Vol. LIX. No. 2655. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 15, 1900. 
81 PER YEAR. 
PLANTING PEACHES ON RICH GROUND. 
Is This the Best Practice ? 
It is generally considered dangerous to plant peach 
trees on very rich ground, and a great many inferior 
peaches have been grown by too strict adherence to this 
belief. Now comes Mr. Morrill with his system of high 
fertilization, high culture and rapid growth, and also 
shows that his trees thus treated not only produce fine 
fruit, but are actually hardier than others not making 
so rapid a growth. He also uses barnyard manure, 
which we have been told to avoid. I planted several 
hundred peach trees last Spring on ground that is in 
good condition; in fact, it produced 350 bushels of Sir 
Walter and 425 bushels of Whiton's Mammoth potatoes 
per acre this year. The trees have made a great growth 
this season. The soil is a rich sandy loam, well drained 
but never suffers for lack of moisture. How can 1 handle 
this in the future to the best interests of the orchard, 
and at the same time get as much profit from the catch 
crops as possible, as the land is worth $100 per acre? 
Ohio. w. f. 
Hale Wants Light, High Land 
I take it that this means land that is naturally very 
rich in all the elements of plant food, what we might 
term a good strong grass, wheat or apple land. If 
that is the meaning of the term used, I do not con¬ 
sider such lands most suitable for the production of 
the finest peaches, and in selecting land for an or¬ 
chard myself I want first—elevation, good air and 
frost drainage. Then if I can have just 
the soil I want, I prefer a light soil, 
either a sandy loam or a heavy loam 
with a little mixture of clay, with a sub¬ 
soil that furnishes quick and thorough 
drainage. I do not believe iif starving 
the trees by any means, but with these 
soils in only a medium state of fertility 
I can feed the trees just as I wish to, 
and manufacture the sort of peach that 
comes nearest to my ideal. I am a be¬ 
liever in close planting and still closer 
pruning of the peach tree and oy plant¬ 
ing on light soils, feeding heavily with 
potash and phosphoric acid, and only 
giving nitrogen from time to time as I 
see the foliage actually needs it, I am 
able to get tremendous yields of high- 
grade peaches from small tracts of land. 
If one has large tracts of cheap land 
and will plant the trees 25 or more feet 
apart, a more fertile soil may be used, 
and even stable manure, which will 
force a greater tree and foliage growth 
and give much fine fruit; but as a gen¬ 
eral proposition I do not want very rich 
land, or any stable manure, for peach-orchard pur¬ 
poses. If our friend has “land worth $100 an acre,” 
he would better not monkey with catch crops in his 
peach orchard, but devote his entire time to one crop, 
and then he will make good dividends on the value of 
his investment, but with double cropping he is more 
likely to slip up somewhere. J. h. hale. 
Bailey Says “Be Careful of Nitrogen.” 
In general I should advise persons to avoid the 
planting of peach trees on very rich ground, fearing 
that the trees would make so much growth as to be 
in danger of severe Winter injury. If the trees bear 
heavily, however, there is relatively less danger, for 
much of the energy which otherwise would go into 
wood, would go into fruit. A man like Morrill is a 
law unto himself. He makes his trees bear, not only 
by heavy fertilizing, but also by judicious pruning, 
proper selection of varieties, thorough tillage, and all 
the other means which contribute toward productive¬ 
ness. The addition of stable manure in his case gives 
good results, I fancy more because it helps to con¬ 
serve the moisture and adds humus to the soil than 
because it adds nitrogen. I should always avoid low 
lands and “bottoms” because the peaches are likely 
to grow too late, and also because such lands are 
usually too wet and “frosty.” On uplands, however, 
if the best culture and general attention is given, I 
doubt whether one is in much danger of fertilizing 
too heavily. I should always be careful, however, in 
this northern country, not to use very profusely of 
available nitrogenous fertilizers. l. h. bailey. 
Rich Land in Illinois. 
The impression prevails here that rich ground pro¬ 
duces the largest and best peaches, but on what is 
called poor ground it is conceded that the fruit colors 
up better. The soil here is a clay loam, and with im¬ 
provements is worth from $150 to $200 per acre. I 
have a block of nearly 700 peach trees on high prairie 
ground, most of them of bearing size, and the first 
thing done after planting is to manure or mulch heav¬ 
ily around the tree. Since the orchard was planted 
about eight years ago cow peas have been planted 
annually, and after they were cut the ground was 
plowed or cultivated twice during the season. I think, 
however, that plowing cow peas is wrong and would 
rather advise frequent disk cultivation unless humus 
is needed. The trees are low-headed, and I aim to cut 
back about one-half of the last year’s growth every 
Spring. In cultivating, however, I would not advise 
this to be done after the middle of October for obvious 
advantage, but under no circumstances would I use 
it in a peach orchard, unless it had been heavily 
cropped or badly neglected, and I would not get the 
potash and phosphoric acid in the form named.” 
