46 
SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF TIIE 
culture is varieties suitable lor the locality. That is import¬ 
ant information that Experiment Stations should promptly 
furnish, but they do not. For an illustration, the earliest va¬ 
riety of peach we know of is the Peen-to. In the center of the 
Peninsula and South that peach may be a saccess, but it is 
entirely worthless in Northern Florida, the reason being that 
it blooms too early for any section that has late frosts. 
TIME OF BLOOMING. 
I have been forced to consider a feature of peach culture 
that I have never found in any book or catalogue, namely,. 
When does it bloom ? It is a question I have never se en an¬ 
swered by any one trying to sell trees. It is a far more im¬ 
portant question than when it ripens its fruit, and it is one 
that I recommend all intending planters of peach tre es to 
have answered before they purchase. If the variety blooms 
before the time that you may reasonably expect the last cold 
spell in your locality, do not touch it. It will shorten your 
life, and worry what you do have, to see, year after year, 
your peach trees become loaded with young peaches, only to 
be made mush of by a late cold spell. If some of my nursery 
friends, or catalogue fiends, had given me information on 
this point when I commenced planting trees, some nine years 
since, it would have saved me thousands of dollars and much 
vexation of spirit; and not only myself, but my poor, suffer¬ 
ing neighbors, as they followed in my footsteps and set out 
acres of crazy ttees that do not, sleep until spring comes. 
LATE BLOOMING DESIRABLE. 
A peculiar thing I have discovered only by experience is 
that it is not necessary to look for a variety that blooms 
early to get early peaches. 
WALDO AND ALEXANDER COMPARED. 
Take the Waldo and the Alexander, and this year’s ex¬ 
perience: The Waldo commenced to bloom 3d to 5th of Feb¬ 
ruary, at the time of the late cold snap, March 27th, the fruit 
was nearly half grown; all lost. The Alexander had not 
opened any bloom March 27th, and is about in full bloom 
tu-day, April 7th. Now if the Waldo had not lost its fruit,, 
it and the Alexander would have matured their fruit at the 
same time, about the last of May. Each will sell the same in 
market. With this very great disadvantage of early bloom¬ 
ing, the Waldo and all seedlings of the Peen-to, have one ad¬ 
vantage over any Persian variety that I have tried, and that 
is, the Chinese are decidedly the best woodmakers. But all 
that beautiful wood is nothing, if those varieties put on fruit 
each year only to be frozen by the late cold. 
FOUR BEST VARIETIES FOR WEST FLORIDA. 
If I wanted to set out ten acres in peaches now, I would* 
