The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1893-07-27

in the cities and takes his chances in the
market; sometimes buyers come to the
peach region and buy direct from the grow
ers day by day sometimes the product of
the orchard is sold outright at so much a
basket weeks or even months before the
fruit Is ready to he marketed. When the
season is at its height, prices are quoted and
discussed wherever men meet, and the ru-
raj postOtlice is a center of special interest,
because there are received reports-often by
postal card-from agent to grower. 1t some
times happens that eyerybody's postal re-
ports are read aloud to the crowd gathered
at the office, and the excuse OF a colored
man, who returned late with hi~ employers
mail, was that he had to wait while the
postmaster read the postal cards
The great enemy of the peninsula peach
is the mysterious disease called the yellows
1t attacks and destroys whole orchards
The trees first begin to show its effects up
on the foliage and to produce premature
fruit. Then the crop gets smaller or fails
altogether, and the trees by midsummer
are turned red and yellow. This condition
may continue for years, but the tree finally
dies, and hundred of thousands of peach
trees have thus persisted. Many peach
growers have utterly abandoned the indus
try and uprooted their trees because of this
pest, and Ex-Governor Cochran, che owner
Of many hundred acres of the finest farm
land in New Castle county, Del, refuses to
have peach trees on his land. The Della
ware agricultural experiment station has
been studying the yellows for years past,
and local law provides for the appoint
ment of commissioners in each hundred" "
as the township is called in Delaware, to
condemn all peach trees affected with the
disease This law is working to exclude
the yellows from the southern part of Kent
county.
1t is estimated that there are more than
100000 peach trees on the peninsu q, which
would indicate an area of nearly "a, 600 acres
planted in peach orchards. When New
Castle county, now almost abandoned for
peach raising, was the chief peach region
of the country and peach farmers made from
S. GOO to $4,000 a year from chat crop alone,
a single peachgrower sometimes owned
10000 trees. There are few growers who
own so many now and an orchard of so
acres containing rather more than 5000
trees is now esteemed large. Ex-Governor
Benjamin Il. Biggs of Delaware is now one
of the greatest peachgrowers in the world,
unless indeed some of the California or
peach bearing land lies in Queen Anne's
county, Nd, adjoining New Castle county,
Del, and if prices are profitable this sea
son he will send to market 10 carloads of
peaches per day, or more than 1900 bas-
kets.
Other extensive peachgrowers are S. H.
Ridgely of Dover; the Cannon brothers of
Bridgeville, Del; j. j. Ross of this place:
e. II. Bancroft and Jacob Brown of Wyom-
ing, Del; the Hon, W. II. Hepbron of Ken
nedyyille, Nd, and r. Thomas Cochran of
Kent county, Md. All these gentlemen
have orchards running high into the thou
sands of trees. To bea great peachgrower
is to own hundreds and perhaps thousands
Of acres, to employ many laborers, to keep
great quantity Of live stock, TO handle
large amounts Of money and to be a man OF
affairs, influential In the community and
aftan eonspieuous In nnlitnA