PEACH 



else small June-budileii trees any time from October to 

 March; opening furrows for the trees and cross-check- 

 ing the rows 18 to 22 feet apart; later plowing this land 

 and planting it in cotton, continuing it for three and 

 often four years. Two to four hundred pounds of low- 

 grade fertilizer is applied in drills for the cotton and 

 usually very thorough culture given; trees are allowed 

 to grow at will, their culture being incidental to the 

 cotton crop. In such orchards very little if any pruning 

 is ever attempted. After the trees become so large as 

 to drive out the cotton, one plowing is given in winter, 

 then anything from fairly good culture to none at all 

 the rest of each season. Such a system results in many 

 "scrub orchards," that arc not very profitable after six 

 or seven years. 



Specialists, who devote almost their entire time to the 

 Peach business, plant their trees mostly 16x 16 or 18 x 18 

 feet and give them entire use of the land. The under- 

 signed, being a rather close pniner. has about l.W.OOO 

 trees planted 13x13 feet and about IT.'i.oOO planted 15 



PEACH 



1233 



15 i 



iled 



All land is plowed deep, and soUK-tinii 

 before planting. Young orchards are given freiiucnt 

 and thorough tillage up to mid-season, when 2 or 3 

 rows of cow-peas are drilled in at least 4 fei-taway from 

 the rows of trees; these and the trees are cultivated 

 frequently, until the peas have taken almost full pos- 

 session of the ground, and it is time for both the land 

 and trees to have a rest from cultivation. In the fall 

 when peas are ripe, enough are gathered for next year's 

 seed, after which hoijs or nniles may be turned in to 

 pasture for a time. Tli.' stul.lile furnishes a fine winter 

 cover, and is turniii dnxMi ,,t lir^t plowing in February 

 or March, when sinriiin r .nlnin- lu-gins, and at proper 

 time the orchard is :ii:.tin sr.-ii. <l i.. cow-peas, across the 

 former direction of ili. r w-. Ihrie years of this usu- 

 ally builds up a p. rf. rt Mi.liar.l without the aid of any 

 other fertilizers, ex.. p! jmsviiiiy a very little about the 

 trees at time of i)laniiii^' tc. ^'ivf tljem a start. 



Low-headed trees an- tli.- rule, the trunks seldom 

 branching over 18 inclies up, and often 8 inches to 

 a foot from the ground. In one section of the writ- 

 er's orchard at Fort Valley, Georgia, he has 100,000 

 trees 8 years old, headed .so low that in a full-crop 

 season like 1900, a man sitting on the ground could 

 have gathered fully one-half the fruit from each tree. 



As a rule, the close cutting-back at time of planting, 

 and a general shortening-in of the leading branches for 

 the first 2 or 3 years, is about all the pruning given, 

 even in the best orchards. Our own plan is to shorten- 

 in every year much of the past season's growth, and 

 from the central head often cut back 2 or 3 seasons' 

 growth; but under no circumstances are any of the 



1673. Fruit- 



■ ith leaf- 



good side shoots cut out that force themselves on all 

 the main stems when the top is properly headed back. 

 Figs. 1678, 1679. These little side branches have given 

 the writer several full crops of fruit, when without them 

 there has been failure. 



Soil and climate fav^.r tli. \< i\ l.riu'htest of color on 

 all Peaches in the S-nitl : ^ ; i!:: ^f the soil and th<* 

 long, hot summer sun .i ■ ,. i . i ■ . -. and 

 sweetness of flavor m.j. [,.i - ,,i,. utlier 

 section of America, thuu^'h ilu .-.aiuc varie- 

 ties are not as juicy or luscious as when 

 grown further North. The writer's obser- 

 vation leads him to believe that there is 

 more water and less of solid matter in the 

 Peach the further one goes North with its 

 production, and while one can eat more of 

 the northern Peaches ripe from the tree it 

 takes the southern-grown Peach to put fat 

 on one's ribs. During the jiast ten years, 

 besides very heavy plantin^-s l.y southern 

 landowners, northern fi-uit nn-Ti sinirly and 

 in corporations have planted cxtriisi\elv nf 

 ppach.-s:,ll tbr..iiL'h the South, niu.st largely 

 in (it^'t _i:i iM I ii. --I'liih and west of Macon. 

 witliN' II..':.. I .".II miles. 



'I'll' .: I.''.: Ill cnnnection with cotton 



plaiii.'iih.nv lu ilieway from 10 to 100 



acres in extent, while the "straight-out 



Peach farm " seldom has as few as 50 acres 



in fruit, more of them having from 100 to 



200 acres, while orchards all the way from 



300 to nearly 3,000 acres in .xlcnt are no 



uncommon sight. Saniud H. Kuni]ih, at 



Marshallville, Georgia, lias ,„.■,;■ iIimii 1.000 



acres superbly cultivat. .1 in .inliard; the 



writer's orchard at Fun \'all''>. *' 



has considerably more than 2. (Mm ; 



fruit trees, 335,000 of which can 



from an outlook on the central 



house. Rows of trees l>2-2 mills ii 



stretching away in all directions give a tween. 



powerful impression of the Georgia Peach 



industry, which turns out 2,500 to 3,000 car-loads of 



Peaches in the 6 or 7 weeks of a busy picking seas<in, 



and yet has not one-half its planted treis in really full 



fruitage. 



Growth usually ceases early in August, and tin trc.s 

 shed their leaves the last of September, a nM.ntli ..r Ii 

 weeks before any frosts come. Should tlic fall be warm 

 and wet, some fruit-buds will be forced into bloom, while 

 the great majority will remain dormant until late Jan- 

 uary or early February, when spring growth commences. 

 The seasonof full bloom is usually about the first week 

 in March, though it varies all the way from February 15 

 to March 25, and no matter whether early or late, the 

 entire blooming season of most varieties covers a period 

 of nearly 3 weeks. -While spring frosts are the greatest 



period ..ftcn irives a . 1. .i ' . ' Mm- ."f fruit be- 



some bcjateil IhhIs. I .. n -' \ai-\ini,' chances 



of escaping between ir-; , ' > ■ r in three 



Jack Frost is master of tin -: 'i i More is no 



Peach crop. Two oth.r >. i n . I .miper the 



southern Peach culti\;iior monilia or 



brown rot. Curculios an- vcin al'im.lant : in Linningearly 

 in April, they keep up their destructive work uniil the 

 end of the fruiting season. When the crop is abundant 

 frequent thioning of the stung specimens and burn- 

 ing them prevents serious harm, although the extra 

 expense is considerable ; but in seasons of short or 

 moderate crops trees must be jarred daily and the cur- 

 culio gathered on sheets or canvas trays and destroyed. 

 During the season of 189). in the Hale orchard, 100,000 

 trees were freed from the curculio by jarring 50,000 trees 

 every other day for 7 weeks. A practically perfect 

 crop of fruit was harvested, and the orchard shipped 

 more sound fruit than any other 500,000 trees in the 

 state, or nearly one-quarter of Georgia's Peach crop of 

 that year. 



The early spring months at the South are inclined to 

 be pleasant and very dry. and the summer rains, which 

 are frequent and abundant when they do come, often do 



