Middletown transcript., 1875-06-05
History Of the Peach Business.
BY SAMUEL TOWNSEND.

BY SAMUEL TOWNSEND.
| Mr.. Editor IL send you commu-
nication on the subject of peaches, in
reply to an editorial in Every Evening
of the 14th instant, on the peach busi-
ness. Part of said editorial-about
third of it have very little OBJ
lection to, and had it stopped there I
would not have taken any exception to
it; but after that be goes on to say !:
"We do not handle our fresh fruit to
as good advantage to the grower as our
neighbors over in New Jersey do; they
are older in the business, and as the
fruit begins to fail with them they are
getting to manage it quite prudently.
With good crop. if we net fifty cents
basket we think we do we'll. In;
1874, with ABOUT third Of crop,
prices ranged from IS cents to ,$1.OO
per basket. Our Jersey neighbors sell
the crop in the orchard, to be picked,
assorted and delivered to the purchaser
at the nearest depot. When practical
/ bic, the sales are made in the meBth of
July. With us, the whole business of
marketing, including the procuring of
transportation, loading, hauling and
unloading, is placed in the hands of
commission merchants agents, with few
exceptions, to handle as they think
best These items Of expense, ky a
well known system, ''if you will tickle
me I will tickle you," foot up to con-
siderable item, which greatly reduces
the profits &c.
Now after reading the quotation
above, and much more such stuff fol-
lowing in the same editorial, | think I
read in one of the New York papers,
last season, something similar, put in
BY some visionary humbug that knew
very little, if anything. about the peach
business; and we have gentleman be-
longing to our Peninsular Fruit Grow
ers' Association given to such highfa-
lutin. nonsense, and | have often demol- |
ished his air castles before our associa-
tion, and there would probably have
been the fitting place-before men who
grow and ship peaches-to have an
swered the above; but it has been
put in the papers and reflects upon the
peach growers and shippers of Delaware
who have had years Of experience and
whose skill and management has nearly
driven these Jersey Solomons out Of the
peach market. In the first place. the
growing of peaches extensively for
market is about as old in Delaware as
in Jersey; Ridgaway and Reeves, near
Delaware City, planted from 1881 to
'35 or SO the largest peach orchard at
that time in the United States, and had
them picked and hauled to Delaware
City and shipped in baskets by boats to
Philadelphia, and there sold by men for
a commission Gin those times of five per
cent. ) and it is said that their first full
crop cleared them thirteen or fourteen
thousand dollars. About this time the
Camden & Amboy Railroad Company
went into the peach business largely
and this successful crop of Ridgaway &
Reeves stimulated Delawarsans, and
with them Major Reybold and his sons,
Messrs. Corbit & Appleton and Mr..
Spearman, Of Smyrna, Mr.. Thomas
Deakyne, near the mouth of Smyrna
Creek, Mr.. H. Todd, of Dover, and
Mr. Read. and some others The first
planted for market was in 1841. We
Ill marketed, both Delaware and Jer-
icy, pretty much the same way-by
boat to Philadelphia-and had them
'old by commission merchants or sent
men up and paid them by the month to
ell them and gather and return the
baskets. Farmers along the Sassafras
liver went into planting trees about
his time and the production of Della
ware and Maryland became so enor-
nous and also growing larger and finer G