CHAPTER XX 

 THE PEACH 



Until the great prune planting passion of the decade ago the 

 peach was the greatest deciduous fruit of California judged by the 

 total number of trees in service. When the boom impression 

 went forth that cured prunes could be put up in sacks more cheaply 

 than wheat, people took to planting prune orchards by the sec- 

 tion all through the wheat districts of the great valley, and boom 

 planters even carried the trees where no one would think of plant- 

 ing wheat cutting up shallow-clay upland sheep pastures and 

 even yucca sand wastes into prune-growing colonies. Under such 

 planting propositions it is little wonder our nurseries sold prune 

 trees for twice the normal prices and still could not fill the demand. 

 Figures of prune trees in orchards rushed far beyond the peach 

 figures. This overplanting of prunes naturally brought loss and 

 disappointment, and interest turned again to peach planting, so 

 that now the peach has secured notable advance beyond the prune, 

 as shown by statistics in Chapter VI. During the last three years 

 the peach has had the call, the nurseries have had difficulty in 

 keeping up with the planting demand for certain varieties, which 

 will be discussed later, and the peach has demonstrated its right 

 to attain again its old position by possession of a greater acreage 

 than is given to any other deciduous fruit. 



The peach was the first fruit to ripen on the improved trees 

 brought here by the early American settlers, and the magnificence 

 of the peach was consequently the key-note of the refrain which 

 greeted the ears of the world in which the California gold cry was 

 ringing early in the fifties. In fact, the gold from the mine and the 

 gold from the tree were very nearly related. In old Colma, where 

 gold was discovered, there was a peach tree which bore four hundred 

 and fifty peaches in 1854, which sold foj3JDO each, or $1,350 for the 

 crop of the one tree, and in 1855, six trees bore one thousand one 

 hundred peaches, which sold for $1.00_each. Some of these pioneer 

 trees are said to be still living and bearing fruit. 



LONGEVITY OF THE PEACH IN CALIFORNIA 



There are many other facts to establish the claim that the 

 peach tree, if planted in a suitable soil and situation and cared for 

 with any devotion and skill, is not a short-lived tree in California. 

 California is too young to mark the limits of its duration, but there 



270 



