Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1914-09-17
Great Success
With Peaches

Five years ago, when peaches were
selling at SO cents a box, any old
farmer could find pay dirt in a peach
orchard. When prices dropped to
half this figure, or less, not many
could stay in the game and show
balance on the right side of the ledg-
er at the end of the year Hence the
complaint, There's no money in
peaches" which has sometimes
threatened to swell into an anvil
chorus. The money is there, all
right, and has been ever since people
began to buy this luscious fruit-the
trouble lies in separating the profit
from the pulp.
When the Normal closed its doors
half dozen years ago, one of the
instructors who found himself out of
employment was A. c. Joy, who was
1oath to leave the finest place in the
world to live. Instead of looking
elsewhere for a job he camped on
peach orchard within a stones throw
of the college, determined to earn
living from the soil and with the
comforting assurance that when the
Normal reopened its doors-which he
was confident it would at no distant
date-he would be Johnny-on-the-
spot for reinstatement in his old po-
sition. Now that he has overcome
all kinds of obstacles in fruit farm
ing and placed the peach business on
a profitable basis, the erstwhile col
lege professor has an independent po-
sition of his own making and need
ask employment favors of no one.
Professor Joy-he is now principal
of the Belleview school-realized that
he had many new problems in horti-
culture to solve, since there was no
successful example to follow of one
who had contended with the same
difficulties. At the risk of being
called a book farmer and an unprac-
tical theorist, he worked along orig
inal lines until a successful solution
had been found for every problem
which the growing and marketing of
his crop presented. The first was the
fertilization of the granite soil.
which, while rich in some kinds of
plant food. was woefully lacking in
others. This problem was solved
with hogs and chickens. Instead of
buying an expensive manure spread
er, the animals were fed in different
parts of the orchard, the pens being
moved until all the ground had been
covered. Two hundred fowls fere
Kept at one time, and at another fif-
teen hogs. The latter were enclosed
in three pens, which were moved
daily. Ground bone formed an i'm
portant item in the daily menu of
the feathered tribe and was found to
be an excellent fertilizer in itself.
The raw material was obtained very
cheaply from the local abattoirs and
pulverized in a bone cutter run by a
gas engine. The latter pumps water
to irrigate large garden OF carrots.
kale and other things which aid ma
terially in cutting down the feed and
grocery bills.
The peach trees are not irrigated,
but cultivation Is so thorough that
the fruit was above the average size
this very dry year. Many orders for
medium-sized peaches had to be filled
with large fruit because of the scare
ity of the former kind. The crop on
twelve acres of Muirs amounted to
about $500 boxes. but IL would have
been nearly twice as large II there
had been no destructive frosts in the
spring. Smudging is not considered
necessary, although II is undoubtedly
profitable in some orchards. Thor
ough spraying keeps insect and fun
gus pests under control and the trees
are pruned in such a manner that the
bearing wood is so low down that
ladders are unnecessary, which helps
keep the cost OF picking, thinning,
pruning and spraying at a minimum.
The market problem proved the