Vol. LXXVIII. 
Published Weekly by The Rural Publishing Co.. 
333 W. 30th St.. New York. Price One Dollar a Year. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 27, 1919. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, June 26. 1879, at the Post 
Office at New York. N. Y.. under the Act of March 3. 1879. 
No. 4566. 
The Scientific Search For A Peach 
d 
New Jersey Coming Back With New Varieties 
Part I. 
A few weeks ago we told of the wonderful work in 
peach breeding conducted by Prof. M. A.' Blake and 
Prof. E. A. Conners. Now we have full details of this 
work, and we can tell our readers in a series of articles 
how and why the experiment was made, and what is to 
be expected from it. First it may he asked what New 
Jersey growers desire in the way of new varieties? No 
one can answer this.better than Prof. Conners, who has 
followed through this long and patient work. Here is 
his answer: 
W HAT WE DESIRE IN VARIETIES.—What is 
to be our ideal? In the first place, we should 
like to have an Elberta with more dessert 
Quality and more hardiness. Secondly, we desire a 
peach at Carman time or earlier, with a better shape 
for packing than that variety, with a brighter color 
and freestone. Thirdly, we desire a yellow freestone 
variety at that season and another to follow that one. 
Fourthly, a good yellow to follow Elberta is desir¬ 
able. Combined in these must be productiveness, 
resistance to diseases, hardiness in bud and lack of 
irritability. A big order? Indeed it is, but to get 
anywhere we must aim high. The fulfillment may be 
long put off, but must come some day. If we could 
get a series of varieties having the good qualities of 
Elberta with added hardiness and quality to extend 
from Greensboro time till frost, methinks the ideal 
will have been consummated. 
How did the work come to start? 
The San Jos6 scale all but eliminated the thou¬ 
sands of peach trees in the State of New Jersey from 
about 1S95 to 1905, and many growers were discour¬ 
aged from trying to revive the business. Prof. E. B. 
Voorhees, then director of the New Jersey Experi¬ 
ment Station, realizing how important the peach in¬ 
dustry had been to the agriculture of the State, de¬ 
cided that the station could do no greater piece of 
work than to investigate the peach problems con¬ 
fronting the growers and to assist in the revival of 
the industry. Two experimental orchards were 
planted, one at High Bridge and the other at Vine- 
land, in 1905 and 1907, respectively, where for the 
succeeding few years the horticultural department 
A Pair of Healthy Country Kids and Their Basket of Kittens. 
