CHAPTER XX 



THE PEACH 



Until the great prune planting passion of the decade ago the 

 peach was the greatest deciduous fruit of California judged by the 

 total number of trees in service. When the bloom impression went 

 forth that cured prunes could be put up in sacks more cheaply than 

 wheat, people took to planting prune orchards by the section all 

 through the wheat districts of the great valley, and bloom planters 

 even carried the trees where no one would think of planting wheat 

 cutting up shallow-clay upland sheep pastures and even yucca sand 

 wastes into prune-growing colonies. Under such planting propositions 

 it is little wonder our nurseries sold prune trees for twice the normal 

 prices and still could not fill the demand. Figures of prune trees in 

 orchards rushed far beyond the peach figures. This over-planting 

 of prunes naturally brought loss and disappointment, and interest 

 turned again to peach planting, so that now the peach has secured 

 notable advance beyond the prune, as shown by statistics in Chapter 

 VI. During the last few years the peach has had the call, the nurseries 

 have had difficulty in keeping up with the planting demand for certain 

 varieties, which will be discussed later, and the peach has demonstrated 

 its right to attain again its old position by possession of a greater 

 acreage than is given to any other deciduous fruit. 



The peach was the first fruit to ripen on the improved trees 

 brought here by the early American settlers, and the magnificence 

 of the peach was consequently the key-note of the refrain which 

 greeted the ears of the world in which the California gold cry was 

 ringing early in the fifties. In fact, the gold from the mine and the 

 gold from the tree were very nearly related. In old Coloma, where 

 gold was discovered, there was a peach tree which bore four hundred 

 and fifty peaches in 1854, which sold for $3.00 each, or $1,350 for the 

 crop of the one tree, and in 1855, six trees bore one thousand one 

 hundred peaches, which sold for $1.00 each. Some of these pioneer 

 trees are said to be still living and bearing fruit. 



LONGEVITY OF THE PEACH IN CALIFORNIA 



There are many other facts to establish the claim that the peach 

 tree, if planted in a suitable soil and situation and cared for with 

 any devotion and skill, is not a short-lived tree in California. California 

 is too young to mark limits of duration, but there are instances 

 in the earliest-settled places in the State, where peach trees above 

 fifty years old are still vigorous and productive. Some trees have, 

 in fact, gone along in thrift until they have a bark below which looks 

 like that of a forest tree, and framework of main branches sound 

 and stalwart throughout because they have never been allowed to 

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