February, 1910 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



43 



Peach Orcharding in SouthivGstcrn|^Ontario* 



J. I. Hilborn, Leamington 



WITH such subjects as this, it is the 

 present condition that is of chief 

 interest. I will allude to the past, 

 therefore, only enough to say that 

 in Essex county the fruit buds of the peach 

 tree usually come through the winter in 

 good condition so we almost always have 

 plenty of good buds to produce a crop. 



The peach orchards in that district have 

 been twice annihilated in ten years, by 

 the winter killing of the roots of the trees 

 to such an extent that several thousands 

 of acres of peach trees were entirely des- 

 troyed in that way while a good share of 

 the fruit Luds and the tops of the trees 

 were apparently uninjured. So far as I 

 can learn this never occurred before, except 

 once some thirty years ago and then the 

 destruction was not nearly so complete. 

 Therefore, it is fair to assume that with the 

 improved methods of culture and the more 

 general use of cover crops, which is 'being 

 adopted more and more, the chances are that 

 those who are now planting peach orchards 

 have a fair chance of harvesting good crops. 



As so many of the growers lost so heavily 

 by the destruction of all their orchards, on 

 the two occasions I have mentioned, most of 

 them entirely ceased planting peaches for 

 several years and gave their attention to 

 the growing of other crops. A few of the 

 more optimistic ones continued planting to 

 some extent, and those have been harvest- 

 ing fine crops the past two seasons. But the 

 acreage of bearing orchards is still quite 



*Extract8 from a paper read laat November in 

 Toronto at the Convention of the Ontario Fruit 

 Growers' Aseociation. 



limited in Essex county. There are perhaps 

 only 170 or 180 acres in bearing in what 

 might be called the Leamington district, in- 

 cluding the Albuna and Olinda locations, 

 and I know of no large orchards in the 

 county outside of this territory. There 

 are perhaps 80 to 100 acres more just com- 

 ing into bearing. The greater portion of 

 these orchards are being well cared for in 

 pruning, spraying and cultivation and are 

 in good condition to produce a crop next 

 season. 



The San Jose scale is quite bad all through 

 this district but is being fairly well held 

 in check. 



There were probably 25,000 more peach 

 trees planted in this vicinity last spring 

 and, so far as I can judge from extensive 

 enquiries, there will likely be as many more 

 planted in the spring of 1910, while numer. 

 ous others are planning to plant heavily the 

 following season. It will take several years 

 yet, however, to get the acreage of peaches 

 that we had in this vicinity previous to the 

 disastrous freeze of 1899, but the great ma- 

 jority of the trees that were destroyed at 

 that time were not old enough to have pro- 

 duced fruit to any extent. 



Scarcely any tree fruits are being planted 

 in this vicinity except the peach. Farther 

 west along the shore some peaches are being 

 planted but to no great extent. 



The varieties that are being planted most- 

 ly are St. John, Engol, Elberta, Banner, 

 Golden Drop and New Prolific. 



While quite a few of the trees being 

 planted are grown locally and some are pur- 

 chased from nurseries in the Niagara dis- 



trict, the greater portion of them are 

 imported from nurserymen in Michigan. 

 The chief reason for this is the fact that, a 

 few years ago quite a large quantity of 

 trees were purchased from nurseries in the 

 Niagara district, which proved so very un- 

 satisfactory that our growers got the idea 

 that our eastern nurserymen thought that 

 anything that looked like a peach tree was 

 good enough to send to Leamington. 



During the past two or three years, how- 

 ever, some of my neighbors and myself have 

 been getting some trees from near Fonthill 

 which have been very satisfactory. If they 

 will continue to send us this class of trees 

 they would possibly win this trade back 

 again, if it is not supplied locally, which 

 is quite probable. 



In Lambton county, particularly along 

 the Lake Huron shore north of Forest, the 

 people are becoming quite enthusiastic over 

 the growing of peaches. Mr. D. Johnson 

 of Forest, who is well known as a leading 

 fruit grower of western Ontario, has an 

 orchard of 15 acres just coming into good 

 bearing and he intends planting ten acres 

 more next spring. Mr. Johnson informs me 

 that several of his neighbors have peach 

 orchards that are producing heavy crops 

 annually — that there is over 100 acres of 

 peach orchard in that locality, about half 

 of which has been in bearing for several 

 years, the balance just coming into bear- 

 ing. He states that in all probability there 

 will be about 100 acres more planted next 

 spring with heavy succeeding plantings. 



At Arkona, 12 miles inland, they are 

 also growing peaches to a limited extent. 

 Mr. E. D. Morningstar has about 10 acres 

 in bearing also a young orchard, while sev- 

 eral others have smaller orchards. How- 

 ever, the crops there are more uncertain 



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