COMMERCIAL PEACH-GROWING IN AMERICA
Commercial peach-growing began in America early in the Nineteenth
Century. About this time, it will be remembered, budded trees began to
take the place of seedlings. Named varieties appeared as a consequence
of budding and, as nurseries sprang up in the settled parts of the
country, varieties multiplied at a rapid rate. After the year 1800 we
read less about peaches as food for hogs and less about peach-products
for assuaging the thirst for strong drink. As cities and towns built
up, market demands increased and money-making began to quicken the
charms of peach-growing. With the coming of extensive plantings and
intensive culture in commercial orchards, new and menacing pests and
other problems began to appear at every turn. Before the middle of the
century, commercial peach-growing was in full swing in the Chesapeake
peach-belt and in its infancy in several westward regions. Stories
of great success now filled the papers, "peach kings" abounded, and,
with the return of good times following the Civil War, fruit-growers
indulged in a saturnalia of peach-tree planting. The rouge of
speculation made the industry doubly attractive. An account of the rise
of commercial peach-growing in America cannot help but be of interest
and, besides, it is only by the study of the past of the industry that
we can draw safe conclusions for the future.
Peach-growing on a commercial scale in the United States began in
what is known as the Peninsula, consisting, technically, of the
Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey but
horticulturally, because of similitude of soil, climate and products,
taking in a bit of Virginia, touching eastern Pennsylvania and running
up to Long Island. All of this region, including the southern reaches
of the Hudson, may be considered as one commercial territory. The peach
began its undisputed supremacy among fruits in the orchards of the
Peninsula as early as orchards were planted but, beginning with 1800,
the industry pushed ahead with leaps and bounds so that the figures at
times remind one of Alice in Wonderland when she drank from the magic
bottle and immediately grew to gigantic proportions.
In 1800 an orchard of 20,000 trees was set in Anne Arundel County,
Maryland, the product to be used in brandy-making.[191] The last
peach-grower to engage in the liquor business seems to have been
a certain Mr. Bayley in Accomack County, Virginia, the tip of the
Peninsula, who in 1814 planted 63,000 trees which six years later
yielded fifteen gallons of brandy per 100 trees, worth $2 per
gallon--not profitable unless the seed were sown in rows, as was
probably the case, and the seedlings permitted to crowd rather
closely.[192] One of the first large orchards planted in this region
to supply city peach-markets was that of a Mr. Cassidy who set an
orchard of 50,000 trees in Cecil County, Maryland, about 1830.[193] The
product of this orchard went to market in sailboats and large wagons.
The industry was not in full swing in this region until the fifties
when orchards were planted all along the water courses in Cecil, Kent
and Queen Anne counties, making a continuous forest of peach-trees two
miles back from the rivers.[194]
The peach-industry in Delaware seems to have begun, according to Mr.
Charles Wright,[195] in 1832 at Delaware City, when a twenty-acre
orchard of budded trees was set by Messrs. Reeves and Ridgeway, which
by 1836 had increased to 110 acres. The receipts from this orchard
in a single season were as much as $16,000, the fruit bringing in
Philadelphia from $1.25 to $3 per three-peck basket. Other notable
orchards of these early times mentioned by Mr. Wright are those of
Major Philip Reybold and Sons who, beginning in 1835, by 1846 had
117,720 trees on 1090 acres near Delaware City from which 63,344
baskets of peaches were shipped in August, 1845; in Kent County, John
Reed began planting as early as 1829 and several years later had 10,000
trees of Red Cheek Melocotons. In 1848 the peach-crop in Delaware
was estimated at 5,000,000 baskets, chiefly from New Castle County.
Peach-yellows, first a serious pest around Philadelphia about 1800,
became epidemic in northern Delaware in 1842 and, little by little, the
center of the peach-industry shifted southward from Middletown in the
late sixties to Smyrna; a few years later it had reached Wyoming and in
the nineties it was as far south as Bridgeville.
It is interesting to follow the ups and downs of the peach-industry
in the Peninsula. Epidemics of yellows, a succession of cold winters,
over-production, transportation difficulties or expense, San Jose
scale, have all been factors powerful enough at various times to make
or mar the fortunes of those engaged in growing peaches. Indeed, in
following the history of this fruit on the Peninsula, one is forced
to declare that peach-growing is gambling pure and simple. Take, for
example, the building of the Delaware railroad. Peaches were scarcely
planted in the interior parts of the Peninsula, away from water-ways,
until the building of this road in the sixties and seventies, when
the yield increased so rapidly that 4,175,500 baskets were shipped by
rail in 1875, the total yield being 8,782,716 baskets[196]--fortunes
followed the completion of the railroad only to be lost in subsequent
over-production.
New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and southeastern New York rather
slowly followed the lead of Delaware in commercial peach-growing.
New Jersey, according to census reports, reached her zenith in
peach-growing in 1899 when there were 4,413,568 peach-trees in the
State which produced 2,746,607 bushels of fruit giving her third rank
among the states of the Union in production. Ten years later the State
had dropped to fourteenth. The peach seems to have been neglected in
eastern Pennsylvania as a commercial crop, possibly because a good
start was never made on account of the early appearance of yellows. In
southeastern New York and on Long Island, peach-growers have usually
followed the fortunes of their neighbors in New Jersey who have ever
grown on a much larger scale.
To show how quickly the peach gives returns and how great the return
from the capital invested, the following figures, savoring a good deal
of American boastfulness of dollars and cents, are illustrative:[197]
"The peach farms in Upper Delaware and Maryland have returned to their
owners the most fabulous amounts for their investments far exceeding in
profit any other staple crop that has been raised in the Middle States,
and on a scale never before heard of in this or any other country. Some
of the orchards containing from 1000 to 1300 acres have netted their
owners from $20,000 to $30,000 annually. A peach orchard in New Castle
county, Delaware, of 400 acres, netted the owner in one crop, $38,000.
One in Kent county, Maryland, of some 600 acres, produced a crop paying
$31,000, and the same orchard in 1879 yielded $42,000. In 1873, the
Delaware Peach Growers' Association reported that there were sent
from the Delaware peninsula to the northern markets of Philadelphia
and New York 1,288,500 baskets of peaches, or 2577 car-loads by the
railroad. Adding the quantity shipped by steamers and sailing vessels,
and the amount canned, the actual quantity amounted, in the aggregate,
to 2,000,000 of baskets. In 1872, the whole district, comprising the
Eastern Shore of Maryland, marketed 3,500,000 baskets. The late Col.
