284 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Now as to the Crosby Peach, that most conservative and care- 

 ful of all careful periodicals, which is always slow in indorsing a 

 new thing, "Meehan's Monthly" for 1894, p. 77, says, "The Crosby 

 Peach seems to be a kind that has come to stay awhile and is well 

 suited to New England gardens. It originated near Lowell, 

 Mass., in 1875. It is one of the sweetest of the yellow Crawford 

 class, and a particularly abundant and regular bearer." 



We give the following statements by Mr. W. D. Hinds and 

 Mr. A. J. Hinds in the belief that they will be found of much 

 interest. 



Statement of Mr. "W. D. Hinds. 



TowNSEND, Mass., Nov. 9, 1895. 

 Mr. John G. Barker: 



Dear Sir : — In reply to yours of the 5th instant I will say that 

 after seeing the Crosby Peach fruit four years in succession pre- 

 vious to 1888, and two years when we had no peaches of any 

 other variety, I decided to set out an orchard as soon as I could 

 get the trees. As the originator had died and no one else was 

 propagating this variety I set two hundred Fox Seedling trees in 

 the spring of 1888 and rebudded them in August with the Crosby. 

 This being my first attempt at budding I only got about a hundred 

 of them to grow. In the fall of 1888 I sent some buds to Hale 

 Brothers to bud some trees for me. From these I got one hun- 

 dred and fifty trees, which I set in the spring of 1890. I had also 

 grown from three hundred to four hundred trees, which I budded 

 myself ; some of them I set out and some of them I sold. In the 

 sprmg of 1891, I received about two thousand trees from Hale 

 Brothers, selling eight hundred of this lot to my brother and some 

 to my father and setting some of the small ones myself. I have 

 set two or three hundred every spring since, so that I have now 

 about two thousand trees in my orchard. About six hundred 

 trees were in bearing this season, from which I sold over twelve 

 hundred baskets of very fine fruit, for from one dollar to two 

 dollars per basket. 



Had it not been for the severe frosts in May, while the trees 

 were in blossom, I should have had at least five hundred baskets 

 more, as I had over six hundred three year old trees on which the 

 frosts killed all the blossoms ; they were as full as possible up to 



