2i8 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Peach Growers' Foes. 



Mr. J. H. Hale : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : The 

 time is too short to go into a subject hke this with a very 

 great amount of detail. Tlie question, peach growers' foes, 

 would indicate that we had some, and it is true, and in going 

 about the other day on the train I tried to make note of a few 

 of the foes that we have, in the order of the trouble that 

 they make us. 



It seems to me, from forty years' experience with peach 

 growing in the State of Connecticut, that it is safe to say that 

 freezing in winter is the most dangerous foe to the peach in- 

 dustry in our state, and it is one thing that we cannot at the 

 present time in any way combat. Extreme freezing in winter 

 or in the spring after the buds have started is a foe that we 

 have not yet learned how to overcome. One good thing about 

 it is that we do not have to deal with it very often. In thirty 

 years I have lost only one crop of fruit in the spring after 

 blooming time. But we have lost a good many by extreme 

 freezing weather in the winter. The only way I know of to 

 combat that foe, and I would like to see the growers of Con- 

 necticut doing it, is every cold night to go out and spray your 

 trees with water. The water freezes the buds in a little enclo- 

 sure of ice. Of course, it is practically impossible to do any 

 such thing as that on a large scale. I have known people to 

 take a pail of water and a whisk broom and sprinkle water over 

 a tree and save it. Real extreme freezing in winter is about 

 the greatest foe that we have to deal with. My son and 1 

 estimated about two months ago that we would have forty 

 thousand baskets of peaches in one orchard. To-day we do 

 not expect to have a hundred baskets. We do not know of any- 

 live buds at all. 



The next thing in order as the source of the most danger 

 to the peach grower is the retail dealer, and he is a most dan- 

 gerous foe. He buys peaches at wholesale at from sixty to 