Wilkins, on Chester river, Kent county, Maryland, had 1350 acres in
with peach trees, numbering 137,000, producing in bearing years from
$30,000 to $40,000 annually."
Commercial peach-growing in the South is of recent development--its
history is known to all pomologists of the present generation. It
began in the seventies, the impetus being given by the introduction of
a number of early, bright-colored, very showy peaches that could be
marketed in northern cities in May and June. It took years, however,
to develop means to send these peaches to market and it was not until
in the nineties that the perfection of refrigerator cars and rapid
transportation was such that the southern crop cut any figure in the
peach-markets. The introduction of the Elberta in the seventies may
be said to be another stone in the foundation of the peach-industry
in the South. After Georgia became a factor in the culture of this
fruit in America in the nineties, the State was followed in lesser
degree, by South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas.
In most of these southern states the peach-orchard is so near the
cotton-plantation--often the two are interplanted--that the owners rob
Peter to pay Paul in the care of the two crops. But this is not always
the case, and at its best the southern peach-orchard is the consummate
flower of modern commercial peach-growing.
The peach-industry in Connecticut is a recent development, as in
the South. As late as 1880 the crop was negligible in the State; in
1889, 37,295 bushels were grown; 61,775 in 1899; and 417,918 bushels
in 1909. This, considering the smallness of the State and the very
uneven surface of much of it, is a rather remarkable development.
Winter-killing, which takes place about one winter out of four, is
the chief drawback but the high prices received from nearby markets
make the peach, despite the occasional off-year, a profitable crop.
Connecticut peaches are characterized by large size, bright color
and good quality. From Connecticut the industry has spread into
Massachusetts where all conditions are essentially the same.
Peach-growing in New York has never been spectacular. Along the lower
Hudson before the Civil War and again a decade after it there was a
thriving peach-industry such as there was in New Jersey and Delaware. A
peach-industry is first of all dependent on quick transportation--the
fruit must move. This meant in early days that there must be nearby
markets and water transportation--western New York had the latter
but not the former. Peaches, however, were early grown, in fact, as
we have seen, were cultivated by the Indians, in the lake regions
of western New York. In 1828 the Domestic Horticultural Society, the
third such organization in America, was organized in Geneva, having
for its field ten counties in western New York.[198] The Monroe County
Horticultural Society was organized in 1830,[199] and in 1831 the
_Genesee Farmer and Gardener's Journal_ came into existence. These
institutions bore fruit, more literally bore orchards, and a taste for
horticulture, which, together with the nurseries that by this time
were being established in the salubrious climate and excellent soil of
western New York, gave a perfection in fruit-growing long unrivalled in
America and now equalled only in California.
Of the history of commercial peach-growing in western New York, it
can only be said that there has been such an industry since 1800.
The product of the orchards of the first quarter-century went, for
most part, to the brandy-still, for the second quarter it was used at
home and for local markets and from then on, since 1850, or a little
before, the region has been well to the front in the peach-markets of
eastern United States. Changes in the commerce of the continent have
made great changes in the peach-industry in New York. In 1825 the
opening of the Erie Canal made western New York the granary of eastern
United States--wheat was more profitable than peaches. Twenty-five
years later millions of bushels of wheat from the plains, carried
through the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal to the sea, began to drive
wheat out of western New York and make the peach more profitable. This
is a fine illustration of the fact that transportation is often as
important a factor as soil or climate in the profitable production of
a crop. Until figures were taken by census enumerators, the history of
the peach-industry could be written only by giving innumerable items
taken at random from newspapers of the times. The present status of
peach-growing in this region is to be discussed in a future chapter.
Another large commercial peach-region is to be found along the shore
of Lake Erie in Ohio. The peach has been cultivated very generally in
Ohio since the first settlements there more than a century ago and the
industry assumed commercial importance in a dozen or more centers as
early, at least, as 1867, when the assessors' returns showed a total
crop for the State of 1,402,849 bushels.[200] But what is now known
as the peach-belt along the shores of Lake Erie is largely a growth
of comparatively recent times, much of the land now covered with
peach-orchards having been originally planted to vineyards. Possibly
the region was at its zenith in the nineties, the plantings here
contributing greatly to putting Ohio in third place at this time among
the states of the Union in the production of peaches.
Michigan furnishes an interesting chapter in the history of the
peach-industry. The industry was started in what is now the Michigan
peach-belt by an Indian trader who planted a pit in 1775 near St.
Joseph. From this tree sprang seedling orchards, one of which, near
Douglas at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River, numbered 300 trees. There
were no budded trees until 1834. A conjunction of several factors
now gave peach-growing a tremendous impetus in the State. Chicago,
growing with leaps and bounds, demanded peaches; the soil and climate
of western Michigan were found to be ideal for this fruit; between
the supply and demand was quick and cheap transportation by water.
Shipments began in 1834 to Chicago and, as this and other western
cities grew, peach-planting in Michigan progressed as probably never
before in any other part of the world. In the seventies peach-yellows
swept like a wave of fire over the southern portion of what is now
the belt, driving the industry northward until at Traverse City the
peach reached its highest northern limit in the eastern states. With
better control of the yellows, peach-orchards were again planted in the
southern parts of the belt and the industry continues to thrive, though
with the ups and downs incident to this fruit wherever grown.
Another large peach-growing area lies in southern Illinois extending
across the Mississippi into Missouri and Kansas. Westward, in Colorado,
Utah, California, Oregon and Washington, are the world's newest
peach-orchards, all of which have arisen to commercial importance
within recent times. In southern Illinois and Missouri, however, even
before the Civil War, peach-growing had assumed sufficient magnitude to
be called an industry. The present standing of these later peach-areas
may best be compared with that of the older regions by a tabulated
report from the United States Census Reports which is herewith printed.
In the fluctuating figures of this table one sees the exploitation of
the peach. What other tree-crop in the whole world could show more ups
and downs in the brief space of thirty years? No state holds first rank
two decades in succession; in fifteen states in 1910 there were more
trees not of bearing age than there were in bearing; there were more
peach-trees in the United States in 1900 than in 1910; the figures
most graphically attest the shifting of peach-regions; decreasing
numbers represent misfortunes--most often yellows, or San Jose scale,
a freeze, or overproduction; increasing numbers stand for a newly
discovered advantage. By these tokens we better realize the speculative
nature of peach-growing.
