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CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



from considerable acreages. These facts are stated to show what 

 the peach of good variety may do in a good situation and soil and 

 with the best of care. Of course they are not to be taken as average 

 results, although greater than those given are sometimes attained. 

 For example, on the rich, alluvial land near Visalia, an Admiral 

 Dewey yearling tree planted in March, 1904, had in October, 1905, 

 attained these dimensions: Near the ground the trunk was eleven 

 and three-quarter inches in circumferences, branching two feet from 

 the ground it had four main branches, each seven inches in circum- 

 ference; height of tree, twelve feet; spread of branches, ten feet. 

 It grew near a crack in a cement ditch and so had all the moisture 

 it could use, and being in a free, open soil was not impaired by 

 standing water. 



As for possible productiveness of the peach, one Susquehanna 

 tree in Kern County yielded twenty-seven forty-five pound picking- 

 boxes twelve hundred and fifty pounds in one crop about four 

 times as much as good trees may average. 



LOCALITIES FOR THE PEACH 



The peach has a wide range in California, and finds many dis- 

 tricts suited to it in the several ways in which the trade delights in 

 it. As compared with the apricot, the peach thrives in the sheltered 

 valleys of the district north of the bay and west of the Coast Range, 

 in which the apricot is of little commercial moment ; it yields those 

 peerlessly beautiful "mountain peaches" from one to two thousand 

 feet higher in the Sierra foothills than the apricot can be trusted ; it 

 goes everywhere in the lower foothills and over the great valleys 

 that the apricot will go, and beyond it also, because it is less restless 

 in the spring and escapes some frosts which injure apricots. 

 Counted from trees in orchard the peach is about three times as 

 great as the apricot. 



Nearly every county in California reports the possession of peach 

 trees. Above an elevation of four thousand feet on the sides of the 

 Sierra Nevada, they may be subject to winter killing, and lower still 

 the careful choice of situation has to be made to avoid frost at 

 blooming time the peach in such places being subjected to some 

 dangers which beset it in the Eastern States. Below these points, 

 however, lies the great fruit belt of the foothills of the Sierra, where 

 the peach is the chief fruit grown and its excellence is proverbial. 

 Size, beauty, richness, delicacy of flavor and firmness, which endures 

 carriage to the most distant markets, are all characteristics of the 

 foothill peaches of California. 



In the great interior valleys of the State wherever proper con- 

 dition of soil and water supply can be found, the peach also thrives, 

 the tree making a wonderfully quick and large growth, and the 

 fruit attaining great size. The San Joaquin Valley is the greatest 

 peach district in the State. 



In the small valleys on the west of the great valley and on the 

 eastern slope of the Coast Range, there are also extensive areas 

 suited to the peach, and sheltered places on the eastern and western 



