189!) 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER; 
PEACHES THAT PAY. 
THE STORY OF A MICHIGAN ORCHARD. 
How the Fruit is Graded and Packed. 
LUCKY PEACH GROWERS.—As everyone knows, 
the general peach crop of the past season—owing to 
the unusual freeze of last February—has been a de¬ 
cidedly light one, even in the most favored loca¬ 
tions. Seven per cent of an average yield is the esti¬ 
mate for Michigan. Some orchards did not produce 
a single peach this year. Some had a light crop. A 
really good yield has been the exception. Thomas 
Mark, of Van Buren County, has an orchard that 
ranks among the lucky few. For six years the trees 
have not missed a paying crop, in spite of freezes, 
frosts, gluts and grubs. I had the good fortune of 
visiting this farm right in the height of the last 
peach harvest. 
“How many trees, in all?” I asked, after making 
a tour of the various orchards. 
“About 1,300. Of these, 300 are 12 years old, 150 
are five years old, and 850 are one to four years old. 
So, in reality, our yield this year comes from 450 
trees, of which only 300 are actually in full bearing. 
Until this year, our entire crop, practically, has come 
from these 300 peach trees, alone.” 
“What has that crop averaged you?” 
“This is our sixth season on the farm. The first 
year we netted $400 on peaches; the second year, 
$310; third year, $240; fourth year, $600; fifth year, 
$300—an average for the five years of $370 net.” 
“What do you call nett” 
“The net profit after deducting freight, cartage, 
commission, baskets, tarlatan and hired labor. Our 
own time is not figured. The above results, remem¬ 
ber, are from only 300 trees.” 
LEARNING THE TRADE.—“Were you an experi¬ 
enced hand at peach culture, before you came here, 
Mr. Mark?” 
“Well, not exactly. Before we moved here, I had 
—actually—never seen a peach growing on a tree! 
I had been a wheat farmer in North Dakota, and 
knew absolutely nothing about fruit raising—not a 
thing. Fortunately—for us—we hit on this 40-acre 
farm with the 300 trees. Fortunately, again, the 
varieties were right and the location and soil suit¬ 
able. So Nature, to start with, helped out our ig¬ 
norance somewhat; since then we have done our 
best to learn the business from A to Z.” 
Certainly, I never saw more shapely or more 
thrifty trees. The soil is a gravel-sand mixture, and 
the natural drainage is excellent. Each year a block 
of peach trees had been set out, until the total of 
1,300 was reached. Some of the trees were set 16x13 
feet; some 18x18, and some 18x20 feet apart. Only 
the higher parts of the farm have been used for 
these orchards, the lower-lying fields being utilized 
for hay, corn, strawberries, sugar beets, etc. 
“I like 18x18 feet best, for peaches,” continued Mr. 
Mark, in answer to further questioning. “We plow 
in the Spring—after blooming time—and then har¬ 
row regularly once a week until August 1. If it rain, 
after harrowing, we turn right around and work 
the ground again. At the last harrowing, we sow 
some catch crop—rye, barley, etc. This year, as you 
see, it is oats and Crimson clover—and a nice catch, 
too. I don’t think much of rye, myself—it gets too 
high and sucks too much moisture out of the ground 
before plowing time in the Spring. I believe that 
oats and Crimson clover are the ideal for a peach 
orchard—the oats catch the snow, and thus help 
the clover through the Winter. As regards fertil¬ 
izer, nothing has been used on the orchards, so far, 
but stable manure—treating half of the bearing trees 
one year, and the other half the next year. The soil 
being naturally good, the younger trees have not as 
yet required any pushing. The manure is spread 
just previous to plowing—I don’t believe in letting 
manure dry out on top of the ground.” 
“Do you prune and thin every year?” 
“Yes; and it’s a big job, requiring considerable 
extra help. We prune in April, usually—cutting 
back and thinning out, both. If this work is thor¬ 
oughly done, the subsequent labor of thinning the 
fruit is greatly lessened. The thinning itself can be 
done at any time before the pit hardens. Our rule 
is to thin to five inches apart, and that—in ordinary 
years—means to pull off fully three-quarters of the 
peaches. It required nerve to do it—at first—but 
each year we took off a little more, until we became 
hardened to the slaughter. You will rarely see a 
peach tree that has been too severely thinned—the 
error is usually the other way.” 
