The American peach orchard; a sketch of the practice of peach growing in North America at the beginning of the twentieth century

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Preface

The rapid specialization of all the fruit-growing industries in North America has made the production of peaches an art by itself. To keep pace with such specialization it has been found expedient to discuss the management of the several fruit crops in separate monographs. Peach growing is now a large and important industry and deserves a book of its own.

The demand for such a book has existed for several years, but special difficulties have been experienced in meeting it. The work of preparing such a book was undertaken by the late Charles Wright of Delaware, and by the late Prof. W. G. Johnson of the Orange Judd Company, but both gentlemen died leaving the manuscripts unwritten. The writer has, indeed, experienced many tedious and troublesome delays, but has finally brought the work to completion through the help of many kind friends. In writing this book he has called to his aid a large number of practical peach growers in all parts of the United States and Canada, whose help and advice he wishes most cordially to acknowledge. To interpret properly their wide and varied experience has been the author's prime endeavor.

F. A. WAUGH.

Massachusetts Agricultural College, 1913.

Elberta

Last summer when we parted, sweet

Elberta!

You looked quite fair enough to eat,

Elberta!

Yet this for absence may atone.

Since last we met you've fairer grown ; Yes, though you have a heart of stone,

Elberta, you're a peach!

Elberta!

Your rounded outlines please me so,

Elberta!

Your breath is sweet as summer dew; Your life blood richly flowing through Imparts a matchless charm to you.

Elberta, you're a peach!

You've caused me many an aching pain

Elberta!

I swore you never would again,

Elberta !

Your ripening beauty tempts like wine; Yet though your charms were all divine Touch not your downy cheek to mine;

Elberta, you're a peach !

I would not mar your bloom so fresh,

Elberta !

Nor bruise the fairness of your flesh,

Elberta!

I promised my right worthy mate That I would be most temperate.

And gaze on you with thought sedate;

Elberta, you're a peach!

I would devour you with my eyes,

Elberta !

But gazing never satisfies,

Elberta!

Soon in your flesh so rosy bright I'll set my teeth most sharp and white, For when you're peeled you're out of sight;

Elberta, you're a peach!

Table Of Contents

Chapter Page

I. Peach-Growing Geography 1

II. Climatology 12

II

The principal horticultural fact in the climatology of the peach is the relative tenderness of the tree toward cold. The peach is generally rated as distinctly less hardy than the apple tree, though commercially considered this difference is less than the popular imagination has painted it. Practically speaking, the northern limit of commercial peach growing does not lie so very far south of the northern limit of commercial apple production. Still, it does lie distinctly to the south, and the peach tree is obviously more tender during severe winters than the apple.

Twenty degrees below zero may be taken as the practical limit of cold resistance for the peach. When temperatures run lower the peach trees are always in danger and usually sustain greater or less damage. The amount of this damage is influenced by many collateral circumstances, chiefly the following:

1. Duration of the cold weather. Long-continued low temperatures do greater injury than those which last for only an hour or two.

2. Varieties. Some varieties are considerably hardier than others.

3. Condition of trees. Vigorous, healthy, wellgrown trees will stand a good deal of freezing, while weak, starved trees and those which have been allowed to overbear will die outright in very moderate weather. It has often been claimed that peach trees easily make a too vigorous growth, and that in such cases the new wood does not mature properly and is therefore especially liable to winter injury. The writer, by extended experiments and observations on this point, has fully satisfied himself that this danger either does not exist or has been greatly over-magnified. The instances of trees made susceptible to winter injury through too much vigor are rare; the cases of damage through weakness and starvation are to be seen by thousands every year. Good orchard management should endeavor to secure sound wood with well-formed terminal buds before the leaves fall in autumn, but any further worry on this point would be like the anxiety of a man who should fear that his pigs or calves were growing too fast.

4. Character of the soil. Trees on deep, well-drained soil will stand more freezing than those on thin, dry land or on heavy, wet land.

5. Ground protection. In certain cases the protection of the ground by snow or by a good cover crop helps the trees materially to withstand inclement winter weather.

It is possible at this point to make a distinction of no very great significance between two forms of freezing damage which occur on peach trees. The first form is that of twig injury, only the tips of young and immature twigs being killed. This may be really serious, but is not so grave a matter as the second form, which consists in the killing of main branches or trunks. Even in the latter type of damage, and in what appear to be extreme cases, trees may make recovery. That is, they will not die outright, but may be rejuvenated and made to bear commercial crops for several years. They will be weakened, however; the tops will be straggling and ill-balanced, the trunks will usually be black and dead at the core, and the trees will soon break down under loads of fruit or stress of wind. This question of the recovery of frozen trees is treated further in the chapter on Pruning, page ii6.

