PEACH AND THE PEAR. 199 



laced their branches, and the south and southwest winds 

 which prevailed here in summer had full scope at every 

 peach on every tree, and the sun could also shine on 

 every peach not entirely shaded by the leaves. The 

 result was that I had the best fruit raised in this section, 

 the highest color, largest size and finest flavored, and it 

 sold higher than any other to the New York buyers. In 

 1865, Messrs. Wanson & Feree of that city, paid me 

 $1.05 per basket for all my fruit, which was 10 cents 

 higher than they paid any other person. I sold them 

 3,960 baskets and they told me at the close of the season 

 that they had made $1200 on my crop. The fruit 

 averaged them $1.60 per basket in the N. Y. market. 

 After the bargain for the orchard had been made I felt 

 that the price might be an unreasonable one and told 

 Mr. Feree, who was here, to keep an accurate account of 

 all shipments of my fruit. I would divide the loss with 

 them. He said he had done so with the above result. 



One further suggestion I must inflict upon you. 

 Hon. Jacob Blair, ex-M. C. from West Virginia, told me 

 some years ago, that a friend of his over in Ohio had not 

 failed to raise a good crop of peaches in thirty years, 

 and that his fruit commanded an extra price in the 

 Pittsburg and other markets. I wrote to that gentle- 

 man, and he attributed his unvaried success to raising a 

 mound a foot high around each tree at one year old, 

 increasing it each year, till it became three feet high. 



