22 HARRISONS' NURSERIES 



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Peaches from our orchards are packed in Georgia carriers 



Peaches — A Year-after-Year Crop 



Wonderful successes are to be made by studying the needs and nature of this 

 fruit. Under good care, a Peach orchard will live twenty-five years or longer, 

 but the safest plan is to calculate on getting back the cost of the orchard and 

 your profit, from three crops, giving the orchard ten years from the time it is 

 planted in which to do this. 



Locate a Peach orchard on a north slope if you can, but if you can not, do 

 not hesitate to plant in a different exposure. As with apples, the higher eleva- 

 tions produce the finer fruit. The soil makes little difference so long as it is well 

 drained. Peaches will not grow nor bear well when they have wet feet. 



Peaches must be cultivated. That is, the soil must receive treatment 

 which will give the trees enough moisture, enough available plant food, and 

 sufficient fine earth in which the roots may feed. All that has been said about 

 planting trees in general, and about planting apple trees in particular, applies 

 to Peach-tree planting. 



In pruning Peach trees, remember that they bear fruit only on wood a 

 year old, that is, only new wood this year will produce fruit next year. One- 

 half to two-thirds of each season's growth should be pruned off. Peaches will 

 not produce profit unless both pruning and thinning are regularly done well. 



Peach-borers are soft, yellowish worms with a reddish brown head. They 

 do not usually go so deep into the wood as do apple-borers, but live just under 

 the bark. Go over all your trees, but particularly those younger than eight 

 years, every April and October. You can locate the borers by their sawdust, 

 by a blackened spot in the bark, or by the gum coming from their holes. Cut 

 around the hole a little with a sharp knife, and if you do not find the worms 

 right away, run a wire up or down the hole and mash them. 



The various remedies for scale, insects, and fungous diseases are covered in 

 the spraying table on page 12. 



Packing the Fruit. Many different styles of baskets and containers are 

 used for Peaches. Sometimes the local market determines the most practical 

 containers, but as a general thing the grower will find it best to use one of the 

 three standard methods. Our experience, which covers many years, has con- 

 vinced us that the regular six-basket Georgia carrier is the most practical way 

 of packing and shipping Peaches. The fruit should be packed in the baskets as 

 shown in the illustration above. In this form the package ships well, the fruit 

 arrives in good order, and is so attractive that it sells for good prices even in a 

 slow market. The carrier can be packed in the standard refrigerator car with- 

 out loss of space. In western Maryland and in West Virginia the bushel basket 

 is used by some growers. We have no particular objections to this package, 

 excepting that it cannot be divided into small units as in the Georgia car- 

 rier. A fruit-grower who has a local or nearby market can probably use the 

 bushel basket, but it seems to us that the half-bushel "Delaware" basket is 

 better for his purpose. Particularly is this true when the fruit is unusually large 

 or too small for the Georgia carrier. 