The northern limit of peach culture has been defined as the line of twenty degrees below zero. As a matter of fact, the peach is grown in home gardens in an amateur way as far north as those regions where twenty-five degrees below zero is an experience of every few years, but commercial orchards are hardly a safe proposition where even twenty degrees below zero may be expected every winter.

There is also a southern limit to peach growing, and if this limit is not so precise, it is none the less positive. The southernmost areas in the United States, for example, are outside the peach belt. This fruit is practically unknown along the Gulf of Mexico, and in Florida can be grown only on the highest lands in the most northern counties. Peaches of the Honey type, and especially of the Peen-to group (see page i88), may be grown much farther south than the common sorts ; but as these are not market varieties and never likely to become such, we may understand that the southern bound of the peach section runs approximately along the northern line of Florida, across the southern counties of Alabama and Mississippi, crosses Louisiana somewhere amidstate and sets off a zone of 50 to 100 miles wide all along the Texas coast. In Arizona, New Mexico, and California the limits of peach culture are fixed by a multitude of local conditions so variable and so complex that they cannot be safely stated in general terms.

The commercial grower of peaches, however, is not so much interested in the extreme limits of cul'

CLIMATOLOGY I5

ture as in the range of profitable peach growing. Looking at this question, we find that this fruit succeeds over a great range, and that the limits of successful commercial culture run pretty close to the actual bounds of physiological safety on both the northern and the southern edge. Perhaps it will be instructive to make a comparison with the apple, a fruit which has been much more carefully studied. We may say, then, that the commercial culture of the peach runs not quite so far north as the successful culture of the Baldwin apple and as far south as the successful culture of any kind of apple. Now Dr. J. K. Shaw has shown that the best development of the Baldwin apple lies along that line which receives an average temperature of fifty-six degrees during the growing season, March to September. The most southern apple zone, that in which such distinctively southern varieties as Yates and Shockley succeed, is characterized by a longer growing season and by an average summer temperature of sixty-six to sixty-seven degrees. So we may say that these two thermal zones mark the real boundaries of practical peach growing.

Our comparison with the apple ought to be carried one step further in order to bring out an important difference. In the studies already referred to, Dr. Shaw has shown that for each variety of apple there is an optimum summer temperature, and that most varieties come to their best development only when grown pretty closely under these conditions. Thus the luscious Grimes is at its best when it has an average summer temperature of sixty-two degrees, the Yellow Newtown pippin requires an average of sixty degrees, while Northern Spy gets along with only fifty-five to fifty-six degrees.

The various varieties of peaches, however, are much more versatile. Carman or Mountain Rose or almost any other variety may be grown in full perfection from central Georgia to central New York and Michigan. There are some varieties, of course, which are plainly local in their preferences; but such localizations do not seem to be due chiefly to requirements of temperature. It is possible, of course, that a closer study of the physiology of the leading varieties of peaches will reveal more definite preferences, and that further experience will tend to localize varieties, as it has in the field of apple culture; but it still seems fairly certain that all the standard varieties of peaches may be grown indifferently over a pretty wide range of territory.

KILLING OF BLOSSOM BUDS

The commonest form of winter injury occurs in the killing of the blossom buds, rather than in the outright killing of the trees. This trouble is more frequent for the simple reason that the blossom buds are killed by much shorter and milder periods of freezing.

Bud killing falls into two very distinct cases, and the distinction at this point is of material importance. In one type of injury the buds are killed by freezing while in a more or less dormant state during the winter; in the other type the buds are killed by frost after they have partially or fully opened. Temperatures of nearly twenty degrees below zero, sometimes more, are necessary to kill dormant buds of hardy varieties during the winter. On the other hand a frost which lowers the temperature to twenty-eight or thirty degrees for an hour or two at blossoming time will sometimes serve equally well to wipe out a crop and make the peach grower

CLIMATOLOGY \J

postpone for another year the purchase of his new automobile.

These two forms of bud killing have often been confused in the discussions of peach climatology, but such confusion is wholly unnecessary. Special attention should be drawn to the fact that the killing of peach buds by late spring frosts is distinctly a local trouble, and that the localities seriously affected are much less widely distributed than is popularly supposed. There are thousands of square miles of good peach country in North America where budkilling spring frosts are unknown, and thousands of miles more where they are so infrequent as to be almost negligible. There are other regions, to be sure, where the crop is too often lost in this stage ; but on the whole the peach-growing industry has suffered a serious slander in this matter.

