82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Connecticut about the 20th of August. Then we had the 

 Old Mixon and Stump the World. Those of the old stand- 

 ard sorts have been the three most reliable first-class 

 peaches. We have had in addition to these a yellow peach, 

 Hill's Chili. It is o-rown somewhat in Michioan, and is an 

 orange-yellow all over, with no blush about it ; if grown on 

 unthrifty trees, it is woolly enough to shear ; but if grown 

 on well-stimulated trees, and the wood thinned out very 

 freely, it produces a fruit that is of fair appearance and 

 delicious quality. That is the only yellow peach of the old 

 standard varieties that we have found reliable. Then the 

 Keyport White that you find in the market late in Septem- 

 ber, sold as the Morris White. That is a hardy and reliable 

 peach. If gathered before it has matured, before it gets 

 really white and creamy, it will be occasionally greenish and 

 will be unsatisfactory. But these varieties have given us 

 satisfactory crops whenever we have got any crof) at all. 

 IliU's Chili has produced every year since it began to l)ear 

 in 18 S3. 



Secretary Sessions. Will you tell us about thinning and 

 pruning? 



Mr. Hale. Thinnino- is a doul)le-ended business. We 

 plan to prune our trees annually. We shorten in the new 

 wood of last season's growth from one-third to one-half. It 

 is on the new wood that all the good fruit buds are. If I 

 were to trim an orchard just for the sake of the tree itself, I 

 would trim any time in the fall after the foliage had dropped ; 

 but with us there is a liability of the frost killing the buds, 

 and we leave the trimming until the fruit buds begin to swell 

 in the spring, which is the latter part of March or early in 

 April. Then we go into the orchard and trim the trees. 

 Many times we have fair crops when ninety-five per cent of 

 the l)uds arc killed. With ninety per cent of the buds 

 killed you can get good crops, by judicious pruning, cutting 

 away only suc^h l)ranches as have few if any live fruit buds, 

 and leaving those that have buds alive, regardless of their 

 position on the tree or their relations to one another. This 

 method of ])i'uiiing docs not make the prettiest tree in the 

 world. I will wager that 1 have more homely and ill-shapen 

 peach trees than any man in America. I will wager again 



