THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 1 59 



unpruned peach-orchards, come to old age, are the saddest sights of the 

 country. After the first few crops, when the flush of vigor has passed, 

 they cannot be profitable and it would seem the sooner the axe lays them 

 low the better for the owner. Not to prune the peach is consummate 

 neglect. 



Peaches are thinned to improve the fruit that remains, to save the 

 vigor of the tree, and destroy insect- or disease-infected fruits. Commend- 

 able as these objects are, the practice is all too seldom observed in New 

 York. The objections are scarcity and high cost of labor. Still the best 

 growers always thin, doing the work soon after the summer drop which 

 usually occurs six to eight weeks after the blossoming-time and just as 

 the pits in the embryonic fruits begin to harden. It requires good judgment 

 to tell at the time of thinning what will prove superfluity at the harvest. 

 Vigor of tree, variety, fertility and moisture in the soil, the season, diseases 

 and insects, all must be considered. The common advice is to thin the 

 fruits so that they will not be nearer together than from four to six inches 

 but the skillful growers adjust the size of the crop to the orchard and 

 seasonal conditions. Thinning really begins, it should be said, in the 

 winter when the trees are dormant and redundant branches and superfluous 

 wood on the parts remaining are cut out. By delaying winter-pruning 

 until danger of winter-killing is passed many growers save labor in 

 summer-thinning, since, as early as this, fruit-prospects are fore-shadowed. 



It is interesting to record that peach-orchards are never top-grafted 

 in New York though it seems to be a matter of rather frequent practice 

 in the South and far West. There are plenty of occasions for working 

 over peach-trees in this State; as, when poor varieties are substituted, 

 or in changes in fashion in peaches, or on finding a variety poorly adapted 

 to orchard-conditions. But under any of these unfortimate circumstances 

 in New York the axe and the grub-hoe make way for a new planting rather 

 than trust to the skill of the grafter. Old peach-trees can, of course, be 

 either budded over or grafted over to a new variety but we take it that 

 a century of experience has demonstrated that changing the whole tree 

 is better than changing the top. 



HARVESTING, MARKETING AND PROFITS 



The beginning of the Twentieth Century is marked as a period in 

 which commercial affairs in agriculture are being more highly developed 

 than ever before. Temporarily, the idea of making two blades of grass 



