
- FITZGERALD’S PEAR TREES PAY YOU BIGGER PROFITS! 

_ It is, of course, a fact that a person can get all 
kinds of bulletins on peach growing from the 
government, These bulletins are often made up of 
the experience of actual peach growers. Likely I 
have had a little different experience to any of 
them. My. father before me liked to grow peaches 
He had a place where the trees would live good 
for a few years and then all die. I find just such 
_ places all over the country. They are everywhere. 
About forty years ago I bought a new place and 
planted several hundred peach trees. That was be- 
fore we had any kind of cars and aside from hav- 
ing plenty of fine peaches for home use all my 
fruit wasted. There was at that time a market for 
it; in fact, there were thousands of people in a few 
dozen miles doing without peaches but there was 
no way to get them to them except by railroad 
.and the commission merchant. Then came the 
truck and the demand for peaches. True to my 
form, I had dug out many of my peach trees an 
did not have over fifty in my orchard. 
It is funny to me that when things are a good 
price I never do have them. However, it is dif- 
ferent this time. I have had hogs by the acres; I 
have had a bunch in my peach orchard and it has 
helped the hogs and the peaches both. I have tried 
the big hogs for a peach orchard but they are no 
good. I got a small breed of hog and find they are 
just about the right size to bring the top price on 
the market. I have tried various times of the win- 
ter for setting peach trees. Some times you can 
wait until April to set but as a rule just as soon 
as the trees shed their leaves is the best time to 
- set. If peach trees are dug too early in the season 
a big proportion often die. Sometimes nurserymen 
have June buds, these never mature until Decem- 
ber and if dug before then they do not grow off 
-good and about half will often die. The so-called 
June bud is a fine tree to set if not dug too early. 
A few years ago I went to Georgia to see the 
famous peach-growing district. I found people 
differed about tree setting like they do in this 
country. But they all seemed to agree on one thing, 
that is, to keep the peach trees low. The trees were 
set about seventeen feet apart. Then the trees 
were never allowed to get higher than a man 
could reach. The trees I saw had been cut back 
until the orchard was flat on top like a broom. 
I asked them why they did not let their trees grow 
like they do in Texas and the fellow said he could 
not gather them. Trees cut back this way become 
dwarfed and are short lived. About seven years 
is as long as a Georgia peach grower keeps a peach 
tree. When they begin to show signs of old age 
they are pulled out and new trees set. Some 
growers plant little trees and occasionally you 
find one that thinks the big tree is best to set. 
They figure to bring their orchards in bearing and 
get three or four crops. The trees I saw with 
peaches on them had about two bushels per tree. 
They are set in squares and it does not take much 
to work them and if they can get a dollar a tree 
for four years it is pretty good profit. They must 
think so for they told me good peach land sold for 
tvo hundred dollars per acre. I set out fifty acres 
ef peaches eight years ago. I terraced my land 
putting the terraces forty-five feet apart and set 
the trees on top of the terraces fifteen feet apart 
in the row. The trees made fine growth, came into 
bearing quickly, but I let my trees get too high. 
Some of them got fifteen feet high. You can 
imagine what a job it was to gather peaches from 
such high trees. Fact is, we did not gather them 
all. Just too hard work to climb a ladder up to 
them. In future, I expect to keep them cut back © 
and gather all peaches without ladders. The peach 
‘GROWING PEACHES 
is about the only tree you can do this way. If you 
cut back an apple or pear you will not get much 
Hear petare the cutting back will cause the tree 
o fail. 
If you are setting a home orchard you can 
plant your trees a long distance apart and let them 
grow into large trees. A fellow can chunk the 
peaches out of the high tree where he aims to use © 
them at once. But in selling peaches nothing 
knocks on the price like bruises. The big tales 
about how much a tree will bear often comes 
about in this way. One time I helped to gather 
fifteen bushels from an Elberta that did not have 
another tree in a hundred feet of it. The owner 
said if I had an acre of trees like that with about 
a hundred trees on it look at the peaches I would 
get and at a dollar per bushel it would amount to 
something. If he had an acre each tree would have 
had a lighter crop because they would be more 
crowded. 
Peach trees like good fertile soil or to be well 
fertilized. Barnyard manure is good fertilizer. If 
your trees are growing and not bearing good 
some acid phosphate around them. This will cause 
the fruit to be harder to kill by frost and be of 
higher flavor. 
In ‘using fertilizer around peach trees or any 
other kind of tree, it is better to put the fertilizer 
three or four feet from the tree and plow it under. 
This will cause the tree to stand the drouth better; 
it will do the tree just as much good and, above all, 
if the fertilizer happens to have weed seeds you 
will get them too close to your tree if you put the 
fertilizer close, and it makes the weeds mean to 
get rid of. Even commercial fertilizer makes the 
weeds grow faster and harder to get rid of if too 
close to your trees. 4 
And now as to varieties. I have many varieties 
in my orchard; too many, I often think, but I 
have lots of such kinds as Early Rose. I have about 
five hundred each of South Haven and Hale 
Haven. I have decided that if I were planting 
again I would plant more of two kinds, Golden 
Jubilee and Elberta. 
As to cultivation, a peach orchard responds 
in a great way to cultivation. With a disk 
harrow you can cultivate several acres of orchard 
in a day. If you have them set in squares there is 
no use for hoe hands. If they are on a terrace you 
may have to hoe some. But some of the new 
tractors have cultivators that will take care of the 
terraces. The fellow who has a young orchard 
coming on may hit it exactly right. The worst 
pest we have to deal with in orchards is nemetodes 
and the best way to deal with them is to not get 
them on your land. It will pay any one to learn 
to look for nemetodes and see that you do not get 
them. But. cabbage and tomato plants have neme- 
todes and pepper and egg plants are especially 
subject. If they once get on land they may stay 
a lifetime. — 
Directions for planting, spraying, etc., will be 
sent with every order. 

FE ICh 2G EROALL.D “NeUoR S-E:R: ¥ —- - STEPHENVILLE, TEXAS 
[5] 
