36 THE PEACH 



shipments increased in two years to some 25,000 

 or 30,000 quarts per day, from the same station. 



The peach tree there located, having no enomy 

 to contend with but the borer, the caustic lime 

 was not applied at planting, or at any other time. 

 The trees were put in ordinary ground, without 

 any fertilizer, and with good culture produced fine 

 crops of peaches, commencing to bear the third 

 year after planting. The early fruit brought fine 

 prices in the northern cities, but the later peaches 

 coming into competition with an overstocked mar- 

 ket, from upper Delaware and Maryland, reduced 

 the prices to such a low figure that often the ex- 

 penses for baskets, collecting the fruit, freights, 

 cartage and commissions consumed the whole price 

 obtained, and, in fact, some consignments placed 

 the consignee on the debtor side of the account, and 

 the early profits were partly absorbed in the later 

 shipments. To all this there is another serious 

 drawback to peach growing in the South ; for, as 

 we proceed from Pennsylvania southward, even to 

 Florida, the more precarious is the peach crop, 

 from early blooming, succeeded by heavy frosts, 

 and such is my experience in raising peaches North 

 and South, that I am fully warranted in saying 

 that the difference in this respect between West 

 Chester, Pa., and Somerset county, Md., a distance 

 of about one hundred and fifty miles, in a due line 

 from North to South taking a consecutive num- 

 ber of years, has been fully fifty per cent, of an 