PEACH-PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES, 1890-1910
======================================================================
| Number of trees of bearing age | Trees not
| | of bearing
States +----------+----------+-----------+ age,
| Eleventh | Twelfth |Thirteenth |Thirteenth
| Census, | Census, | Census, | Census,
| 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1910
----------------------+----------+----------+-----------+-------------
New England: | | | |
Maine | 1,607| 9,592| 5,102 | 3,320
New Hampshire | 19,057| 48,819| 57,571 | 35,213
Vermont | 1,966| 4,993| 5,492 | 2,187
Massachusetts | 87,004| 301,405| 154,592 | 162,114
Rhode Island | 11,816| 48,063| 39,342 | 30,795
Connecticut | 88,655| 522,726| 461,711 | 338,608
Middle Atlantic: | | | |
New York | 1,014,110| 2,522,729| 2,457,187 | 2,216,907
New Jersey | 4,413,568| 2,746,607| 1,216,476 | 1,363,632
Pennsylvania | 1,146,342| 3,521,930| 2,383,027 | 2,179,386
East North Central: | | | |
Ohio | 1,882,191| 6,363,127| 3,133,368 | 2,092,300
Indiana | 953,980| 2,925,526| 2,130,298 | 1,145,479
Illinois | 783,910| 2,448,013| 2,860,120 | 739,358
Michigan | 1,919,104| 8,104,415| 2,907,170 | 2,991,090
Wisconsin | 387| 6,967| 4,163 | 4,148
West North Central: | | | |
Minnesota | 334| 1,626| 1,571 | 3,837
Iowa | 82,238| 516,145| 1,090,749 | 283,308
Missouri | 1,999,474| 4,557,365| 6,588,034 | 1,404,429
North Dakota | ..... | 2| 90 | 604
South Dakota | 78| 1,080| 1,815 | 5,259
Nebraska | 144,701| 1,055,959| 1,188,373 | 263,882
Kansas | 4,876,311| 5,098,064| 4,394,894 | 620,709
South Atlantic: | | | |
Delaware | 4,521,623| 2,441,650| 1,177,402 | 212,117
Maryland | 6,113,287| 4,017,854| 1,497,724 | 805,063
District of Columbia| 1,521| 149| 330 | 1
Virginia | 1,218,219| 1,939,113| 1,585,505 | 780,551
West Virginia | 450,440| 1,695,642| 1,424,582 | 1,441,188
North Carolina | 2,133,004| 2,773,788| 2,661,791 | 861,042
South Carolina | 711,138| 1,136,790| 1,336,142 | 349,790
Georgia | 2,787,546| 7,668,639|10,609,119 | 1,531,367
Florida | 235,936| 354,208| 290,850 | 156,782
East South Central: | | | |
Kentucky | 1,205,866| 2,884,193| 2,245,402 | 1,110,744
Tennessee | 2,347,699| 2,749,203| 3,163,737 | 1,190,727
Alabama | 1,280,842| 2,690,151| 3,177,331 | 838,866
Mississippi | 878,569| 1,856,748| 1,726,298 | 724,895
----------------------+----------+----------+-----------+-------------
PEACH-PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES 1890-1910--_Continued_
======================================================================
| Number of trees of bearing age | Trees not
| | of bearing
States +----------+----------+-----------+ age,
| Eleventh | Twelfth |Thirteenth |Thirteenth
| Census, | Census, | Census, | Census,
| 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1910
----------------------+----------+----------+-----------+-------------
West South Central: | | | |
Arkansas | 2,769,052| 4,062,218| 6,859,962 | 2,884,927
Louisiana | 317,132| 758,877| 903,352 | 316,132
Oklahoma | 206| 5,848,808| 4,783,825 | 2,574,680
Texas | 4,486,901| 7,248,358| 9,737,827 | 2,958,813
Mountain: | | | |
Montana | .... | 1,670| 538 | 3,386
Idaho | 13,639| 79,757| 73,080 | 212,995
Wyoming | .... | 9| 46 | 419
Colorado | 8,204| 31,998| 793,372 | 606,001
New Mexico | 23,081| 117,003| 136,191 | 184,466
Arizona | 24,954| 67,073| 51,415 | 32,562
Utah | 68,121| 409,665| 544,314 | 651,233
Nevada | 3,996| 9,136| 6,329 | 5,049
Pacific: | | | |
Washington | 72,701| 226,636| 536,875 | 1,028,141
Oregon | 115,244| 281,716| 273,162 | 508,179
California | 2,669,843| 7,472,393| 7,829,011 | 4,409,562
+----------+----------+-----------+--------------
Total |53,885,597|99,916,598|94,506,657 | 42,266,243
=======================================================================
NEW TYPES OF PEACHES
The capacity of species to split into types, using types in a broad
sense, is, we all agree, one of the greatest assets of cultivated
plants. Through diversity of types come adaptabilities to soils
and climates and variety in the crop, to mention but two of the
essentials of standard crop-plants. New types afford the material from
which greatest progress comes in fruit-growing. In common with all
fruit-growing, peach-growing has received impetus from time to time
from the introduction of new and distinct types. In the middle of the
Nineteenth Century, three previously unknown types of peaches, each
divisible into horticultural varieties, were brought to America. All
three have had important effects on the peach-industry in America.
_North China peaches._--Not very distinct from the Persian peaches at
the outset, its outliers running into some of the other groups as well,
"North China" is now but little more than a name for a conglomerate
lot of varieties grown everywhere in America except in the sub-tropic
parts of the Gulf States. The North China race includes varieties
characterized by fruits of large size, great beauty, tender skin
and flesh, good quality and vigorous trees which bear abundantly
and regularly. The group has received careful study at the Delaware
Experiment Station, an account of it by G. Harold Powell having been
published in the Thirteenth Annual Report from that Station in 1901.
Powell prefers to call the group Chinese Cling rather than North China.
The peaches put in the North China group are so nearly akin to those
in the Persian group that it is difficult to place varieties. All
agree, however, in taking the European Shanghai, the American Chinese
Cling, as the type-variety and, though it is probable that travelers
or missionaries brought pits of some of these peaches from northern
China a century or more ago, the known history of the group begins
with the variety just named as the type. It is a pleasure to give
Robert Fortune, the indefatigable collector of Chinese plants for the
London Horticultural Society, credit for introducing these peaches into
western countries. In 1844 Fortune collected a fine, large, delicious
peach near Shanghai and in the autumn forwarded pits and a plant in a
pot to London. The pits were sown and the seedlings produced fruit in
1852 and from among these a sort was selected and called Shanghai.[201]
Pits from this first collection were probably sent to France, for the
name appears in the early fifties in the pomological literature of this
country.
