Putnam patriot., 1913-09-12
Pc aches in New England

PedCnes III NeW EHgidnu
 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. FL derly people remember when the peach crops were as sure as the apple crops are now. Then there came a time, the span of generation, during which there were very few peaches raised in New England. It was thought the climate was too cold. The real trouble was that people did not know how to raise peaches. They got to thinking that the peach tree should live and bear as long as the apple, and because 1t did not, and the trees stopped bear ing and died after they were from ten to twenty years old, they believed that New England climate was not adapt ed 10 peaches. They stopped putting in new trees, and naturally there were no peaches. Then the peach began to be commercial proposition. They were shipped, in awkward wood crates at first. When they became a staple, and the growers had learned what va rieties would endure shipment, 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 required. Then they discovered that the rocky old pastures, filled with so many rocks that there was scarcely room for grass enough for sheep to find it, were the very best peach land in all the world.
 The man who really discovered this interesting fact is J H. Hale, of Com uectcut, who raised his first market able peaches on his late fathers pas ture and church mortgage, and by consistently doing that which his wise neighbors told him he must not do. He manured his peach trees with com mon 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 millionaire. He had no capital, or experience, or friends. He just found out what sort of soil and climate and treatment the peaches needed, and gave it to them. It does not matter that now he Is turning some of his peach land into apples. He has made out his case. Apples are more staple crop. The trees live and bear hum dred years. And Mir. Hale is not as young as he was. Peaches for the young man; apples for the man who looks back on middle age-perhaps. Probably Mir. Hale has found that his example has lured so many into the peach business that there is not now quite the margin of profit that there was in his palmy peach days. Be that as il may, there is yet plenty of peach opportunity in New England. We have 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, or Colorado peaches in New England fruit stores during the New England peach season, no one need hesitate to put out New England peach orchards, if they have the right kind of soil and can depend upon the early frost dates.
 Science must be invoked, to discount the early frosts, as that Connecticut grower invoked il when he pushed his crop ten days ahead of the average by the use of nitrate of potash. He used