PEACHES. 



PEACHES in Colorado? Well, not yet. On the eastern 

 side of the range for fifteen years lovers of this delicious 

 fruit have tried and tried, and failed and failed, save here and 

 there, in rare instances, a tree has been guarded and tended 

 as though it was an exotic. 



We well remember our enthusiasm regarding peaches 

 when we first settled in Colorado. In our Greeley garden 

 there were peach trees as well as other fruit trees planted 

 the first season. We do not remember the variety, but that 

 summer they made a wonderful growth of slender limbs,, 

 and the prospect seemed fair that the trees would thrive. 

 The succeeding winter was exceptionally cold ; those who 

 were here in 1870-71 will remember it. There lay snow on 

 the ground in the valley of the Cache la Poudre for ninety 

 days. When the warm spring sun came to tempt the cot- 

 tonwoods to their emerald robing, day after day we watched 

 the peach trees, looking for the coming of the welcome pink 

 blossoms so familiar to childhood's days. Did they come? 1 

 Bare and brown through the bright spring days the branches 

 stood and never a flow of sap came up into them from the 

 roots. 



" Winter-killed," said dear Father Meeker, as he looked 

 at them one April morning. Yes, that was the story. 

 Later, new shoots came up in bewildering profusion and that 

 second summer our peach bushes grew rank. But the suc- 

 ceeding winter killed them down again, and we came to the 

 discouraging couclusion that peach culture in Colorado- 

 would never be a brilliant success. 