The first American reference to the Shanghai is found in 1851[202]
when fruits were exhibited at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society
in Boston by R. Choate with the statement "peach from a tree imported
from Shanghai." More definite are the facts of an importation made by
Charles Downing in 1850. Early in that year Downing received potted
peach-trees from the British consul at Shanghai under the names
"Chinese Cling" and "Shanghai," supposed to be two sorts but proving to
be identical. One of these trees was sent to Mr. Henry Lyons, Columbia,
South Carolina, and this bore fruit in 1851.[203] From Downing's stock
the variety was quickly and widely distributed and the horticultural
magazines of the time gave the new peaches wide publicity, so that,
from this and other importations which were made from time to time by
various persons, these peaches from northern China were universally
grown in the peach-orchards of America within a quarter of a century of
their introduction.
_South China peaches._--Those who have read the descriptions of
Chinese peaches in Chapter 1 (pages 14 to 21) recognize at once the
beaked varieties of South China, especially those growing about
Canton. These peaches, common enough in China and cultivated there
for centuries, reached occidental countries only in the middle of
the Nineteenth Century. They came to America as seeds from Dr. J. T.
Devan, Canton, China, to Mr. John Caldwell, Newburg, New York,[204]
and were introduced into Europe probably by M. Montigny, French Consul
at Shanghai, who sent seeds to the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in
1852.[205] In recent years a number of fresh importations of seeds and
plants of these honey-flavored, beaked peaches have been made by the
United States Department of Agriculture.
A composite picture of South China peaches shows the following
characters:
Tree of medium size, upright-spreading; branches leaving the trunk
at an angle of about fifty degrees and curving upward; buds quite
prominent; flowers always large and very abundant, pale pink, base
of petals darker pink; leaves small, long, narrow, pointed, finely
serrate, conduplicate, distributed all along the limb, dark green,
in fall slightly tinged with red. Fruit small, oval, yellow or white
blushed with red, slightly flattened; skin adhering to the flesh;
suture very deep in basin, but does not extend more than one-third
the way down; apex long and recurved; flesh white or yellow; flavor
a peculiar honey-sweet; stone free or cling, long-pointed, generally
curved.
As yet these honey-flavored peaches are grown commercially only in the
Gulf States, the notion prevailing that they cannot be grown in the
North. Quite to the contrary they do exceedingly well as far north as
Geneva, though undesirable because of smallness of fruit and lateness
in ripening. Of the score of the descendants of the original Honey,
several are in bearing on the Station grounds, Climax, Imperial, Pallas
and Triana being illustrated in _The Peaches of New York_. All but two
or three of the varieties that are put in this group originated in
Florida and most of them come from the grounds of G. L. Taber, Glen
Saint Mary, of that State. An excellent bulletin, No. 73, from the
Florida Agricultural Experiment Station, published in 1904, by F. C.
Reimer, gives a full account of these peaches.
Is the beaked character permanent? That regions in time give rise to
racial strains must have occurred to all who have read the preceding
pages. The peach acquires distinct varietal characters in every
great geographical region in which it is grown. Possibly in no other
character is the change greater than in the long, pointed, erect or
recurved apex in common parlance called the beak. As a rule, the
farther south the more pronounced is the beak and the more oblong is
the fruit. In this respect, southern peaches, taking them as a whole,
are as markedly different from New York peaches as are the long,
crowned, angular-topped apples of the Pacific Northwest from the rotund
fruits of the Atlantic Northeast. The four sorts of honey-flavored
peaches described and illustrated in _The Peaches of New York_, named
in the foregoing paragraph, illustrate this well, none of them being
nearly so abruptly conical as specimens coming to us from the South.
Peaches in China, evidently, show the same modification, for those
discussed in the previous group are as markedly rotund as those in
this group are conic and beaked. It is a fair inference, then, that
the beaked character of the peach, counting time in generations of the
tree, is permanent only in southern climates.
_Peento peaches._--Another group of these Chinese peaches, not very
different from the South China varieties we have just given an account
of, is composed of the score or more sorts showing relationship to the
variety, Peento. These may be rather indefinitely described as follows:
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading; branches willow-like,
branching at an angle of about forty degrees; flowers large, pink,
opening early, often at a low temperature and very irregularly; leaves
narrow, long, finely serrated, with reniform glands; inclined to be
evergreen; fruit sub-globose except in Peento which is flattened
endwise; skin white and mottled with carmine, parting readily from the
flesh; flesh white or yellow; flavor sweet, with a peculiar almond
taste; stone occasionally flattened endwise, either free or cling.
This race is adapted to sub-tropical parts of the Gulf States where it
ripens from May 1st to June 1st.
The Peento, which gives name to this group, is without doubt a
descendant of the flat peaches of China, common enough as we have
seen. The first tree, however, came from Java to England where it was
first grown by John Braddick under the name Java peach.[206] William
Prince,[207] Flushing, Long Island, imported the variety to America
some time previous to 1828 and grew it to the number of twenty trees.
The peaches from Prince's importation seem to have been lost and
the variety did not appear again in America until 1869 when P. J.
Berckmans,[208] Augusta, Georgia, brought seed from China, from one
of which came the Peento. Peento peaches in America are peculiar to
Florida, where all of the score or more varieties but the Peento have
originated. This group of peaches has been well described by H. Harold
Hume in Bulletin 62 of the Florida Experiment Station from which the
description given above is an adaptation.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] De Candolle, Alphonse _Or. Cult. Plants_ 222. 1885.
[2] Meyer, Frank N. _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =No. 107=:862. 1915.
[3] Feb. 4, 1916.
[4] De Candolle, Alphonse _Or. Cult. Plants_ 228. 1885.
[5] Chinese Literature, Edited by Epiphanius Wilson Bk. I:126. 1902.
[6] _Ibid._ Bk. IX:148, 149. 1902.
[7] _Ibid._ Bk. XIII:161. 1902.
[8] Cibot, Pierre Martial _Mém. concernant l'hist. les sciences_
etc. _des Chinois_. =II=:280-293. 1777.
