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two or three weeks, until the fruit is picked, when cultivation may be less 

 frequent. 



IRRIGATION. 



Irrigation is usually begun in May, but it generally should be applied 

 much earlier, sometimes in March and frequently in April, or whenever 

 insufficient moisture is furnished by rainfall. It is well to plant the trees 

 on a grade of about six inches fall to the rod. Ditches can be made with 

 a single shovel plow, three feet apart, the rows of trees being the guide to 

 the man making the furrows, and with a little experience, he can always 

 make them on that grade so that water will run, while at less grade the 

 work could not be done without surveying each furrow. Water should be 

 run in the ditches until the ground is well saturated, then, as soon as it 

 has become sufficiently dry, which takes from one to two days on light 

 ground, but longer on heavier ground, it should be thoroughly cultivated 

 to prevent baking, which, in most soils, is sure to occur unless cultivation 

 follows each irrigation. Although this process is more expensive than the 

 old method of running water in the same ditches through the entire season, 

 the yield of fruit will be increased to an extent that will more than meet 

 the extra expense. The fruit will be larger, and whether it is dried, canned, 

 or sold fresh, the largest fruit sells for the highest price in the markets of 

 the East. 



PICKING AND PACKING. 



Early peaches, such as the Alexander and Hale's Early, are only used 

 when fresh, not being suited to either canning or drying, and all that can- 

 not be used in eating or cooking must be wasted. Nearly all the later vari- 

 eties, when not sold fresh, can be either canned or dried. For distant 

 shipment peaches must be quite firm when picked, although they should be 

 colored and show signs of being in a ripe condition. It is at this time 

 that their increase in size is most rapid, and if picked too green they will 

 not only be small, but will never attain good eating qualities, and be mis- 

 erable when reaching market. 



The methods of picking and packing now in use can be improved upon. 

 If the picker drops a peach into a box or basket, and the fall is only a few 

 inches, it is thereby injured, although the injury may not be perceived by 

 the most careful packer. It will, however, prematurely begin to decay at 

 the very point struck when dropped. To avoid this, and all rough hand- 

 ling between the orchard and packing house, the fruit maybe packed under 

 the trees when it is desired to have very particular work done. A light 

 handcart, with a frame under the axle arranged to take five or six peach 

 boxes and a platform above on which to wrap and pack the peaches, is 

 needed for this work. The cart can be taken from tree to tree, each peach 

 picked, and wrapped before leaving the hand and placed in the box. All 

 overripe or imperfect fruit must be rejected. Even if it cost double to pack 

 peaches by this method than in the usual way, it would be economy when 

 they are to be sent to distant markets. Another plan is to line the boxes 

 in which the fruit is to be placed from the tree with cotton batting, and 

 cover this with old sacks or other cheap material, then insist that the 

 picker carefully lay each peach in the box, and be never allowed to drop 

 them even an inch from the hand. The peaches should never be emptied 

 from the box, but taken to the packing house in a wagon, on which is 

 placed a frame that will carry two or more tiers, that the boxes may never 

 be placed one upon the other. The peaches should then be taken directly 

 from this carrier, wrapped, and placed in the box for shipment. In haul- 