Winter freezing of buds cannot be prevented by any methods which are practicable in commercial orchards. In small private gardens, where a little extra trouble and expense can be put to the problem, reasonably good results can be attained. These methods all look toward the protection of the buds and the young wood from the action of the cold weather. The simplest attempts are made by wrapping the fruiting branches of the trees just as they stand in the garden, in much the same manner as rose bushes are sometimes wrapped for winter.

One of the commonest and best materials is corn stalks, which are tied on the fruiting branches in large bundles; or the whole tree may be completely encased in corn stalks until it becomes one immense corn shock. Coarse swale hay is also used very appropriately for this purpose. Other materials which come in suitably to this undertaking are floor mattings, old clothes, gunny sacks and newspapers.

Newspaper is a famous non-conductor of heat, as everyone knows who has ever buttoned a paper under his coat to save him on a cold ride. A modern Sunday paper furnishes material enough to cover several trees four layers deep. The colored "art" supplement is especially recommended for weak and diseased trees, A certain farmer told me that he always used Republican papers on his trees, but he did not state that this was because of their superior insulating properties.

A more elaborate method of protecting peach trees in that geographical zone where they are liable to winterkilling, consists in laying them down upon the ground and covering them there. The writer has seen this method practiced with entire success — with such success, in fact, as to make it a profitable commercial transaction. With this method in view the trees should be headed low and should be maintained with small bushy heads, but not too thick. The laying down should be practiced every year, beginning with the third or fourth winter.

The method is as follows : Just before the ground freezes a trench is dug about 5 feet long and 18 inches deep along the south side of the tree and 3 feet distant from the base of the stem. A similar trench is dug parallel with the first and running along the north side of the tree. The roots encountered in digging these trenches, especially the northern trench, are cut off with the ax. The tree is then pulled over to the southward until it lies practically flat on the ground. It is pinned in this position by two or three forked pegs carefully driven over the main branches. The entire top is then covered with any good material which happens to be at hand. The best of all material, wherever it is available, is evergreen boughs. In sections where a reasonably heavy snowfall may be expected, the snow is the chief dependence, but the evergreen boughs are needed to catch and hold the snow. When pine, spruce or hemlock trimmings are not to be had, corn stalks, straw or waste hay can be used. Unless the snow drifts can be induced to lie upon the peach trees this covering of corn stalks or hay will have to be pretty liberal.

TREES LAID DOWN FOR WINTER

As late as possible in the spring, usually after the blossom buds begin to open, the covering must be removed and the trees set upright again in their places. It will be necessary to hold them erect by tying them to strong stakes or posts set to north and south of each tree ; and it is of considerable importance in making these ties to see that the ropes do not chafe or cut the trees. Usually the trees will have to be protected with burlap bandages under the rope ties. Moreover, these stays usually require readjustment and repair several times during- the summer. It is a taxing and puttering job, and no one should undertake it who does not like to be always fussing about in his garden. There are a good many such men ; and it will not be quite off the point if I add here that I never knew a mean or dishonest man in the lot.

Perhaps those who have not tried it will be shocked at the severe root pruning involved in the prescription. It is true that three or four main roots have to be severed in preparing some trees for laying down. But root pruning is just exactly what these trees need under the circumstances. The tops require to be closely pruned to keep them in bounds for the laying down process, and the root pruning only serves to restore the balance between top and bottom. If it happens to go somewhat farther in particular cases its influence is to induce greater fruitfulness in the trees, and a high degree of fruitfulness is plainly to be desired in trees with which so much pains are taken. The timid amateur horticulturist will be further reassured when he bcsfins digging for the second year's laying down, for he will find that the tree has very largely repaired his supposed injury by the formation of great masses of fine active fibrous roots. Thus when this practice is carried out annually certain trees soon become habituated to it, as it were, and thrive under it.

A somewhat different method of arriving at the same end was invented several years ago by an old Vermont friend of mine, Mr. Joseph Macomber. a very capable horticulturist in many ways. By this method Mr. Macomber has been able to eat his own Vermont-grown peaches almost every summer for a good many years. The tree is taken in hand during its first year in the garden and the main stem is bent to a horizontal position, the bend being made as near the ground as possible. The tree is then trained so as to develop this horizontal trunk to a length of 6 or 8 feet in a manner very much like that employed in training horizontal pear or apple trees. It is simply necessary to have a wooden rod or pole set horizontally at the proper height (8-14 inches) from the ground, and to keep the young leader tied to this as the tree stem grows. This will require a little attention every week or ten days during the rush of the growing season.