That was ashes, muriate of potash and ground bone. 
The successful growers try to get the new wood in 
the first part of the growing season, and then sow 
oats, rye or some other crop in the later part of sea¬ 
son for a Winter covering, and to check the growth 
in time to ripen the tree. Some large growers near 
here used barnyard manure extensively before the 
cold Winter two years ago, but lost most of the trees 
when the thermometer went to 25 degrees below zero. 
The Winter two years ago was not as severe in the 
neighborhood of Benton Harbor, where Mr. Morrill 
lives, as in most parts of the State. We are experi¬ 
menting with cow peas in orchards here, and so far 
they have done well. We use the dwarf, and they ma¬ 
ture about October 1 if sown June 1, but vines re¬ 
main green until frost. They also remain green 
through a severe drought and are ready to absorb 
the moisture when Fall rains come. These are the 
conditions sought for in orchards; we cultivate 
through June and July, or until vines cover the 
ground. Some make a success of raising corn and 
picking the ears, leaving the stalks for a protection in 
the orchard. It seems impossible to harvest a crop 
and still leave the ground in proper 
condition for Winter, and it is never 
recommended by good growers here af¬ 
ter the first two or three years, no mat¬ 
ter what the price of the land. 
Kent Co., Mich. l. j. post. 
THE LARGEST GRAPEVINE IN THE WORLD. Fig. 319. 
reasons. In regard to catch crops I have never made 
a success of them in an orchard of any kind, except, 
perhaps, corn the first year and cow peas afterwards. 
I have tried potatoes after the trees got a fair size, 
but the crop was a miserable failure. I think, how¬ 
ever, that if W. F. puts on a reasonable amount of 
stable manure, after the third year he might be able 
to grow a few rows of strawberries between the trees, 
but I am not in favor of catch crops of any kind ex¬ 
cept for the purpose of enriching or improving the 
ground. I do not think our Ohio friend need be at 
all afraid to get his ground too rich for peach trees. 
Illinois. TO. JACKSON. 
Some Conditions in Michigan. 
The man who has a peach orchard on fertile land 
and wishes to make a success of his orchard, and at 
the same time make a profit from the catch crop, is, 
I think, laboring under a delusion. When he quotes 
Mr. Morrill, of Michigan, and other successful growers 
in this State as recommending barnyard manure for 
land in good condition I think he makes another mis¬ 
take. I heard Mr. Morrill make this statement at a 
State horticultural meeting; “Barnyard manure may 
be used on apples, pears, cherries and even plums to 
WORLD’S LARGEST GRAPEVINE. 
In The R. N.-Y. of November 10 Prof. 
Johnson gives a description of some of 
Maryland’s big peach trees, and you ask 
California to come forward if she has 
anything bigger to offer in the peach 
line. I trust your challenge will de¬ 
velop something interesting from the 
Golden State along the line of big peach 
trees, but it is not necessary for us to 
go hunting peach trees to show that 
there is a smallness after all in the 
Maryland giants. To prove this we 
need not go farther than the grapevine. 
We have such a vine, that for size and 
general bigness will walk away with 
the honors in open competition with the 
big tree belonging to Mr. Harris. The 
accompanying picture, Fig. 319, recently taken by my¬ 
self, will prove my seemingly extravagant statement 
to be free from any dangerous California tendencies, 
and will indicate in a measure the enormity of this 
great natural wonder. A brief description of this 
viticultural monstrosity may be of interest to the 
readers of The R. N.-Y. The vine is located in the 
Carpinteria Valley in Santa Barbara County. It had 
its beginnings in 1842, when a Spanish woman, one 
Joaquina Lugodi Ayala by name, planted a cutting 
of the old Mission variety of grape. From the start 
it gave promise of an unusual future, and to-day after 
half a century of growth, it stands the monarch of 
the grapevines of the world. The trunk measures at 
the base eight feet four inches in circumference; at a 
height of six feet from the ground it divides into four 
main branches, the largest of which has a circumfer¬ 
ence of three feet and five inches. It covers an area 
100 x 134 feet. Sixty-five stout posts with crossbeams 
support its enormous spread of branches. The pres¬ 
ent area, large as it may seem, does not fully repre¬ 
sent the prodigious growth of the vine, for its owner, 
Mr. Jacob Wilson, unwilling to concede it more room, 
cuts it back heavily each year. In 1895 a record was 
kept of tbe amount of grapes yielded by “ka yina 
