THE CULTIVATION AND DISEASES OF THE PEACH. 63 



The perfect health and vigor with which this block of trees 

 went into the winter encouraged us to plant more, and so 

 during the winter we looked about for other land, and finally 

 leased a tract on which, in the following April, we planted 

 3,000 trees in the same way as those at home had been 

 planted. - This field was a level tract on the top of a high hill 

 about half a mile away from and about six hundred feet above the 

 Connecticut river and having a deep ravine on two sides of it. 

 The soil was gravelly and poor. It was owned by a lady aged 

 ninetj'-five, who had been a widow over sixty years, and, having 

 no bo3's at home, had been obliged to lease the land from 3'ear to 

 3'ear till it had been so run down that no one would take it and 

 plant it. Consequently it had been idle some years previously to 

 our leasing it, but very little grass had come in and it was almost 

 bare of vegetation. Yet we had faith to believe we could furnish 

 the plant food required by the trees, if nature would supply the 

 moisture. And the dear old lady, after signing the lease with her 

 own hand, said, " Now, Mr. Hale, I am going to live long enough 

 to see one good crop of peaches on that lot." So we were sure of 

 success at no very distant day. In the mean time our home 

 orchards were treated as in previous years, and, the season being 

 favorable, we had a light crop of fruit — some three hundred bas- 

 kets, that sold for about two dollars per basket. August and 

 September being very wet weeds grew rapidl}', and, wishing for 

 good clean orchards, we cultivated much later than usual, and all 

 the trees made a most wondrous growth in September and into 

 October, and the first frost we had was a freeze down below 

 twenty degrees, so that many of the most rapid growing of the three- 

 year trees at home and over eighteen hundred of the one-year trees 

 were killed to the ground, and the best we could do was to plant 

 again the following spring and look out in future to guard against 

 too rapid or too late fall growth. 



By 1884, the oldest of our trees were large enough to produce a 

 full crop, but the mercury having gone down to twenty-three degrees 

 below zero one night in the winter, the fruit buds were killed except 

 a few on two or three varieties on the high land. These gave us a 

 few peaches, yet with no return to speak of. We planted 5,700 

 more trees on leased land and were now into the peach business 

 in earnest and had to devote much time and thought to it. 

 We spent considerable time in visiting orchards in various parts 