When this main stem has reached a horizontal length of 6 or 8 feet it is given another right-angled bend and turned to its natural upright direction. On this upright shoot the head is formed in the usual manner. The complete tree, therefore, consists of a normal bushy head connected with a normal root 8 feet to one side by an abnormal horizontal trunk.

By a simple, safe and easy process of torsion this head can now be turned sidewise down to the ground, staked there and covered in the same manner as described for the foregoing method (page 19). When the blossoms begin to open in the spring the cover-

MR. MACOMBER'S METHOD OF TRAINING iif'-s ing can be removed, the tree top easily returned to an upright position, tied to its necessary stake, and the summer begun in the pleasant prospect of a crop of peaches in September,

This method of Mr. Macomber's avoids the rude necessity of trenching and root pruning, accomplishing the same ends by milder practices. The annual laying down and setting up is rather easier; but it need not be forgotten that this is partially offset by the labor of training the tree to form its peculiar horizontal trunk. And once more it may be observed that these methods are only for the devoted amateur gardener, not for the cow farmer nor the commercial fruit grower.

DAMAGE BY SPRING FROSTS

The killing of opening buds or expanded blossoms by late spring frosts is quite another story, and a serious one, especially for the reason that it most frequently occurs in regions where peach growing is otherwise safe and profitable. The methods already outlined for the prevention of damage by winter freezing will usually serve also to carry the trees past danger of spring frosts, though not always. But these methods are too difficult and expensive to be of much avail in commercial orchards, so that when spring frost injury is to be directly prevented different methods are adopted. Those most widely used are whitewashing, smudging and heating.

WHITEWASHING

The method of protecting peach trees from frost by whitewashing seems to have been invented by

Dr. J. C. Whitten, of the University of Missouri. At any rate Dr. Whitten has been the chief exponent of this method and has made the most extensive experiments with it. It consists in spraying the bearing parts of the peach tree with whitewash during winter and spring on the theory that the white stems reflect instead of absorb the heat from the sun's rays. It has been shown by Dr. Whitten and other experimenters that the blooming of peach trees and other fruits is dependent upon the local absorption of heat and is almost absolutely independent of root action. For instance, the branch of a fruit tree brought into a greenhouse will blossom even while the portion of the tree outside the greenhouse is exposed to zero temperatures and while the roots still stand in frozen soil.

The experiments have shown further that peach twigs which have been whitened will actually maintain a temperature several degrees lower than twigs covered with black or left in their natural color. Furthermore — and this is by far the most important practical test — the blossoming of peach trees is actually retarded by this method by a period of from 2 to 10 days. Dr. Whitten has recently stated that in the orchard of the Missouri Experiment Station peach trees have been treated by the whitewashing method for 10 successive years. This treatment has been given to alternate rows, adjoining rows of trees being left always without treatment. During this lo-year period there have been four good peach crops and five failures on the non-treated orchard and one partial crop. The whitewashed rows have failed but twice during the same time. In other words, the treated trees have yielded three crops more in 10 years than the untreated trees. In this connection one should not overlook the fact that a crop saved in a year of general disaster brings a large price in the market, so that these three extra crops of peaches may be credited with more than average returns.

The method has not been widely adopted, though it is rather hard to see why it should not be more popular. Whitewashing is easy and cheap, and the results seem to be such as to pay well for the work.

Whitewash for treating peach trees is made in the usual way from stone lime, the object being, of course, to get the heaviest coating of white lime on the peach twigs. It has been found that the whitewash will adhere better if a considerable amount of skimmed milk is added to the water. Salt will also serve the same purpose. The whitewash is always applied with a spray pump, using a fine nozzle. From two to four sprayings are commonly required, though the former number is likely to suffice, if applied at the proper time ; that is, just before warm weather may be expected in the spring. From four to six quarts of whitewash are required for the treatment of each tree at each spraying. Dr. A\niitten estimates that the total cost of four sprayings does not exceed lo cents a tree.

In this connection we should not entirely lose sight of the fact that there are occasional beneficial secondary efifects from this lime spra3Mng. It has long been customary among unskilled farmers to whitewash trunks and branches of fruit trees with a view to kill insects and fungi. .This purpose is actually served to a considerable extent. Mr. W. T. Macoun in his Canadian experiments found that spraying with whitewash in the manner recommended for frost protection would almost completely clear apple trees of oyster shell bark lice. It would seem feasible, furthermore, to combine the whitewash treatment with the spring application of lime-sulphur so essential in fighting the San Jose scale.

