Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1893-03-02
FARMER AND PLANTER.
PEACH CULTURE IN THE SOUTH.
suggestions for the Business ON Georgia
Farms.


Suggestions for the Business ON Georgia
Farms.
When man gets the peach fever he
selects fifty or one hundred ceres Of
land; if one hundred acres, he goes at
once to a nurseryman and has Ills order
booked, about as follows: One thou
sand Alexanders, 1900 Tillosons, 5000
Rivers, 1000 ST. Johns, 1000 Amelias,
1000 Early Crawfords, 5000 Elbertas,
5000 Late Crawfords. The next fall he
adds Globe, Salway and Wonderful, so
that the shipping season will be ex-
tended thirty days longer. AT present
we commence shipping about May %,
and the Late Crawfords are over by Au-
gust 1. The last additions will extend
the season to September l.
In "a years the orchardist expects to
get small crop-enough to pay for the
trees the land, the expense of culti-
waiting up to that time, and to make 10
TO % per cent. on the investment It's
no trouble to do this If he takes care of
his orchard. When the latter is five to
six years old, he can get one to two
cases to the tree, and these will bring
in from 81 to $3.50 per case, delivered on
board the cars.
A fair and reasonable estimate is 40
carloads of 500 cases per car The
cases are said to contain three pecks
apiece, but they will each weigh, net,
about SO pounds-a little over half
bushel. The orchardist can sell these
cars us fast ~ they are loaded, for
$500 each. They will net him that
amount after deducting the cost of the
crates and of picking, packing and
hauling. The past season / found it
very hard TO get few carfuls by pay
ing $3.50 for each At that price made
money, and did not lose single crate,
out of nine carloads, although it was
the rainiest July ever seen in this Sec
ton. With good attention to the pick
ing, packing and loading in good,
well-iced refrigerator cars, no peaches
will arrive at the markets in bad order.
A properly cared-for peach orchard
in Georgia, especially after it has just
borne big crop, will bear three years
out of four But without pruning and
fertilizer, something that has been done
only by one man, tree can not bear
crop every year. 1t must have time to
recuperate if it has to do all the work
by ITSELF and nearly all have had to do
this.
A crop of peaches will net the grower
all the way from 500 to $500 per acre,
and that on Gland that sells at from s15
to $50 per acre
However much money has been made
from Georgia peaches, the possibilities
of making money from them is far
greater than has ever been dreamed of
by the most enthusiastic grower in the
state. An orchard well cared for will
begood for fifteen Or more years. South
OF Macon, along the lines Of the Central
Georgia, Southern & Florida, and the
! Macon, Dublin & Savannah railroads,
such a thing as yellows, or rosette is
unknown. North of Macon - which,
by the way, seems to be the dividing
| line - some orchards have suffered
from rosette for ,years, but the injury
has never amounted TO much. The
easiest way to get into the peach bust
ness, where the person does not want
to live in the south, Is to form stock
company, OF, say $4,000 capital, pay
for the trees and half the expense of
putting them out, and then the owner
of the land will bear all the expense
of cultivation and caring for them I'M
til they bear crop; then the expense
of gathering Grating and shipping is
equally divided between the company
and the land owner, and the proceeds
from the sales are divided equally be-
tween them. The company should
have some one to look after its inter-
est, of course. In an orchard of
200 acres, say 10000 trees, the
expenses Of company should not ex-
coed 5000 for everything until a
crop would be ready to ship; then the
concern would probably have to pay
out about $4,000, which would come
back in few days. For this invest
ment of about 50, 900, all told, the COM
pany should receive not less than $50,
600 for its half of the crop, and then the
fruit would be sold at lower price
than have ever been able to buy it for.
The company's expenses would then
stop until another crop was ready to be
shipped, the land owner keeping up the
orchard. | know of one grower who
Melted over $500 per acre on his peaches,
and of another who received checks for
$4,000 from 6O-acre orchard. In the
above estimates ! have put the profits
under, rather than over, what can be
made. II. O. Slellie, in Rural New
Yorker,