[9] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants._ =No. 102=:823-825. 1914.
[10] Knight Thomas Andrew _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =3=:1. 1820.
[11] _Gard. Chron._ 531. 1856.
[12] _Gard. Chron._ 27. 1863.
[13] Darwin _Ans. and Pls. Domest._ =1=:357. 1868.
[14] Carrière, E. A. _Variétés De Pêchers_ 25-33. 1867.
[15] De Candolle, Alphonse _Or. Cult. Plants_ 229. 1885.
[16] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =227=:20. 1911.
[17] _Ibid._ =227=:47. 1911.
[18] _Ibid._ =233=:76. 1912.
[19] _Ibid._ =233=:77. 1912.
[20] _Ibid._
[21] _Ibid._
[22] _Ibid._ =233=:78. 1912.
[23] _Ibid._
[24] _Ibid._ =233=:80. 1912.
[25] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =242=:27. 1912.
[26] _Ibid._
[27] _Ibid._ =207=:62. 1911.
[28] _Ibid._ =233=:76. 1912.
[29] _Ibid._ =233=:78. 1912.
[30] _Ibid._
[31] _Ibid._
[32] _Ibid._ =106=:26. 1907.
[33] _Ibid._ =132=:80. 1908.
[34] _U. S. D. A. Bul. of For. Pl. Int._ =No. 32=:19. 1910.
[35] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =233=:77. 1912.
[36] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Inv. of S & P. I._ 21. 1915.
[37] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =66=:95. 1905.
[38] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Inv. of S. & P. I._ 32. 1914.
[39] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =106=:50. 1907.
[40] _Ibid._ =137=:31. 1909.
[41] _Ibid._ =233=:78. 1912.
[42] _Ibid._ =137=:31. 1909.
[43] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =No. 59=:404. 1911.
[44] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =66=:102. 1905.
[45] _Ibid._ =233=:80 1912.
[46] _Ibid._ =233=:80. 1912.
[47] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =103=:828. 1914.
[48] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =66=:189. 1905.
[49] _Ibid._ =66=:306. 1905.
[50] _Ibid._ =142=:21. 1909.
[51] _Ibid._ =66=:95. 1905.
[52] _Ibid._ =66=:95. 1905.
[53] _Ibid._
[54] _Ibid._
[55] _Ibid._ =233=:47. 1912
[56] _Ibid._ =242=:12. 1912.
[57] _U. S. D. A. Bu. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =137=:31. 1909.
[58] _Ibid._
[59] _Ibid._ =137=:46. 1909.
[60] _Ibid._ =66=:191. 1905.
[61] _Ibid._ =162=:50. 1909
[62] _Ibid._
[63] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =51=:4. 1910.
[64] _Ibid._ =60=:411. 1911.
[65] _Ibid._ =60=:412. 1911.
[66] _Ibid._ =62=:431. 1911.
[67] M. Cibot, a French missionary, writing nearly a century and a half
ago in his memoirs concerning the Chinese (=II=:280-293. 1784), gives the
following account of peaches with which he was familiar in China at
that time:--
"Peaches are distinguished by size and color, the shape and earliness
of their fruit. There are some whose flesh is white, some greenish,
some a delicate yellow, some a yellow orange and some marble; some
are round, some oval, some lengthened to a point like a crow's beak.
Peaches are heard of weighing two pounds or even more. The largest
ones I have seen were scarcely three and a half inches in length and
diameter; as to earliness, in the middle provinces there are peaches
almost as soon as cherries. It is still more astonishing that some
varieties do not ripen here till October, and that there is a secret by
which they can be kept till January, just as fresh, just as beautiful,
and just as delicious as if right off the tree."
[68] Ikeda, T. _The Fruit Culture in Japan_ 32, 33. 1907.
[69] Loureiro, _Fl. Cochin._ 315.
[70] Royle, _Illust. Bot. Himal._ 204.
[71] Hooker, Sir Joseph, _Jour. of Bot._ 54. 1850.
[72] Hendricks, P. J. P. _U. S. D. A. Bur. Pl. Ind. Bul._ =97=:72. 1905.
[73] Meyer, F. W. _U. S. D. A. Bur. Pl. Ind. Bul._ =132=:80. 1908.
[74] _Montreal Hort. Soc. Rpt._ =12=:64, 65. 1886-87.
[75] Schuyler, Eugene _Turkestan_ =1=:296, 297. 1876.
[76] Lansdell, Henry _Russian Central Asia_ =1=:223. 1885.
[77] Lansdell, Henry _Russian Central Asia_ =1=:277. 1885.
[78] _Ibid._ =1=:608. 1885.
[79] _Ibid._ =2=:83. 1885.
[80] Bostock and Riley _Nat. History of Pliny_ =3=:296. 1855.
[81] Bostock and Riley _Nat. History of Pliny_ =3=:296. 1855.
[82] _Ibid._ =3=:293, 294. 1855.
[83] De Candolle Alphonse _Or. Cult. Plants_ 225. 1885.
[84] Duhamel Du Monceau _Trait. Arb. Fr._ =2=:1-2. 1768.
[85] Leroy _Dict. Pom._ =6=:10. 1879.
[86] Bostock and Riley _Nat. History of Pliny_ =4=:508. 1856.
[87] Leroy _Dict. Pom._ =6=:10. 1879.
[88] Cecil, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn _A Hist. of Gard. in Eng._ 3. 1910.
[89] _Ibid._ 38. 1910.
[90] _Ibid._ 48. 1910.
[91] Gerarde _Herball_ 1446, 1447. 1633.
[92] Parkinson _Par. Ter._ 580, 582. 1629.
[93] This early Spanish publication is to be found in the Library of
Congress under the title _Molina's Vocubalario en Lengua Castellana y
Mexicana_ (1571). Mr. W. E. Safford, economic botanist in the United
States Department of Agriculture, has been kind enough to translate
Molina's reference to the peach. Mr. Safford writes:--
"On page 83a (the pages of Molina are numbered only on one side, and
this is the reverse of page 83) I find as a definition of the fruit
of Melocoton (Peach) the following:--_xuchipal durazno_ (red peach),
_cuztic durazno_ (yellow peach), _xocotl melocoton_ (plum peach). I
translate _xocotl_ "plum", because the Mexicans applied this word to
many plum-like fruits, or fruits more or less acid in distinction to
_tzapotl_, the general term applied to sweet soft fruits. The words
cited are all hybrid compounds of Nahuatl and Spanish. Whatever may be
the value of these citations, they establish the fact that the peach
was undoubtedly introduced into Mexico before 1571."