SMUDGING

There has long been a theory among fruit growers that orchards could be protected from late spring frosts by the use of smudges. The principle on which this treatment rests is that a heavy blanket of smoke lying over an orchard prevents the radiation of heat from the soil and that a slight economy of heat secured in this way at the proper time will be sufficient to save the trees from damage. This method has probably been used more frequently in the United States for the protection of citrus orchards than in any other connection. It has never proved very successful nor found general favor in actual practice. It is doubtful if any practical peach grower of sound judgment is placing any reliance on this method at the present time.

It is to be observed in connection with this method, of course, that the purpose is to produce a smudge and not a heat. Material is used, therefore, which emits a dense smoke rather than that which blazes and burns easily. The old-fashioned method is to start a series of fires along the windward side of the orchard using good strong burning kindling at the outset. As soon as these fires are fairly under way they are blanketed with considerable quantities of wet brush, wet hay, old, damp straw or any similar material which is conveniently at hand.

ORCHARD HEATING

In recent years there has come into somewhat extensive use in certain sections, especially in Rocky

Mountain districts, a different method, namely, orchard heating. This method depends upon the direct temperature secured by burning the necessary amount of fuel in the orchard. Four fuels have been generally used: (a) wood, (b) coal, (c) briquettes, (d) oil.

Where wood is plentiful and cheap, as it is in many sections of the Rocky Mountain states and the west coast, it is prepared in convenient sizes and placed in piles throughout the orchard ready for lighting. When frost is threatened these piles are fired and the blaze kept going by the addition of more wood until the sun warms the air beyond the danger point.

In many sections coal is available at a low price and can be used in the same manner, except that special fire pots are usually required. These are offered for sale by western manufacturers and serve to burn the coal rapidly and economically. The usual estimate is that where coal can be had at $2 to $3 a ton, this method will be more economical than the use of oil at $5 to $6 the 100 gallons. There is a good deal of argument over this point, however, the estimate not being accepted by all fruit growers.

Briquettes which are not available in many parts of the country, vary considerably in composition, so that their value cannot be easily estimated. They are composed of coal dust, tar, sawdust and other refuse materials made into the size and form of ordinary building bricks. If they have a considerable proportion of good infllammable material, they will burn \vell and give a reasonable amount of heat. They are not widely used, and not likely to be.

The standard fuel for heating is oil. However, there are many different kinds of oil and many grades in the market, and one of the most serious problems at the present time is to secure the right kind. Experience agrees that only the best grade of oil should be used, oils with a paraffin base being greatly preferred to those having an asphalt base. The best of these pass under various commercial names such as "smudge distillate" and "slop distillate." Oils which leave a considerable amount of unburned residue are difficult to use and less economical than the higher priced oils. In many cases, also, the oils are found to be mixed with a greater or

SIDE-HILL STORAGE FOR OIL less proportion of water, which is a serious detriment. The water makes the fires sputter, and in many cases causes the pots to boil over. In every case, of course, the water absorbs a large amount of heat from the fire during its evaporation, thus wasting the fuel enormously.

At the present time it does not seem possible to direct any fruit grower to any particular brand of oil which he can buy with the certainty that it will be perfect. It is necessary, therefore, for every man to take the most stringent precautions on his own behalf, remembering that the high-priced oils are pretty certain to be better than the cheap, heavy oils.

If a car of oil can be allowed to stand for 48 hours after delivery before it is drawn ofif from the tank, the oil will largely separate and leave the water at the bottom. The oil can then be dipped or drawn off the top, leaving a certain amount of water behind. This same precaution, however, ought to be exercised by the shippers before the oil is forwarded.

When the oil is received it is usually necessary to store it in some sort of a tank. Two types of tanks are now in common use: (a) cement, (b) galvanized iron. The cement tanks are generally preferred, where they can be constructed. They should be placed at some distance from other farm buildings on account of the dangerously inflammable character of the oil which they are to hold. Such tanks should always be arranged so the oil can be drawn ofif by gravity into the tank from which it is distributed to the orchard. If the storage can be placed on a fairly steep side hill, it will be possible both to fill and to empty this reservoir by gravity. Such an arrangement is obviously most economical.

The typical method of using is to burn the oil in small galvanized iron pails about the size and shape of a lo-pound lard pail. The ordinary commercial pail holds about one gallon of oil, but larger sizes are offered in the market and are preferred by some growers. Various modifications of this form have been invented and patented and are now being sold in large quantities. Each has its advantages and its disadvantages. One of the most important improvements is the introduction of an air draft In^ which the oil is more fully consumed. The best heater is the one which gives the most hot flame and the least smoke, for in this method the smudge is not sought for, the object being to heat the air directly.