Vol. LIV. No. 2380. NEW YORK. SEPTEMBER 7, 1895. 
“A GEORGIA PEACH 
HOW IT IS PLANTED, PROTECTED, PICKED AND PACKED. 
[editorial, correspondence.] 
A New Industry and Its Prospects. 
For the past few years, “Georgia peaches” have 
been seen on the fruit stands in Northern cities. They 
came at a season when good peaches were rare. With 
their beautiful color and exquisite flavor, they were 
quick to draw attention from the tasteless California 
peaches, that had so long held the early markets. 
Reports have come to us from time to time of the 
wonderful possibilites of Georgia as a fruit-growing 
State. We have also heard of the great preparations 
being made by shrewd men to utilize these natural 
advantages in a businesslike way, by growing and 
shipping fruit to the Northern markets. Being fully 
convinced that the Gulf States are to play a very im¬ 
portant part in the production of the world’s supply 
of horticultural 
products, The 
R. N.-Y. deter¬ 
mined to obtain 
some facts that 
would give its 
readers a fair 
idea of Geoi’gia 
as a peach 
country. Ac¬ 
cordingly the 
writer visited 
that section of 
the State run¬ 
ning south 
from Macon, 
and across to 
Savannah. This 
and other arti¬ 
cles to follow, 
are written 
from personal 
observation. I 
have talked 
with rich white 
men, and poor 
negroes, a n d 
rich negroes, 
and poor white 
men — with 
men, women 
and children of 
all degrees and 
colors, in the 
hope of obtain¬ 
ing a fair and 
impartial idea of the prospects for fruit growing in 
Georgia. 
Most of these facts about peach growing were ob¬ 
tained at the Hale Brothers’ orchard, at Fort Valley. 
So far as I can learn, the methods of growing, packing 
and shipping employed there, are well-nigh perfect so 
far as peach culture has yet gone in the South. The 
same methods are possible at Americus, Albany, 
Thomasville, Waycross or other points where sufficient 
fruit can be shipped to warrant the railroads in giving 
a refrigerator car service. I shall be pleased to have 
any of our readers ask questions about points that are 
not made perfectly clear, or to comment on any state¬ 
ments that seem to require further discussion. 
The Story of a Peach Ranch. 
It was on July 16, that Mr. J. II. Hale and I mounted 
to the top of the packing shed shown at Fig. 186. The 
humans who decorate the picture were then hard at 
work inside the building, as we shall see later. The 
old flag was waving from its staff. It is the same flag 
that flies over the Connecticut peach shed—taken 
north and south to celebrate peach time. 
Below us on every hand stretched a forest of peach 
trees. At Fig. 187 is shown one view of the orchard 
from the top of the shed. The buildings off to the 
right are half a mile away. In another direction, one 
can look straight over three-quarters of a mile of 
peach trees. This shed is the central point of 900 
acres, or 100,000 peach trees in one solid block. 
It was an inspiring scene. Great armies of pickers 
went in and out among the trees, low-down wagons 
were running up the avenues with baskets of fruit 
ready for the packers, white-covered wagons, such as 
we see in the picture, were crawling away with their 
fragrant freight to the railroad, and the building 
where we stood hummed and throbbed like a perfect 
hive of industry. The hot sun blazed down upon us, 
and the old flag seemed to straighten out and ripple 
with pleasure. Well it might, for here was an in¬ 
dustrial victory —a new industry bringing labor, money, 
energy and inspiration to a section where, for years, a 
narrow, one-crop policy had been followed. Peaches 
are better than bullets for the South to fire at the 
North! 
“ How in the world did you come to think of this ? ” 
I asked Mr. Hale. “ Well ! Well ! But it must have 
taken faith to go ahead with such a business ! ” 
“ I have always been a sort of a ' peach crank,’ he 
replied, and after establishing our Connecticut orchard 
some 20 years ago, my horticultural travels in recent 
years carried me into every State in the Union. Par¬ 
ticularly between 1885 and 1890,1 had my ‘ peach eye ’ 
open for some favorable locality where all the condi¬ 
tions to successful peach culture appeared to be pres¬ 
ent. My attention was fixed upon this particular ter¬ 
ritory while down here in 1890, investigating the great 
watermelon industry for the Eleventh Census of the 
United States, which was then in my charge. The 
particular reasons for locating here were, that, so far 
as I could learn, it was the most southerly section in 
the United States where the Persian strain of peaches 
could be grown to perfection annually. This being so, 
there was an opportunity to plant the medium to late- 
ripening varieties, and get them into market before 
the small, inferior varieties of the central North; 
and hence an opportunity to supply the market with 
choice fruit in June and July, when it could be had 
from no other section of the United States, and conse¬ 
quently a promise of good markets and high prices. 
Then again, the situation here was high and dry, the 
elevation being nearly 600 feet, at the very lower spur 
of the Blue Ridge Range ; there was a delightful 
climate in winter and far better in midsummer than 
any other section of the South of which I knew ; an 
abundance of efficient, cheap labor and two lines of 
railroad leading to the North. These were the main 
factors that caused me to locate here. The farm had 
been one of the best cared for and equipped of any of 
the cotton plantations of Houston County, which has 
always been 
considered one 
of the most 
favorable and 
productive 
counties in the 
State. Owing 
to the death of 
the owner, the 
farm had been 
neglected for 
four or five 
years previous 
to our purchase, 
but upon the 
whole, would 
have been con¬ 
sidered a first- 
class cotton 
plantation, 
somewhat run 
down by crop¬ 
ping of tenant 
farmers.” 
“ How long 
have you been 
at it ? ” 
“The first 
actual opera¬ 
tions of plant¬ 
ing the orchard 
were begun 
early in Novem¬ 
ber, 1891, when 
my brother and 
his wife, and 
three young men from our Connecticut farm, a boss 
carpenter and myself, came here for the winter, board¬ 
ing in town for three weeks while we were erecting a 
barn, the upper story of which was done off for living 
purposes, and we were eating our first meal there just 
three weeks after we landed in Georgia. Clearing 
away fences and hedge rows, and getting the planta¬ 
tion into one clear block of land, was the first work. 
The planting of trees began about the middle of 
December, and continued through January and into 
the middle of February, when the last of the entire 
100,000 were put out.” 
“ How did you proceed to prepare the ground of 
that old cotton plantation for the peach orchard ? ” 
“ The first operation of planting was a careful sur¬ 
vey of the farm into blocks 1,000 feet long and 500 
feet wide, divided by avenues running north and 
south, and cross streets running east and west, mark¬ 
ing the corners of each lot by planting Garber pear 
trees, and then running lines for planting the rows of 
trees 13 x 13 feet each way. This was done with all 
A GEORGIA PEACH-PACKING SHED AND THE PACKERS.o Fig. 186. 