[94] _Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad Route from the
Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, War Department_ =3=:122. 1854.
[95] _Bul. Tor. Bot. Club_ =12=:85-86. Aug. 1885.
[96] Hilton, William, A Relation of a Discovery lately made on the
Coasts of Florida. 1664, Force _Hist. Tracts._ IV: =No. 2=:8.
[97] Bartram, William _Travels through North and South Carolina,
Georgia, East and West Florida_ 343. 1791.
[98] Bartram, William _Travels through North and South Carolina,
Georgia, East and West Florida_ 405. 1791.
[99] _Ibid._ 421. 1791.
[100] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =3=:127. 1771.
Peter Kalm is so often mentioned in the fruit-books published by this
Station that readers are entitled to know something about him. Kalm
was a Swede, born in 1715, died in 1779, who was sent by the Swedish
government to travel in North America. He landed in 1748 and spent
the next three years in travel in the settled parts of the New World
devoting himself to the study of the plant and animal life, the natural
phenomena, resources and agriculture of the Middle and Northern States
and Canada. On his return to Sweden, Kalm published an account of his
travels in America which was afterward translated into German and then
into English. To him we are indebted for much valuable information in
regard to the beginnings of agriculture and horticulture in the middle
of the Eighteenth Century in America. Kalm was a student of Linnaeus
and the great botanist perpetuated his memory by naming our beautiful
mountain laurel, _Kalmia_.
[101] Le Page Du Pratz, _Hist. La._ =2=:17. 1763.
[102] Hennepin _Nouvelle découverte d'un très grand pays_ etc., etc.
300. 1697.
[103] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =3=:79. 1771.
[104] Nuttall, Thomas _A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory
During the Year 1819_, 79. 1821.
[105] _Ibid._ 101. 1821.
[106] Lawson, John _History of Carolina_, 181-183. 1714. Reprinted
at Raleigh, 1860. Lawson's History of Carolina contains the best
description of the natural resources of the southern Atlantic seaboard
published in colonial times. It is a book of nature rather than of
history and one of fascinating interest which cannot be read without
admiring and loving the author and mourning his sad fate. Poor Lawson
was burned at the stake by the Indians in 1711. We cannot refrain from
quoting his description of North Carolina as printed on page 79 of
his history: "A delicious country, being placed in that girdle of the
world which affords wine, oil, fruit, grain, and silk, with other rich
commodities, besides a sweet air, moderate climate, and fertile soil.
These are the blessings, under Heaven's protection, that spin out the
thread of life to its utmost extent, and crown our days with the sweets
of health and plenty, which, when joined with content, render the
possessors the happiest race of men upon earth."
[107] _Works of Captain John Smith_, Ed. by Edward Arber, 887. 1884.
[108] De Vries, David Peterson _Voyages from Holland to America_ 50.
1853.
[109] Neil, Rev. E. D. _Virginia Carolorum_ 50. 1869.
[110] Evelyn, Robert New Albion, Force _Hist. Tracts._ =II=: No. =7=:31.
[111] Norwood, Col. A Voyage to Virginia, Force _Hist. Tracts_,
=III=:No. =10=:5.
[112] Hammond, John Leah and Rachel or The Two Fruitful Sisters of
Virginia and Maryland 1656, Force _Hist. Tracts_, =III=:No. =14=:13.
[113] _Works of Capt. John Smith_ Ed. by Edward Arber, 886. 1884.
[114] Bruce, Philip Alexander _Economic History of Virginia in the
Seventeenth Century_ =1=:468, 469.
[115] Beverly, Robert _History of Virginia_. 259, 260. 1722. Reprinted
in Richmond 1855.
[116] _A New and Accurate Account of the Provinces of South Carolina
and Georgia._ Reprinted in _Collections of the Georgia Historical
Society._ =1=:50-51. 1840.
[117] _An Impartial Inquiry into the State and Utility of the Province
of Georgia_. Reprinted in _Collections of the Georgia Historical
Society_ =1=:199. 1840.
[118] Oldmixon, John _The British Empire in America_ 2nd Ed. =1=:515.
1741.
[119] Oldmixon, John _The British Empire in America_ 2nd Ed. London.
=1=:440. 1741.
[120] Watson _Annals of Phila._ =1=:46. 1856.
[121] Raum, John O. _History of New Jersey_, 108.
[122] Watson _Annals of Phila._ =1=:46. 1856.
[123] Acrelius, Israel _The History of New Sweden, or the Settlements
on the River Delaware_. Stockholm, 1759. Translated from the Swedish by
William M. Reynolds, D. D., Philadelphia, 1876, Vol. XI of the _Memoirs
of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania_ 151, 152.
[124] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =1=:71-73. 1770.
[125] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =1=:94. 1770.
[126] _Ibid._ =1=:222-223. 1770.
[127] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ =2=:244, 245. 1771.
[128] Mss. in the library of Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y.
[129] David Thomas is now scarcely known in horticulture except as
he is spoken of as the father of America's well-known agricultural,
horticultural and pomological writer, John Jacob Thomas. Yet the father
merits recognition for his work in agriculture and horticulture. David
Thomas was a Quaker, born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in 1776.
He became a civil engineer and moved to Aurora, Cayuga County, New
York, in 1805 and began to practice his profession. Later he became
one of the engineers in charge of the construction of the Erie Canal
and still later performed a similar service in building the Welland
Canal. Soon after, we find him a nurseryman and fruit-grower at
Aurora. Throughout his entire life, his son writes, he was interested
in horticulture, pomology and botany and by his writings on these
subjects, published principally in the _Genesee Farmer_, then the
leading agricultural paper in western New York, and in _Travels in
the Western Country in 1816_, published in Auburn in 1819, David
Thomas performed most valuable services in forwarding the cultivation
of fruits. He was a corresponding member of the London Horticultural
Society and of the Linnaean Society of Paris. His articles in the
_Genesee Farmer_ and other agricultural papers furnish the most
authoritative statements we have in regard to the early history of
fruit-growing in western New York. The name of David Thomas ought long
to be preserved by horticulturists of the State and country together
with that of his illustrious son, John Jacob Thomas.
[130] _Mass. Records_ =1=:24.
[131] _Mass. Hist. Collections_ 4th Ser. =VI=:499.
