The daily gazette., 1879-07-19
FIRST THEDITION.
For the Gazette.
Peaches and the Peach Business
Its Rise and Progress.

Its Rise and Progress.
Agentleman the other day handed me
Philadelphis lnQMytr; lcortainihg
quite long article Oh peaches, In which
several elaring errors occurred. 1t may
not be amiss TO correct some OF these
misstatements, before they go down to
posterity Is genuine truth.
Peaches have undoubtedly, since the
settlement Of the country, been raised in
small lots, or to supply the wants OF the
people, wherever they would grow. As
the population increased, and large cities
sprang up, a-deinahd for peaches also
arose, aud as the people of Jersey were
handy to Philadelphia and New York,
and their soil was generally poor, they
became trucking or marketing people,
and hence they first planted larger
orchsrds Of peaches thanhad been plant
Absdt the Ssar 1881, Jacob Ridgway,
Of lhilhelghis AZ tsaac Reeves, a
the foot of Market street, in Philadel-
phiG-a blue frame hotel-bought or
owned the second farm south OF Della
ware City on the road to, Port Penn, and
now owned by Clement Reeves, a son of
Isaac. This farm Is where the United
States battery was recently built, and
on 1t, in 1882 or 1888, three or four
thousand peach trees were planted. But
the year 1886 was q terrible season on
peach, plum and other tender trees, it
being unusually cold in the month Of
the previous December, ,lwhile in Janu-
ary the weather moderated and became
SO warm. for three or four weeks that the
sap started and the trees were almost in
blossom. saw white clover heads on
of February the Temperature began to
lower, and soon became so terribly cold
that the water in the mill ponds froze to
a thickness of ten inches in three days
and nights. On the oath of March l
rode on horse back to Wilmington and
stayed all night, and on the next day l
rode up to Philadelphia. During this
ride, while on the turnpike on the high
lands near The Practical Farmer Hotel
as 1t used to be called, could look over
the Delaware River, which was then
covered with heavy, broken ice, while
not vessel was stirring. The present
railroad was then being built, and be-
lieve it was opened for travel the fol-
lowing summer. TO .tI.-
have distressed to let peach-growers
know that much as we have had to COM
plain of, there has never since been a
winter SO fatal to the tender trees as the
winter of 1886. think it killed most
of Ridgway's and Reeves peach trees
then planted. In 1888 they raised their
first fine crop Of peaches, and, it is said,
cleared $l2,5O0. This created q sensa.
ton, and started the peach business on q
large scale this side of the Delaware
river. Tho old man Reybold was
engaged in the mulberry tree fur0re
| (this was the time when so many people
thought there was an immense fortune
in raising mulberry trees) and and sew
eral others saw that humbug played out
suddenly. The Reynolds commenced
planting peaches, and Simon Shearman,
at the Eagles Nest Landing property, in
Appoquinimink Hundred, Thomas Dea-
kyne, at his property in Appoauinimink
Hundred, at the mouth Of Smyrna
Creek, Henry Todd, at Dover, N. Bow
man, near McDonough, and also others,
commenced planting about the same
time, in 1888. Richard Simmons, near
Ceciiton, also planted, and others started
trees in Sassafrss Neck and along Sassa-
fras River. l planted in 1910, on the
Brick, H6ass plAcs, Tat Biackbird, where
| then lived. In = year or two after
wards Corbit, Moore, 'Fennimore, and
others along the Appoquinimink Creek
followed suit. In q few years with the
Jersey orchards, principally belonging to
the Camden & Amboy Railroad Com
pany, and the Delaware and Maryland
growers shipping through the canal TO
| Philadelphia, the Market became over
stocked, and prices went below cost. The
'soldsul Majof Reybold,p - we called
him, was verysenterprising man, and
he tried steamboat load Of peaches
from Delaware City to New York; but
he did not, as this writer in the Phila-
delphia Enquirer says he did, regulate
the New, York market. He die, no such
thing. The East Jersey growers and the
Camden q AInboy kaiiroadgrowers COM
bined and put prices so ruinously low
that they drove Reybold out of their mar
ket, but as soon as he found out their
game he would not fall in price, but let
the boat lay in the dock and sold what
he could at his prices. The balance
he allowed to rot, and as soon as
| the fruit was worthless, the boat started
for Delaware City, while the worthless
peaches as soon.aS the dock was cleared,
were thrown into the. water, the empty
baskets being saved. Two or three trips
like this ended the attempt, and brought
the New York hucksters to Philadelphia
like locusts to prey on Delaware and
Maryland peach growers, and these huck.
stsrs shipped their peaches by the Cam
den & Amboy line to New York.
In1S56 theD was OPEN
ed, and at Townsend, where l now live,
planted peaches on large scale. Mes
srs. Cochran, Beasten, the Cumminses
| and others at or near Smyrna, Messrs.
Ridgley, Todd, Read and others near
Dover, and hundreds of others along the
line iof the Delaware Railroad also
planted largely. I went to the Railroad
Company's Office in Philadelphia, and
Mr.. FELTON,, who was. then President,
told me to plant, aud he would have all
the peaches carried for everybody who
would raise them. In 1860, when had
peaches for shipment, l.. went to
Philadelphia aud told Mr.. Felton that
the way-his men had been carrying small
lots of peaches (for as beforesaid there
had always since the first set
tlement been some peaches in Della
ware) would not do. He asked me
what wanted. l told him slat cars for
ventilation and shelving to hold the bas-
/ :" ~ IL h-A