THE KLBERTA PEACH. 



£?p[^HIS is the first season that large 

 orchards of Klberta have fruit- 

 ed around Rochester. Fruit 

 growers here are wildly en- 

 thusiastic over this remarkable variety. 

 The peach is extraordinarily large in 

 size. The size of Elberta surprised 

 everyone. It has not been proclaimed 

 to be extraordinarily large, but it is far 

 the largest peach marketed at Rochester 

 this year. Even on the trees that re- 

 ceived no cultivation whatever the fruit 

 of Elberta was large and finely colored, 

 golden-yellow skin covered with a bright 

 crimson blush. There seems to be 

 few, if any, cull peaches upon trees of 

 Elberta. The fruit is uniformly large and 

 handsome. 



A remarkable pecularity of Elberta is 

 that the fruit can be picked long before 

 maturity, and it will ripen up nicely, 

 without rotting. I have yet to see the 

 first rotten peach upon an Elberta tree. 

 It is undoubtedly the best of all the 

 peaches for long shipment. The Elberta 

 is rather a longish peach, not so round 

 as Crawford. Otherwise it might be 

 mistaken for a Crawford. I do not 

 think in quality it quite equals the 



Crawford, but the quality is acceptable 

 and good. The flesh is yellow and 

 juicy, and it is a free-stone. The tree 

 is a vigorous and upright grower, ex- 

 ceedingly hardy in bud ; hardier than 

 Mountain Rose, Stump or Oldmixon. 



A peach grower near this city had 

 several acres of Elberta in bearing. 

 Most of the noted Pomologists of West- 

 ern New York visited this orchard and 

 were amazed at the ([uantity, beauty, 

 and size of Elberta, which this orchardist 

 was selling atdouble the price of ordinary 

 peaches. This peach grower says he will 

 set 12,000 trees of Elberta next year. 



I take considerable pride in the suc- 

 cess of the Elberta peach since I was 

 among the first to call attention of fruit 

 growers to this remarkable variety. 

 .Several years ago I visited with J. H 

 Hales the orchards of Samuel Rump, in 

 Georgia, which is the home of the El- 

 berta peach. There I saw the original 

 Elberta tree. It was one of thousands 

 of seedlings, and the only seedling out of 

 the thousands that was considered of 

 value. All the others were cut away 

 and burned, this alone left to stand. — 

 Green's Fruit Grower. 



THE BURBANK PLUM. 



THE Burbank plum is again bearing 

 a large crop of fruit this season as 

 it did last. 

 This variety of the plum has a habit, 

 as far as my experience goes, of setting 

 four times as much fruit as the tree 

 ought to ripen. Five-year-old trees on 

 light sandy soil well fertilized, have borne 

 crops for three seasons, and each sea- 

 son there were so many upon the tree 

 that to have fine fruit thinning was 

 necessary. 



The Burbank is quite different from 



some other varieties of plums ; they 

 hang to the tree and do not drop — so 

 that a tree of this variety will carry to 

 maturity a great number of plums, but if 

 not thinned out very heavily the fruit 

 will not be large. 



This season I have seen the difference 

 in thinning and not thinning in a marked 

 degree. Some trees were thinned early, 

 and in a week the plums were a third 

 larger on these trees than others which 

 had not yet been thinned. — The Central 

 States I'Vuit Grower, St. Joseph, Mich. 



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