[132] _History of the Mass. Hort. Soc._ 16. 1829-1878.
[133] _Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc._ 17. 1829-1878.
[134] Darlington, Wm. _Memorials of Bartram_ 81. 1849.
[135] _Ibid._ 93. 1849.
[136] _Ibid._ 177. 1849.
[137] John Kenrick, one of the pioneer nurserymen on American soil,
began his business career by raising peach-seedlings. His nursery was
situated in the towns of Newton and Brighton, Massachusetts, and was
founded in 1790. As we have stated in the text, he early acquired
the art of budding and possibly was the first, or at least one of
the first, nurserymen to offer budded peach-trees for sale. In 1823,
he advertised in the _New England Farmer_ thirty varieties of budded
peaches five to eight feet high at thirty-three and one-third cents
each. These thirty varieties must have included practically all of
the named sorts then grown in America. It is interesting to note
that he states in the advertisement that the trees were packed with
clay and mats. It was in this year that William Kenrick, son of John
Kenrick, became a partner of his father. Beside growing peaches, the
Kenrick nurseries offered for sale other trees, vine and bush-fruits
and ornamentals as well. The Kenricks were also extensive growers of
currants from which they made currant-wine, their output in 1824 being
1700 gallons; in 1825, 3000 gallons and in 1826, 3600 gallons. The date
and place of John Kenrick's birth cannot be learned. His death occurred
in 1833 in the Kenrick mansion, built in 1720, standing near the
nurseries. New England, and peach-growers everywhere, owe him a debt of
gratitude for his services in horticulture.
[138] William Kenrick, son of John, of whom we have just written, was
born in 1795 in the family mansion on Nonantum Hill in the town of
Newton, Massachusetts. He was trained by his father as a nurseryman
and in 1823 became a partner in the Kenrick nurseries, of which he
soon after appears to have assumed control. The Kenrick nurseries,
at this time, were probably the most extensive and the best known of
any in New England. Besides growing the fruit-bearing plants of the
time and such ornamentals as were then to be found in America, the
Kenricks seem to have taken an enthusiastic part in the craze for the
Lombardy Poplar which was then raging in America. The elder Kenrick
must have been one of the early growers of this popular plant for in
1797 two acres of his nursery was appropriated to the Lombardy Poplar.
The son, in his turn an enthusiast, succumbed to the silk-culture
fad and seems in 1835 to have been one of the leading growers of the
mulberry, _Morus multicaulus_ for feeding silkworms. In this year
Mr. Kenrick published the _American Silk Growers Guide_, which is,
in essence, a treatise on mulberry-culture. William Kenrick's most
notable pomological achievement, however, was the publication of the
_New American Orchardist_ which appeared in 1833. While not the best
of the pomological manuals of the time, it is a valuable contribution
to American pomology because of its full descriptions of the fruits of
that date. Beginning with his father in 1823, William Kenrick continued
in the nursery business for twenty-seven years, probably growing,
importing and disposing of more fruit and ornamental trees than any
other nurseryman in New England during this time. He died in February,
1872, at the ripe age of 77, having lived to see the orchards planted
from his nursery come to full fruition and every part of New England
made more beautiful by the ornamental trees and shrubs grown under his
care.
[139] _Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc._ 33. 1880.
[140] Willich _Dom. Enc_. =4=:244-246. 1803.
[141] _Am. Farmer_ =1=:406, 407. 1821.
[142] Parkinson _A Tour in America_ =1=:212-219. 1805.
[143] An interesting account of peach-culture in Egypt is to be found
in _Agr'l Jour. of Egypt_ 3:=Pt. 2=:134-137. 1914.
[144] _A Voyage to Virginia_ Force's Hist. Tracts 3: =No. 5=:10.
[145] _U. S. D. A. Invent. of Seeds and Plants_ =No. 32=:14. 1914.
[146] _Transvaal Agr. Journal_ =No. 10, 3=:336. 1905.
[147] Darwin, Charles _Voy. of a Nat._ =1=:154.
[148] Bertero, _Ann. Sc. Nat._ 2=1=:350.
[149] Oakenfull, J. C. _Brazil_ 358. 1913.
[150] Wight, W. F. _Proc. Soc. Hort. Sci._ =10=:122-133, 1913.
[151] _Agr. Journal of the Cape of Good Hope_ No. 2, =27=:197. 1905.
[152] Boucher, W. A. _Con. New Zeal. Fruit Growers_ 89. 1901.
[153] _U. S. D. A. Bur. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =137=:31. 1909.
[154] _Ibid._ =137=:48. 1909.
[155] _Ibid._
[156] _U. S. D. A. Bur. of Pl. Ind. Bul._ =162=:50. 1909.
[157] _U. S. D. A. Invent. of Seeds and Plants_ =No. 32=:14. 1914.
[158] _U. S. D. A. Bul. of For. Plant Int._ =No. 60=:411. 1911.
[159] _Ibid._ =No. 60=:412. 1911.
[160] _U. S. D. A. Bur. of For. Plant Int._ =No. 60=:431. 1911.
[161] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ =No. 113=:920. 1911.
[162] _Ibid._ =No. 114=:929. 1911.
[163] Wickson, E. J. _Cal. Fruits_ 308. 1889.
[164] Gregory, C. T. _Cornell Bul._ =365=:219-220. 1915.
[165] _Trait. Arb. Fr._ 35. 1807.
[166] Darwin _Ans. and Pls. Domest._ 2nd Ed. =2=:217. 1893.
[167] Hedrick, U. P. _Science_ =37=:917. 1913.
[168] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ No. =106=:858. 1915.
[169] _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =3=:1. 1820; =4=:396. 1822.
[170] See Duhamel _Traite Arb._ Ed. 2, IV: 112. 1809; Seringe in DC.
_Prodr._ II: 531. 1825; Reichenback _Fl. Ger. Exc._ 647. 1830-32.
[171] De Candolle _Or. Cult. Plants_, 225. 1885.
[172] _Commentaries_ on _Dioscorides_, French Ed. of 1572. 159-160.
[173] Parkinson _Par. Ter._ 582, 583. 1629.
"I presume that the name _Nucipersica_ doth most rightly belong unto
that kinde of Peach, which we call Nectorins, and although they have
beene with us not many yeares, yet have they beene knowne both in Italy
to Matthiolus, and others before him, who it seemeth knew no other
then the yellow Nectorin, as Dalechampius also: But we at this day doe
know five severall sorts of Nectorins, as they shall be presently set
downe; and as in the former fruits, so in this, I will give you the
description of one, and briefe notes of the rest.
