, 

 Engle's Mammoth, Conklin, Fitzgerald, 

 Elberta, Kalamazoo, New Prolilic, 

 Smock and Salway — all yellow varieties. 

 The Champion is one of the leading 

 white kinds, but our market calls for 

 large, high-colored, yellow peaches. 

 Such kinds as the Barnard, Crosby and 

 Gold Drop are excellent in quality, but 

 are too small, under ordinary cultiva- 

 tion, to be wanted by our buyers. Despite 

 its poor quality, the size, color and ship- 



*A synopsis of an address given af conven- 

 tion of Ontnrio Fruit Growers' Association, Tor- 

 onto, last November. 



Charles E. Bassett, .Fennville, Michigan 



ping ability of the Elberta, make it the 

 leading market peach. 



CULTIVATION 



Our main object being quick and large 

 returns, we do our utmost to force a 

 strong, sound growth from the start by 

 intensive cultivation early in the season. 

 Corn is commonly grown the first two 

 seasons between the trees, the loss of 

 fertility occasioned by the feeding of the 

 corn being partly balanced by the corn's 

 shade to the trees from the scalding rays 

 of the sun. The trees are headed low — 

 not over eighteen inches from the ground 

 — and this calls for special tools in cul- 

 tivating. The extension disc harrow 

 and the extension fine tooth drag are 

 some of the best tools after the second 



Ensures Success 



I would not be without The 

 Canadian Horticulturist for 

 twice the price of subscription. I 

 do a little work in my garden in 

 my leisure time, and I find a great 

 many helpful hints in its pages to 

 ensure success in this work.-W. 

 E. Seery, Fredericton N. B. 



year, when the trees are gixcn the whole 

 of the ground. ' Cultivation must be kept 

 up each week to save soil moisture and 

 make more plant food available 

 by bringing the small particles of soil in 

 contact with the air. 



PRUNING AND THINNING 



Just as a fond parent corrects in his 

 infant child any faults that may appear, 

 so the true lover of trees, from the very 

 first season, rubs off any buds that ap- 

 pear where a limb or twig is not de- 

 sired, and he thus forms a correct head. 

 A common mistake is to leave the form- 

 ing of the head of the tree until it is 

 three or four years old, when good sized 

 limbs must be cut off, leaving large scars 

 that are hard to heal and which often 

 leave a weakness. Allowing unneces- 

 sary limbs to grow is also a great waste 

 of plant energy. In fact our former 

 methods of horticulture seem to have 

 been based upon the principles of for- 

 estry rather than upon those of fruit 

 production. The engineer who would 

 attempt to run a ten horse-power engine 

 with a five horse-power boiler would be 



no more lacking in judgment than is the 

 fruit grower who permits his tree to 

 over-balance the root system that is 

 called upon to sustain it. Build up that 

 root system by continuous and intelli- 

 gent feeding and then restrict the lab- 

 or of the tree by severe and annual 

 pruning and thinning. Prune so as 

 to open the tops, so .that God's free sun- 

 shine may reach all of the fruits and so 

 paint upon their cheeks those beautiful 

 colors, which are so eagerly sought 

 after by the purchasers of our products. 

 We prune our bearing orchards dur- 

 ing the dormant period, preferably in 

 March, after the hardest freezes are 

 over. Many get good results by spring 

 or even summer pruning, and one of the 

 most profitable orchards I have ' ever 

 seen has always been pruned in the fall ! 

 However, I am inclined to attribute the 

 fine results in the latter case to the sever- 

 ity of the pruning, rather than to the time 

 when it was done. Much of the thinning 

 can be done by severe pruning, but even 

 after that has been done the expense of 

 picking off the surplus peaches by hand 

 will often be considerable. This thin- 

 ning is essential and must be done before 

 the pit hardens. The production of seed 

 is a most exhaustive process and the 

 trees must be given all possible relief, 

 by reducing the number of fruits. Strong- 

 er and longer lived trees, larger sized 

 fruits and doubled profits will thereby 

 result, 



DISEASES AND INSECTS 



Curl leaf develops during cool, moist 

 weather, but a thorough spraying of the 

 dormant trees in March with a solution 

 of two pounds of copper sulphate (blue 

 vitriol) to fifty gallons (wine measure) of 

 water is a sure preventive. Since we 

 have been using lime-sulphur to destroy 

 the San Jose scale on our trees, we find 

 that it is equally as effective in control- 

 ling the leaf curl. 



Yellows and "little peach" are deadly 

 diseases of unknown origin. There is no 

 known cure and the only safe course is 

 to cut down and destroy by fire all 

 diseased trees as soon as discovered. 

 These diseases can only in that way be 

 held in check, but "experimenting" with 

 these diseases has cost many a grower 

 his entire orchard. 



The annual "grubbing" of the base of 

 the trees, to destroy the borer, is also 



