CHAPTER XXI. 



Effects of Cultivation. 



WHILE for years I have known in a general way that 

 sod fruit would keep longer than cultivated, I was 

 greatly surprised, during my World's Fair shipments, 

 at a remark in one of Mr. Sam Dixon's letters, that, "while 

 all other fruit rots quickly, yours looks like it would keep for- 

 ever." Knowing that all of it was full ripe, I was much puz- 

 zled, and fell to wondering why my peaches kept longer than 

 others, aad could see no possible reason except that they 

 had been grown naturally, upon trees whose feeding roots 

 had never been disturbed, thus enabling them to so perfect 

 their fruit, combining its sugar, acid and color in one har- 

 monious whole, as to form a peach immune to rot. So, last 

 summer I determined to test this theory, so big with possi- 

 bilities for the fruit-grower, if true, and on the i5th of last 

 July, the first day of that awfully hot wave that swept over the 

 country, I shipped by express two baskets of Elberta peaches 

 to Mr. Williams, of the Practical Fruit Grower, Springfield, 

 Mo. ; two to Mr. Olcott, of American Fruits, Rochester, 

 N. Y. ; two to the Pacific Fruit World, Los Angeles, CaL, and 

 one to Mr. J. Horace McFarland, of Harrisburg, Pa., re- 

 questing all of them except Mr. McFarland to return one 

 basket at once to me at Lampasas. The peaches all went in 

 perfect condition and were pronounced "firm, juicy and deli- 

 cious," "just as fine as if picked fresh from the tree," Mr. 

 Poland, of the Pacific Fruit World, declaring "they were 

 magnificent, fit for an epicure." The other three baskets 

 were returned without opening, the one from California by 

 some delay, having taken sixteen days to make the round 

 trip, but all the peaches were still perfectly sound. 



Not satisfied with that performance, I closed each basket 

 on arrival and forwarded it to Farm and Ranch, Dallas, Tex., 



(93) 



