No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING. 81 



advised to cut the trees down and go into something else, 

 but we were not in the business that way ; so we borrowed 

 money and cultivated and manured the orchard again. In 

 1885 the buds were dead, and we had to borrow more money. 

 In 1886 it was the same ; and people said, " Boys, you are on 

 the wrong track ; you are just going to pieces yourselves, and 

 breaking everybody else." But we did not think so. We 

 borrowed some more money, and cultivated that orchard just 

 as well as before. We were in debt on that orchard seven 

 thousand dollars. I don't suppose that the farm was worth 

 more than three or four thousand dollars ; in fact, the mem- 

 bers of the church society, who had a mortgage of tAvo thou- 

 sand dollars on the farm, shook their heads and said they 

 must have more security. The next year we got between 

 nine and ten thousand dollars out of that peach orchard, and 

 paid off the mortgage that the church held on the farm. 

 I have signed a good many checks for a larger amount than 

 that since then, but I never signed one with quite so much 

 pleasure as I did the one that paid off that mortgage. 



If you go into peach culture, you must not expect to get 

 a crop every year, because the frost will catch you every 

 now and then ; but when you get a crop what fun you will 

 have, and how your neighbors will say, "How lucky you 

 are ! " 



Mr. Geo, Cruickshanks (of Fitchburg). It is a very 

 important thing to know what varieties of peaches Mr. Hale 

 would recommend for planting in Massachusetts. 



Mr. Hale. There are a few of the standard varieties of 

 peaches that are more hardy than others, — hardier in wood 

 growth and hardier in fruit bud. In our earlier plantings 

 we planted some twelve varieties of the leading standard 

 sorts of that time. We have found that on the whole the 

 yellow-flesh peaches are more tender in fruit l)ud, — that is, 

 the Crawford, the Foster, the Richmond, and peaches of 

 that class, have been more tender in fruit l)ud than the 

 white-flesh varieties. We have found,' as you have all found 

 if you have grown the very early varieties at all, that, 

 although they may be very hardy, they are poor fruit for 

 the market. We wanted a moderately eiwly variety, which 

 we found in the Mountain Rose, which ripens in central 



