Nevada County picayune., 1888-10-24
FACTS ABOUT PEACHES.
K asons Why the Best of the Fruit Nevs
 Reaches the Market.

Reaches the Market
 ''Where did the peach originator asked the reporter of Delaware fruit grower
 No one knows for certainty, though its origin is generally credited to Persia some careful investigators conclude it to be really u native of China. It is one of the fruits earliest cultivated; some botanical writers think it is derived from the almond; the stain kernel and the leaves, you know, have bitter almond twang, the kernels in both are often double, and it is rather a curious fact that the peach is not mentioned in the Bible, while reference to the almond is ire quent.
 "The peach grows in every place, but it is only in this country that good peaches are cheap enough for poor people to buy, and only in regions ad- joining good peach sections is this true here. First-class fruit is seldom. even i in the best seasons, sold cheap in the Middle or Western States. Plenty of peaches are shipped, but the best sell high. New York is favored city. They're cheap enough here for any body. l suppose no fruit has so many extravagant lovers as the peach.
 "Some persons would like it better l if it had a smooth skin. l have a little girl who won't eat a peach unless it is peeled for her, and she can't be in duced to handle them in the basket; says the fuzz sets her all on edge, like sour apple does your teeth.
 'The peach tree is not naturally short-lived, though it is subject to so many misfortunes that it has gained that reputation. There are trees in Virginia well on to Il hundred years 1 old, and there was one in France thought to be older.
 "The stem-kernel, and not the stem itself, is the seed. Fruit is usually borne the fourth year after the stem is planted, though sometimes in sixteen months. The seeds rarely produce their own variety, so that numberless new sorts are all the time growing; some of these will thrive anywhere, others only in the locality which has developed them. Most of the standard varieties in this country have originat- ed here.
 .'In places where the climate is too cold for outdoor growth the peach is | in are not heated, protection from the outer air being sufficient The trees are some times planted in tubs, and kept trimmed down to about three feet; when these are full of fruit they are mighty pretty to look at There are some fine peach houses in this country, but more in Europe. The tree is trained on walls there, too to protect it.
 "The best peaches never reach mar ket. A peach is not perfect unless ripened on the tree, but if we were to pack them ripe they would be rotten when opened; even one soft one in a crate will spoil the lot, so we have to pick them when hard Did you ever notice baskets with small green branches of the tree at top and bot tom? Those are 'sprigged." The choice peaches are marked that way. When the fruit is all gathered from an orchard we fertilile and blow the ground and prune the tree.
 The amount of peaches canned is something tremendous. The process is just the reverse of the kitchen method. A woman heats the fruit, then cans it. but in the factory it is canned, and then heated to expel the air.
 "Some peach trees bear double flow CTS, beautiful us roses, but the fruit is no good The dwarf peach is queer little tree that bears fruit when only one or two feet high. The weeping peach is a handsome lawn tree; the fruit is only good for cooking. The branches droop like those of the weep ing willow; it was originated by a New Jersey man. The blood-leaved peach is wonderfully strong in spring, but the leaves bleach out in summer.
 "The queerest fruit produced by the peach comes from China. One sort is called the crooked peach. but it's so sweet it can afford to be crooked; the other has the pulp all on the sides, the ends of the stem have nothing over them but skin. That's the flat peach or pcen-to N !. Telcgram