THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 63 



how peaches sold in the market, perhaps they would tell me eleven pence 

 apiece, and eleven pence a peck on the same day. That used to stagger 

 me very much: but it is so: and the man who offers you a fine Newington 

 peach for eleven pence or a five-penny bit, sells but few each day; and lives, 

 although very poorly, at a very great expence; consequently his profit 

 must be great on each article. The man who sells the peaches at eleven 

 pence each, will not grow rich by his business, any more than the grower. 

 Then we, come to the calculation of my profit' at four pence per peck, which 

 is the best and greatest price. Could the scheme be put in execution, it 

 will, generally speaking, require two men and one horse and cart each day, 

 to pick thirty pecks and carry them to market; and thirty pecks are more 

 than any white man can sell one day with another. A black man is much 

 better for this business than a white man; although they are in general 

 ignorant, they are impudent: thirty pecks of peaches, at four pence per 

 peck, is just ten shillings per day for peaches; and the two men's wages are 

 worth, at that season of the year, one dollar per day each, and one pint of 

 whiskey, which will be sixteen shillings for the men: the cart and horse are 

 worth one dollar and a half per day ; but you could not hire it for less than 

 two dollars. Now the expences on this business are one pound seven 

 shillings and three pence per day, and the produce is ten shillings. But 

 as I sold them, I made profit each day on thirty pecks of peaches two 

 shillings and nine pence: the reader may plainly see that there cotild not 

 be any thing done better. This shews in this part of the work where 

 I am on the Eastern Shore, one hundred miles and upwards from market, 

 that the reader will be convinced the cherries and peaches pay the best for 

 hogs." 



ADAPTABILITY AND VARIABILITY IN THE PEACH 



In the preceding pages our narrative has flitted from continent to 

 continent and country to country in a belt encircling the earth. Few other 

 fruits are found under such varied conditions and over such extended areas. 

 We have seen that peaches are found wild and cultivated qver much of 

 Japan; as far north as Vladivostock in Korea; once a wild inhabitant of 

 some part of China it is now cultivated in nearly every section of that 

 vast empire where agriculture is an industry; the trees are so abundant 

 and so much at home in the orchards and forests of the Turkestans and 

 Persia as to have given rise to the belief that they have always grown 

 there. While not so common as in Asia, yet peaches thrive in all of 

 southern Europe and readily submit to artificial culttire in pots and on 

 walls in northern European latitudes. Coming to America with the first 

 Spaniards, the peach found such congenial surroundings that it spread 

 rapidly, freely and widely, leading botanists three centuries later to call it 