“Do you spray?” 
“No, I can’t say that we do. I bought a good pump 
several seasons ago, and sprayed a part of the trees 
one or two years—but, somehow, I didn’t seem to 
realize much benefit from it. It’s a good thing, 
though, undoubtedly, and perhaps I ought to prac¬ 
tice it more. But when you are getting good crops 
of nice fruit every year—without it—there isn’t 
much inducement to go to any extra labor!” 
SORTING BY MACHINERY.—Then we went to 
the packing room—located in the spacious barn— 
and I watched the various operations there with 
great interest. The peach grader—a $35 machine— 
particularly attracted my attention. A wagon drove 
up to the barn door, filled with the round peck 
picking-baskets—each basket full of peaches just 
as they came from the tree. The pickers use a strap 
that hooks on to the baskets, and then goes over 
the shoulders, leaving both hands free to work with; 
when a basket is filled, it is taken to the wagon and 
exchanged for an empty one, unhooking and re¬ 
hooking being an easy matter. Thus the fruit 
A FIVE-YEAR-OLD GOLD DROP TREE. Fla. 310. 
reaches the barn without being rehandled. When 
the wagon reached the barn, one man lifted the bas¬ 
kets from it, and carefully poured the fruit, as de¬ 
sired, into the hopper, or upper end of the grader. 
Another man sat on a stool and worked the foot 
treadles which keep the screw feeders in motion; 
there are two of these revolving feeder rods, one 
on each side, and their mission is to keep the 
peaches moving steadily along down the incline. As 
the fruit passed before the treadle man, he guided 
it with his hands to prevent jamming or crowding— 
at the same time throwing out (into the small bas¬ 
ket at the top) all over-ripe or imperfect peaches. 
Passing downward, the smallest fruit drops through 
an opening, and rolls out of the first (or upper) can¬ 
vas spout, into a bushel basket beneath; the next 
largest falls into the next basket, and so on down to 
the end—the largest specimens making the entire 
journey and then rolling into a fifth basket (not 
shown in picture), placed at the lowest end of the 
machine. Now, counting backwards (or uphill), we 
have, first, “selects,” then No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and 
culls. In packing, each is, of course, packed sep- 
GRADING PEACHES BY MACHINERY. Fig. 311. 
arately, and the various numbers are designated by 
crosses: One cross for No. 3, two crosses for No. 2, 
and three for No. 1. The big peaches are marked 
“selects,” or “fancy”; the culls are largely fed to 
pigs, and the soft fruit is sold locally. It took only 
10 minutes to run the entire wagonload of peaches 
through the machine. 
“How many bushels in the load?” I inquired. 
“Eight.” It seemed like rather quick work; yet 
no one had hurried, excepting, perhaps, the third 
man (whose business it was to exchange the full 
baskets for empty ones); he certainly had to hustle 
occasionally to keep up with the falling stream. 
Still more surprising, the graded fruit did not ap¬ 
pear bruised in the least by the operation. 
“It’s all owing to how you pick them,” explained 
Mr. Mark. “To grade or ship decently; peaches must 
be taken from the trees while still hard—that is, 
when they have fully matured, but have not yet 
started tp soften. To attain this result, it is neces- 
851 
sary to hire only experienced pickers—men who seem 
to know, by instinct, which peaches to pick and which 
to leave. It’s a knack that only comes from long 
practice. You can’t strip peach trees at one picking— 
it is usually necessary to go over them three or four 
different times.” 
As I watched the packers, it was easy to see how 
much the grader facilitates the after work; packing 
and sorting at the same time, the usual method, is 
of necessity tiresome and slow; besides this sorting 
by the eye is seldom uniform or accurate. 
SHIPPING; THE VARIETIES.—For shipment, Mr. 
