CHAPTER 2.x. 
THE PEACH. 
The peach was for many years the leading orchard fruit of 
California, but the recent large planting of prunes has relegated 
the peach to second place. ‘The peach was the first fruit to ripen 
on the improved trees brought here by the early American set- 
tlers, 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 Coloma, where gold was discov- 
ered, there was a peach tree which bore four hundred and fifty 
peaches in 1854, which sold for $3.00 each, or $1,350 for the 
crop of 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 Cali- 
fornia. California is too young to mark the limits of its dura- 
tion, but there are numerous instances in the earliest-settled 
places in the State, where peach trees above forty years old are 
still vigorous and productive. 
In favorable soils the peach is stronger and longer lived in 
the root than in the top, and sometimes triumphs over neglect by 
discarding its old, wind-broken, sun-burned and bark-bound 
branches, and forms a new head of its own. This is the reason 
why the intelligent system of pruning which is now prevalent, 
ministers to the longevity as well as the profitability of the tree, 
aiding it to constantly renew its youth by restraining its exuber- 
ance, and at the same time furnishing it sound new wood on 
which to grow its fruits and foliage. But while these are facts, 
there is some difference of opinion as to the point at which an 
old tree becomes less valuable than a young one. Along the 
Sacramento River some count about a dozen good crops as the 
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