33 



FivK- Year-Old Peach Tree Showixg Great Spread of Roots. Root 

 Shown 17 Feet Long. 



PEACH CULTURE. 



John F. Boyer, Middleburg, Snyder County, Pa. 



Peach culture is very different to-day from what it was 25 

 years ago, and in many locahties the cultivation of this delicious 

 fruit has been entirely al)andoned. It is, however, a fruit so well 

 known in Pennsylvania that a description is not necessary. Years 

 ago a peach tree would li\ e to bear almost like an apple tree, espec- 

 ially the seedling, which to-day is harder in bud than budded trees, 

 but the tree itself seems to have lost the vitality it once had and is 

 no more a longer lived tree than trees from the nursery. What 

 brought about these changes ? 



I believe that Providence had a great deal to do with produc- 

 tion. It seems to me that a man is limited in all lines of production. 

 In my opinion, surely, the man who bites off" more than he can chew 

 will make a llat failure in peach culture. 



It is not extensive but intensive peach culture that pays. The 

 man who can do the proper thing at the proper time is always the 

 man who off"ers the choicest fruits on our markets and that is the 

 only fruit that pays the producer. 



Common and poor fruit w^as never very renumerative with me. 

 The subject of peach culture seemed to me like a funnel, looking 

 into it at the small end, the farther you see into it, the wider the 

 subject gets. I always feel my inability to do justice to this subject. 

 The novice then would ask what are the requirements to be a suc- 

 cessful peach grower. My anwer would be, the Man, the Loca- 



