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PRESENT AND FUTURE OF FRUIT GROWING IN 

 NEW ENGLAND 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



I was up here a year ago, and I am very much gratified 

 with the appearance of our audience today. A year ago it 

 seemed to me that there were very few young men, but to- 

 day a very large proportion seem to be young or middle- 

 aged men. 



I fear that the subject of my talk today will not interest 

 you as much as some others. You seem to be all interested 

 in apples, but I think there are other things that you might 

 be interested in as well as apples. 



]My subject refers to the conditions of the peach busi- 

 ness as it is today, and its future. I shall first speak on the 

 condition today as it appears in New England. 



In Connecticut there is quite an interest in peach grow- 

 ing, but it is confined to a few localities. There is a great 

 deal of interest there among certain growers, but I must 

 say that quite a good many are somewhat discouraged. 

 That is because of lack of intelligence in growing their trees. 

 They don't consider that the peach is a very different tree 

 from the apple to grow. It is adapted to a temperate cli- 

 mate, and is not supposed to stand the very low tempera- 

 ture that the apple tree will stand and live, but if grown 

 right, it Avill stand quite a low temperature. 



Those orchardists that have failed — their failure is ow- 

 ing largely to new methods of growing their trees, to the 

 use, very largely? of nitrogen fertilizers. This makes a tree 

 which is very susceptible to cold. We, in Connecticut, are 

 not quite as cold as you are up here, but we are cold enough, 

 so if the trees are not grown right, if forced in the fall, they 

 are very apt to be thrown into some disease. Some people 

 think that the "yellows" is a special disease. The tree may 

 not indicate the yellows at all, and yet the fruit will indicate 

 that the tree has the yellows and the days of those trees are 

 numbered. I might say that peach culture is centralized in 

 Connecticut in parts of the state that do not exceed 500 fegt 

 above the sea level. A few years ago along the Sound were 

 many peach growers, but they became discouraged because 

 they grew the tree so that it would not stand up well. The 

 brown rot would get a foothold, (owing to the long contin- 

 ned fogs) and wipe away whole orchards. For that reason 



