PEACH 



PEACH 



2501 



be trundled in and out of freight cars, were utilized to 

 bring peaches north by Savannah and Charleston 

 steamers; and by re-icing on the steamers, much of the 

 early fruit came through in good order and sold at such 

 satisfactory prices as to encourage the sending of the 

 large midsummer peaches to market in the same way, 

 and the planting of moderate-sized orchards and the 

 further experimenting with seedlings and varieties 

 best suited to long shipments. 



The perfection of the refrigerator car for fruit trans- 

 portation, improved machinery for the cheap manufac- 

 ture of ice, the consolidation of various small railway 

 lines into great through routes of transportation, and 

 a full appreciation by their managers of the importance 

 of a successful peach industry, and last but not least, 

 the originating of the Elberta peach by Mr. Rumph, 

 were the final factors in rapidly developing the great 

 commercial peach industry in Georgia, and its smaller 

 counterparts in South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, 

 and the more recent rush of overplanting in Texas, 

 Arkansas, Oklahoma, and southern Missouri. 



The year 1889 saw the first large peach crop success- 

 fully harvested and marketed. Profits were large, and 

 being reported in the press many tunes greater than 

 they really were, stimulated much planting by those 

 entirely unfamiliar with fruit-culture, and with no 

 special love for it except the money that might be 

 made out of it. Cheap lands and the abundance of 

 good low-priced labor were encouragements to exten- 

 sive plantings. In nearly every state of the South, land 

 in vast tracts suitable for peach-culture could be had 

 at $3 to $10 an acre, and labor from sun to sun at 40 

 to 60 cents a day; while in 1915 these lands are selling 

 at $25 to $100 an acre, with a possible average of $40, 

 and labor costs $1 a day or more, while the added 

 expense of three or more sprayings each year has helped 

 to double the cost of peach-production in the South. 



Along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, varying from 100 

 to 200 miles inland, most of the land being low and flat, 

 early blooming, followed by spring frost, makes the 

 peach industry too uncertain to be profitable. The hill 

 lands in western sections of Atlantic Coast states, and 

 northern sections of the Gulf States, is really the peach 

 country of the South, where extended lists of varie- 

 ties are grown, covering a season of fully two months; 

 while the southwestern states, planting almost entirely 

 of one variety, have a season of less than two weeks 

 in many orchards. Fort Valley and Marshallville, the 

 great peach centers of Georgia, though on tablelands 

 about 200 miles from both ocean and Gulf, and at an 

 elevation of a little over 500 feet, are not in what might 

 strictly be called the hill country, being just below the 

 southern edge of it. In this section of Georgia, most of 

 the peach orchards have been planted on old cotton- 

 land, much of which has been in cultivation a century or 

 more, and while the surface-soil is worn and poor, down 

 deep in the red clay soil underlying the 6 or 8 inches of 

 sandy gray loam of the surface, there must be a vast 

 amount of fertility from the way peach trees grow 

 when once started and a reasonable amount of culture 

 is given. 



In the early days most of the orchardists, who were 

 cotton-planters as well, planted second- and third- 

 class yearling trees, or else small June-budded trees 

 any time from October to March, opening furrows for 

 the trees and cross-checking the rows 18 to 22 feet 

 apart, later plowing this land and planting it in cotton, 

 continuing it for three and often four years. Two to 

 four hundred pounds of low-grade fertilizer is applied 

 in drills for the cotton and usually very thorough cul- 

 ture given; trees are allowed to grow at will, then* 

 culture being incidental to the cotton crop. In such 

 orchards very little if any pruning was ever attempted. 

 After the trees become so large as to drive out the cot- 

 ton, one plowing is given in winter, then anything 

 from fairly good culture to none at all the remainder 



of each season. Such a system resulted in many "scrub 

 orchards," that were not very profitable after six or 

 seven years. 



In the recent and more highly developed peach 

 orcharding of this section of the South, better prepara- 

 tion is given the land at the start, dynamiting of the 

 holes for planting being largely practised. There is a 

 more careful selection of trees, far more liberal fertiliz- 

 ing, planting at greater distances, seldom less than 20 

 by 20 feet, better culture, less and less of intercropping, 

 except of cowpeas and other cover-crops, and somewhat 

 more of systematic pruning, though as yet this art is 

 not fully enough practised to show best results. Many 

 of the land-booming orchards, planted between 1890 

 and 1900, proved financial failures and are either no 

 longer in existence or else have been absorbed into other 

 and better propositions. There are less and less of the 

 cotton farmer orchardists and more peach specialists, 

 as time and experience have shown the business to be 

 unprofitable, except under best business conditions. 

 The writer's plantations, which ten years ago aggre- 

 gated some 265,000 trees, have now been reduced to less 

 than 100,000 trees, as only by planting at greater dis- 

 tances and giving a less number of trees better care and 

 attention, can any profit be assured. 



All land is plowed deep, and sometimes subsoiled 

 before planting. Young orchards are given frequent 

 and thorough tillage up to midseason, when two or 

 three rows of cowpeas are drilled in at least 4 feet away 

 from the rows of trees; these and the trees are culti- 

 vated frequently, until the peas have taken almost full 

 possession of the ground, and it is time for both the land 

 and trees to have a rest from cultivation. In the fall 

 when peas are ripe, enough are gathered for next year's 

 seed, after which hogs or mules may be turned in to 

 pasture for a time. The stubble furnishes a fine winter 

 cover, and is turned down at first plowing in February 

 or March, when summer culture begins, and at proper 

 time the orchard is again seeded to cowpeas, across the 

 former direction of the rows. Three years of this usually 

 builds up a perfect orchard without the aid of any 

 other fertilizers, except possibly a very little about the 

 trees at time of planting to give them a start. 



Low-headed trees are the rule, the trunks seldom 

 branching over 18 inches up, and often 8 inches to 



2801. Before and after pruning. 



a foot from the ground. As a rule, the close cutting- 

 back at time of planting, and a general shortening-in 

 of the leading branches for the first two or three years, 

 is about all the pruning given, even in the best orchards. 

 A good plan is to shorten-in every year much of the 

 past season's growth, and from the central head often 

 cut back two or three seasons' growth; but under no 

 circumstances are any of the good side shoots cut out 



