The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-09-23

peaches their chief crop often had from
/ 20, 600 70 &C, 900 trees. For some years every-
/ body believed in peaches, and men were
eager TO add farm to farm in order that
/ they might have more land for peach trees
The peach growers built big houses, drove
| fine horses, aud sent their boys and girls
| away to school. Farmers who wished to
| visit distant parts of their own farms al
ways rode on horseback or drove ia a car
riage.
After that came misfortune. The mar
/ kets in plentiful years would be glutted
and peaches would fall to 10 cents a basket.
Sometimes whole crop would bring a
farmer into debt for freights and commits
siOns. Then came years of failure, when
prices were high, but only lucky few had
/ peaches to sell Amid all this bad luck
| came the return to specie payments, and
men who had bought farms at high war
prices, and mortgsged them with the hope
/ Of paying interest aud principal out
| of the golden peach crop, found themselves
in debt and without money to pay. Many
| were ruined, and there went up a curse
against peaches. Thousands Of trees were
pulled up by the roots and burned
for f1rewood. The peachl belt moved
farther down the peninsula, AID
| some farmers there were enriched.
1t spread into the eastern shore
counties, and in spite of the disgust Of peach
BIOHGAb III NOTbl6In DeldWhT6 LUb uulnDbE
or peach trees on the peninsula increased.
Meanwhile the "yellows," which had APP
peared early in the history of peach grow
ing, began TO be alarming. Whole orchards
became diseased. The same trouble came
upon the New Jersey peach growers. The
trees turned red and yellow in midsummer,
and their fruit ripeued prematurely. Much
of the early fruit from New Jersey and
Delaware now sold in the New York mar
krrkT d. g. 49,
were pulled out by the roots, and New Castle
county, once the greatest peach growing
territory in the world, was in large part
barred Of peach trees. There has since been
slight revival Of the peach industry even
in Northern Delaware, but many farmers
believe that the yellows must soon Danish
the peach from the whole peninsula.
Meanwhile the fine mansions and the
tradition of good living still Iinger in the
early peach region Of Delaware. Some Of
the fortunes made out of peaches remain.
Several Of Maj. Reynolds descendants are
rich farmers. Ex-5ov. Benjamin T. Biggs
of Delaware owns several thousand acres of
the best land in the state, besides thousands
Of peach trees just across the line In Mary
land. Ex-Gov. Cochran, a marvelously
hale and active man, we'll up in the
eighties. owns farm after farm of
fine wheat-growing land. much of it
bought with the product OF peach orchards,
but has utterly forsworn peach growing.
The peach-growiug aristocrocy formed
race to themselves, utterly different from
their neighbors, the small farmers OF South
ern Pennsylvania aud different also from
the slave-hOlding aris.oorAcy of the south.
The peach was never extensively cultivated
by slave labor, because slavery was fast
dying out in Delaware when the frat peach
trees were planted there, and by the time
the peach had found its way south the war
was over and slavery a thing of the past.