The daily gazette., 1880-12-28
Peach Growing

ar, JohH Rutter, Vest Chester, Pa.
DEAR SIR Il received your let
Ter, IN apswer two postal cards sent
you. In the early part of the pres
ent month | wrote two letters to the
Farm Journal" )" in Philadelphia, in
regard TO peaches. l suppose the
letters will be printed by piece-meal
III It's numbers. There is great diff
terence OF opinion about peach cul-
lure, and no person knows better
lhah the observant peach grower.
VINO bases his judgment upon act
ual experience, climate, soil and cul-
livatlon. | do not agree with your
theory, and believe in but few ofvour
suggestions. What you call yellows
are known in Delaware as peach
trees, that prematurely ripen their
lrult, although ou some trees the
foliage will be green, and on others
yellowish, sickly cast. When a
Tree once premLurely ripens its fruit,
1t never, by all processes known, re-
.urhs to natural ripening. In other
words, IL is never cured of prema-
ture ripening. Now as to the causes
they ar c legion If the tree is
grown from the seed of a sick or dy-
ing tree; some soils or spots Of soil
in some orchards early plowing
whilst the ground frosty and freez-
lng, whilst others have too much
plowlng, and in dry times. Below
Odessa along the creek, they plow
twice and harrow twice, and often
cultivate the orchard and have il
perfectly clean up TO the first of July,
and trim heavily, beginning early
whilst the tree Is young. First trim
out and then trim in. And they
have have more premature, mesaly
red-spotted peaches than anywhere
else ia the state. My orchards are
not over six miles off, and | have
never had over ten or fifteen bushels
OF premature peaches in any single
year for the past twenty-five years.
Unslacked lime is no cure or pre-
ventive. The old man Philip Rev
bold killed his home orchard over
twenty years ago by trying an ex-
pertinent OF bushel Of uuslacked
lime to each tres. Wood ashes
make the beso manure that l have
found for all trees of any kind but
will not stop tree from premature
ly Opening its fruit.
Some spots of some soils are so poi
son to peach trees that the limbs will
grow small and delicate as weeping
willow, and the leaves narrow and
irawn up. A few blossoms will ap-
pear and fall off, and seldom any
peaches, and if few only about the
size OF small piumbs. The body of
shese trees if left stand ten years, will
only be ABOUT the size of your wrist.
Tie peach tree cannot stand cold
weather. Zero is too cold, and or
degrees below for "a hours will kill
the fruit bearing buds and the limbs
6hey are on, and what may have been
lone in growing peaches in Chester
county, many years back, is very little
reason il could be done now. 1t is
ike in our Sussex county; they used
TO grow some cotton, but not enough
10 make much of a business out OF it.
just 50 in certain seasons years ago,
and now in Chester county where
there are few peach trees round the
houses and in certain sheltered spots
here will some years grow some
peaches and that is all. There is no
remedy for peach trees where the ther-
momster is from 8 to 10 degrees below
zero, only in hot house or wrapped
up in flannel. Such would be rather
expensive job, and where you or any
other man succeeds in curing consump-
lion in man you may hope to cure a
peach of prematurely rippening its
fruit but not until then.
Yours respectfully,
SAMUEL TOWNSEND.
TOWNSEND, Del, Dec. 9Th.
p. S.-One other great cause of ear
ly decay in bearing peach trees is that
where the main first stock is cut of to
throw the sap in the buded shoot, in
hundreds OF cases the wood does not
neal over sound. A small dry rot takes
place, which is at the very heart of the
new tree, and diseases and kills the
cree in few years, prematuring the
peach tree. This thing is easily
iound out in cutting down old ORCH
lrds and splitting the wood up for fire
wood you can see where the dry rot
md canker started. where the wood
lad not heal over soundly, but started