Mark mostly uses the regular fifth-bushel Climax bas¬ 
ket, with slat cover and red tarlatan beneath. Deal¬ 
ers seem to prefer the tarlatan covering; they object 
if it is not used, and baskets not thus covered usually . 
sell at a discount. Putting on the tarlatan and covers 
is done at a separate table fitted with several revolv¬ 
ing trays, the latter being something of a novel idea 
to me. When the workman takes up a filled basket, 
he sets it down on one of these trays, puts on the 
tarlatan (or the cover), fastens one end, and then, 
instead of lifting up the basket and changing ends 
by muscular effort, he simply gives the handle a whirl 
with his fingers until the desired end swings into 
position. This may seem like a small thing, perhaps, 
but it is not. It is hard work to turn filled baskets all 
day long by main strength; this little revolving tray 
saves both effort and time. 
“Formerly,” said Mr. Mark, “we thought it neces¬ 
sary to sew down the tarlatan—in fact, most growers 
used to do it that way; now we simply tuck up the 
four corners under the basket rim—and there you 
are! That saves time, too.” 
“How do you account for your remarkably good 
crop in a year when many of your neighbors’ orchards 
are less favored?” 
“That’s a hard question. I think, though, that it’s 
more in the varieties than anything else. Then, again, 
regular fertilizing and high, well-drained soil may 
have had something to do with it.” 
“What varieties do you refer to?” 
“Gold Drop and Hill’s Chili. As it happens, the 
bulk of my bearing trees are of these two kinds, and 
these particular varieties seem to have stood the cold 
better than many others.” 
“Whom do you sell to, mostly?” 
“It depends somewhat on the season. This year 
most of my best peaches have been taken by a local 
canning factory. Some years I sell largely to local 
buyers who are filling refrigerator cars for shipment 
to distant points. Then we always ship more or less 
to certain private customers, and to Chicago commis¬ 
sion men. We simply try to do the best we can each 
year—according to the varying market conditions.” 
The figures for this season’s peach crop are as fol¬ 
lows: Bushels sold, 650; net proceeds, $950, after de¬ 
ducting hired labor, baskets, freight, cartage, com¬ 
mission, etc. Over half of the above amount is net 
cash from the canning factory. w. e. Andrews. 
SCRAPS. 
It is believed that the forests of California and the 
Carolinas would prove congenial homes for the truffle, 
that delicious underground fungus which adds $5,000,000 
annually to the pockets of French farmers. It is be¬ 
lieved that it may be grown artificially, like its relative, 
the mushroom. 
A truck grower in Brazoria, Texas, reports gathering, 
last Spring, 259 quarts of strawberries from a row of 265 
hills. The variety was Lady Thompson He ships his 
entire output to Colorado, and in packing his fruit he 
Places cotton batting over the boxes before putting the 
lid on the crate. This absorbs moisture, excludes light, 
and cushions the top berries, so that they keep bright 
and fresh. 
A Georgia farmer is said to have become the pioneer 
in a new industry—namely, making syrup out of water¬ 
melons. He cuts the melons in halves, scoops out the 
pulp, runs it through a cider mill, presses out the juice 
and then boils the liquid for 12 hours over a hot fire. 
Out of 270 melons, worth $5 or $6 at wholesale, he gets 30 
gallons of syrup, and markets the product at 50 cents per 
gallon. The refuse is fed to the hogs, cattle and chickens, 
and the whole operation is very profitable. 
Good Advice.—A duck, which had laid several dozen 
eggs during the season, complained that, while her 
working record was better than the hen’s, the latter had 
books and poems written in her honor, while no one had 
a word of praise for the duck. A wise old rooster stand¬ 
ing by said: “You lay an egg and waddle off without 
saying a word, while that sister of mine never lays one 
without letting everyone in the neighborhood know it. 
If you want to cut any ice around here, you must ad¬ 
vertise.” 
We have often called attention to the correspondence 
courses in agriculture which are offered by some of our 
agricultural colleges. The Pennsylvania College, at 
State College, is conducting a very popular course of this 
sort. Students who are reading the books recommended, 
range in age all the way from 16 to 72 years, the majority 
of them, however, being mature men and women. They 
seem to be a class of people who find it impossible to 
attend a college, and yet seek to avail themselves of a 
definite and distinct course of reading. 
