The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1913-09-12
PEACHES IN
new ENGLAND
(By George French.)

Most people of New England ances-
try have heard their parents or grand
parents tell about the fine crops of
peaches that were harvested when
they were young, from trees growing
where there are now no peaches. Ell
derby people remember when the peach
crops were as sure as the apple crops
are now. Then there came a time, the
span of a generation, during which
there were very few peaches raised in
New England. 1t was though the eli
mate was too cold. The real trouble
was that the people did not know how
to raise peaches. They got to think
ing that the peach tree should live and
pear as long the apple and be-
cause it did not, and the trees stopped
bearing and died after they were from
ten to twenty years old, they believed
that New England climate was not
adapted to peaches. They stopped put
ting in new trees. and ma turaIly there
were no peaches. Then the peace be
gan to be a commercial proposition
They were shipped, in awkward wood
crates at first When they became a
staple, and the growers had learned
what varieties would endure shipr ent
some New Englanders began to think
again about the peach The first thing
they found out was that they did not
know much about what the peach re-
quired. Then they discovered that the
rocky old pastures, filled with so many
rocks mat there was scarcely room
for grass enough for sheep to find it,
were the very best peach land in AL
the world.
The man who really discovered this
interesting fact is J. H. Hale, of Con
necticut, who raised his first market
able peaches on his late fathers pas
ture and a church mortgage, and by
persistent1y doing that which his wise
neighbors told him he must not do He
MANFRED his peach trees with common
sense and exact knowledge, and has
made that fertilizer pay him some
where around cool million. Now he
is not only the biggest peach man in
the Nutmeg State, but the biggest
peach man in the country, if not in
the world. The rocky Connecticut soil,
too poor to sell or keep, has made him
a millionaire He had no capital, or
experience, or friends. He just found
out what sort of soil and climate ara
treatment the peaches needed, and
gaves it to them. 1t does not matter
that now he is turning some of his
peach land into apples. He has made
out his case. Apples are a more staple
crop. The trees live and bear a hum
6red years And Mr.. Hale Is no. as
young as he was. Peaches for the
young man; apples for the man who
looks back on middle age-perhaps.
Probably Mr.. Hale has found that his
example has 1ured so many into the
peach business that there is not now
quite the margin of profit there was in
his palmy peach days. Be that as it
may, there is yet plenty of peach OPP
portunity in New England. We nave
not yet got very near to the limit Of
profitable peach raising, and will not
until New England is able to supply
her own markets. AS long as there are
New York, or Michigan, Colorado
peaches in New England fruit stores
during the New England peach season,
10 one need hesitate to put out New
England peach orchards, if they have
upon the early frost dates.
Science must be invoked, to discount
the early frosts, as that Connecticut |
grower invoked it when he pushed lis
the use of nitrate of potash. He used
nitrogen, potash, or phosphoric acid, |
as the trees and season told him to.
He has 400 acres in peaches, and is |
setting more every year. He has trees
nearing. twenty years of age that are
still bearing profitable crops. How the !
tradition of the past do GO down before |
good common sense and exact know |
ledgei This is the man who has been |
offered a million dollars for his farm, |
but will not sell because he knows that
what pays him bigger than anythingi
else is his brains. Peach trees yield |
large individual crops in New Eng
land, as do apple trees. They begin
to bear in the third year, but rarely |
make a profitable crop before the fifth. |
At seven or eight good trees often
yield as much as twenty to twenty |
five baskets, that bring an average of
seventy-five cents Figure this out. |
Suppose you had a 400-acre farm of
eight-year peach trees! Peach trees
are or ought to be, set about fifteen |
feet apart in rows about eighteen feet |
apart. This shows how you can. fig
ure, SO many trees to the acre and |
eight baskets to the tree at rs cents |
per basket
Roughly speaking, the bulk of good
peach land in New England is in Mas |
sachusetts and Connecticut, though |
there are good small regions in all OF |
the other states, very good records be- |
ing every year made in far northern |
New Hampshire, sections of Vermont |
and several localities in Maine. 1t |
must not be forgotten, however enth1I- |
siastic we may get, that to success /
fully grow peaches requires ample |
knowledge, the right land, and great |
amount of real work. Not all good
land is good peach land. It is the real
poor land that makes the best peach
land provided the rocks are plentiful |
and of the right kind. They must be
limestone rocks. Plenty of limestone
where the soil ought to be for any
crop is what peaches must have, and
then they must be fed the other chem
icaIs as they develop appetttes for
them The trees must be good to start
with, they must be property set and
carefully nursed until their third year,
and all the time they M st be cuIti-
waited and fed, Systematically, gene--
ously.
tale of eight baskets to the tree. You
WON'T get that kind of a crop unless