314 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



Fig. 2363. The Hale Peach Orchards. 



trees was now started, and the next year, 

 during the fruiting season, a trip was made 

 to Delaware to study varieties and methods. 

 At that time, so far as I know, there was 

 not a commercial peach orchard north of 

 New York, and the following spring, when 

 I planted out an orchard of 3,000 trees, it 

 was the general opinion that the attempt to 

 grow peaches on a commercial scale as far 

 north as central Connecticut was a crazy 

 scheme of an inexperienced youth, and could 

 only result in failure. 



Looking over the situation from time to 

 time, and hunting up old fruiting trees in 

 neighboring towns, wherever I could find 

 them, it took but a few years to learn that 

 the killing of fruit buds by the extreme cold 

 of winter was one great danger to be feared. 

 I found that side hills and tree tops had a 

 way of sliding the frost down into the low- 

 lands ; and by tramping around with a ther- 

 mometer just at daylight some of the coldest 

 mornings, I found temperatures varying all 

 the way from fifteen to twenty below zero on 

 the level and in the valleys, while on the hill 



sides, not over fifty feet above, the tube 

 would show from eight to twelve below, and 

 on the hilltops of 200 or 300 feet elevation, 

 scarcely a mile away, the mercury would 

 register nearly zero. 



Here, then, was the place for peaches, if 

 soil and other conditions were right. By 

 straining to the utmost my slender resources 

 and depending upon the berry fields for 

 ready cash to keep the venture going, I 

 managed to secure and plant nearly 10,000 

 trees in two blocks. I set about leasing 

 what I thought were suitable lands for fur- 

 ther development in the early eighties. One 

 block was on land owned by a widow 94 

 years old, who, after signing the lease with 

 her own hand, said, " Now, 1 am going to 

 live long enough to see this peach orchard in 

 fruit. How long will it take ? " When she 

 was told that it would be four or five years 

 at least, and possibly longer if the winters 

 were too severe, she smiled, and said, 

 " Well, I will wait to see one crop, any- 

 way," Six years later, when the first mod- 

 erate crop came, I took the dear old lady. 



