THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 145 



are the great determinants of the large geographical peach-areas but beside 

 these there are several other factors influencing the formation of peach- 

 growing communities; as, transportation facilities, markets, labor, ability 

 to make and dispose of by-products, selling organizations, local climate 

 and so on. The economic factors just mentioned, as they apply to the 

 establishment of peach-belts, have received sufficient notice in the history 

 of the peach-industry in the United States, but these, together with several 

 natural factors, need a few words in their local application to individual 

 plantations under the head of locations and sites for peach-orchards — 

 the location having to do with the general surroundings and the site with 

 the partictdar piece of land to be planted. 



The dominant considerations in placing commercial peach-orchards 

 in the peach-zones in New York seem now to be economic ones. Nattiral 

 conditions are so favorable in any of the recognized peach-districts of the 

 State and obstacles so easily overcome by those who possess common 

 knowledge of peach-growing, that a crop comes almost as a gift from 

 nature. Natural advantages are more common than man-made ones; 

 so that suitable locations are mostly to be sought for in the centers of 

 peach-growing near a shipping point where the haul is short, the freight 

 service prompt, regular, efficient, with low freight rates and refrigerator 

 service, where labor is abundant, and, lastly and very important, where 

 the markets are so placed that they are not controlled by growers in regions 

 more advantageously situated. 



Advantages offered by local markets now determine the placing of 

 a good many peach-orchards in New York. A location where there is a 

 good local market and at the same time ample facilities for shipping to 

 distant markets is ideal, for it enables the grower to dispose of over-ripe 

 and second-rate peaches that otherwise go to the dump. The local con- 

 sumer, however, usually suffers. Prosperous towns and cities have added 

 much to the prosperity of nearby peach-districts in this State but generally 

 these local markets have not received the attention from growers they 

 deserve. The product sent to the local markets is usually much poorer 

 than that shipped to a distance. On the other hand, growers maintain that 

 customers in towns in the peach-belts will not pay for good fruit. 



Nowhere are the favorable influences of water more admirably illus- 

 trated than in the peach-orchards of New York, all of the peach-districts 

 being bounded on one or more sides by bodies of water. The great majority 

 of the orchards are planted on the shores of one of the two Great Lakes, 



