A BRIEF HISTORY OF PEACH CULTURE 

 IN CONNECTICUT 



FROM its earliest history Connecticut has always 

 reckoned the peach as one of her standard fruits. 

 During the latter part of the eighteenth and the 

 early part of the nineteenth century peaches were over- 

 abundant about every farm home, and having little or no 

 commercial value, were freely used as food for swine, along 

 with the other waste products of the farm. 



The spread of that dread disease, the 3'ellows, from 

 1840 to 1850, killed a vast majority of the peach trees in 

 the state, and, while they continued to be planted for 

 home supply, home-grown seedlings tainted with the dis- 

 ease and budding from diseased trees spread it so thor- 

 oughly that ten years later the peach had been almost 

 exterminated in the state. 



The growth of manufacturing cities and towns and the 

 greater commercial handling of fruits were soon taken 

 advantage of by New Jersey and Delaware, and in the 

 twenty years preceding 1885, those states supplied Con- 

 necticut with most of her peaches. 



About 1878, the late P. M. Augur, of Middlefield, set 

 out to establish a commercial orchard of nearly 1,500 

 trees. Scattered over the state wer(i a few other smaller 

 attempts at commercial peach growing, but the yellows 

 very soon ruined most of these orchards. 



In the spring of 1880, J. H. Hale, of South Glaston- 

 bury, after a number of years' study of the peach and its 

 requirements, planted an orchard of 3,000 trees, following 

 it up with 3,000 the next year and 6,000 more two years 

 later. Thorough culture, close annual pruning, liberal 

 feeding with potash manures and pulling out and burning 

 diseased trees as soon as discovered, were the principles 

 back of this enterprise. 



A moderate fruiting of these trees in 1884 stimulated a 

 few others to plant, notably J. B. Smith, who planted at 



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