The Nectorin is a tree of no great bignesse, most usually lesser then
the Peach tree, his body and elder boughes being whitish, the younger
branches very red, whereon grow narrow long greene leaves, so like
unto Peach leaves, that none can well distinguish them, unlesse it be
in this, that they are somewhat lesser: the blossomes are all reddish,
as the Peach, but one of a differing fashion from all the other, as I
shall shew you by and by: the fruit that followeth is smaller, rounder,
and smoother than Peaches, without any cleft on the side, and without
any douny cotton or freeze at all; and herein is like unto the outer
greene rinde of the Wallnut, whereof as I am perswaded it tooke the
name, of a fast and firme meate, and very delicate in taste, especially
the best kindes, with a rugged stone within it, and a bitter kernell.
The Muske Nectorin, so called, because it being a kinde of the best
red Nectorins, both smelleth and eateth as if the fruit were steeped in
Muske: some thinke that this and the next Romane Nectorin are all one.
The Romane red Nectorin, or cluster Nectorin, hath a large or great
purplish blossome, like unto a Peach, reddish at the bottome on the
outside, and greenish within: the fruit is of a fine red colour on the
outside, and groweth in clusters, two or three at a joynt together, of
an excellent good taste.
The bastard red Nectorin hath a smaller or pincking blossome, more
like threads then leaves, neither so large nor open as the former, and
yellowish within at the bottome: the fruit is red on the outside, and
groweth never but one at a joynt; it is a good fruit, but eateth a
little more rawish then the other, even when it is full ripe.
The yellow Nectorin is of two sorts, the one an excellent fruit,
mellow, and of a very good rellish; the other hard, and no way
comparable to it.
The greene Nectorin, great and small; for such I have seene abiding
constant, although both planted in one ground: they are both of one
goodnesse, and accounted with most to be the best rellished Nectorin of
all others.
The white Nectorin is said to bee differing from the other, in that
it will bee more white on the outside when it is ripe, then either the
yellow or greene: but I have not yet seene it.
The Use of Nectorins.
The fruit is more firme then the Peach, and more delectable in taste;
and is therefore of more esteeme, and that worthily."
[174] Darwin _Ans. and Pls. Domest._ 2nd Ed. =1=:357-365. 1893.
[175] Bretschneider E. _Bot. Explor. in China_ =2=:860. 1898.
[176] _Gard. and For._ =1=:153. 1888.
[177] Bretschneider E. _Bot. Explor. in China_ =2=:860. 1898.
[178] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ No. =115=:940. 1915
[179] _U. S. D. A. Plant Immigrants_ No. =72=:516. 1912.
[180] _Prunus Davidiana alba_ Bean _Garden_ =50=:165. 1896; _Persica
Davidiana alba_ Carrière _Rev. Hort._ 76. 1872; _Prunus Davidiana flore
alba_ Wittmack Gartenfl. =44=:129. 1895.
[181] _Jour. Agr. Research_ =1=:147-177. 1913.
[182] _U. S. D. A. Seeds and Plants Imported_ Invent. =13=:173. 1908.
[183] _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =3=:380-387. 1820.
[184] _Ibid._ =5=:525-560. 1824.
[185] For a brief history of the life and pomological work of Gilbert
Onderdonk, the reader is referred to _The Plums of New York_, page 392.
[186] _U. S. D. A. Rpt._ 648-651. 1887.
[187] _Tex. Sta. Bul_. =39=:826-832. 1896.
[188] _Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt._ 110. 1887.
[189] Waugh, F. A. _Systematic Pomology_, 178. 1903.
[190] Hume H. Harold _Fla. Sta. Bul._ =62=: 1902.
[191] Gould, H. P. _Md. Sta. Bul._ =72=:129. 1901.
[192] Wright, Charles _Cyc. of Am. Hort._ =3=:1240. 1900.
[193] Gould, H. P. _Md. Sta. Bul._ =72=:130. 1901.
[194] Shallcross, J. T. _Md. Hort. Soc. Rpt._ =1=:17. 1898.
[195] Wright, Charles _Cyc. of Am. Hort._ =3=:1238. 1900.
[196] _Am. Farmer_ July, 1878.
[197] Rutter _Cult. & Diseases of the Peach_ 81, 82. 1880.
[198] _New England Farmer_ =7=:174.
[199] _Mag. Hort_. =5=:12.
[200] _Ohio Hort. Soc. Rpt._ 61. 1869.
[201] _Jour. Lond. Hort. Soc._ 221. 1846; l. c. 265. 1852.
[202] _Mag. Hort._ 475. 1851.
[203] _Horticulturalist_ 286, 472. 1853.
[204] _Horticulturist_ =1=:382. 1847.
[205] _Rev. Hort._ 11. 1861.
[206] _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =4=:512-513. 1822.
[207] Prince, Wm. _Treat. on Hort._ 16. 1828.
William Prince, second of the name in American pomology and third
proprietor of the celebrated Prince nurseries at Flushing, Long Island,
was born November 10, 1766, and died April 9, 1842. His grandfather,
a French Huguenot, was the founder of the establishment of which he
became owner, and in which he made his reputation. Under his father,
the first William Prince, the nursery at Flushing developed into a
great commercial nursery, a private experiment station, a testing
ground for American and foreign fruits and a botanic garden of American
plants. The mantle dropped by William Prince, the father, at his
death in 1802, fell upon the shoulders of William Prince, subject of
this sketch, then just reaching the prime of life and one of the most
brilliant and versatile pomologists the country has known. William
Prince continued most successfully the work of his father in breeding
new varieties, domesticating native plants and importing foreign fruits
and ornamentals. During his supervision the Prince Nursery reached
the height of its fame. It was conducted less for money than for love
of the work. An attempt was made to grow every American and European
plant-species having horticultural value. The catalogs published from
the nursery by William Prince are among the best horticultural and
botanical contributions of the first half of the Nineteenth Century.
Besides these, William Prince is the author of the _Treatise on
Horticulture_, published in 1828, and gave assistance to his son,
William Robert Prince, in preparing his _Pomological Manual_ published
in 1832. In the description of varieties in this text it will be found
that many varieties of peaches were originated, introduced, imported or
first described by William Prince.
[208] For a brief history of the life and horticultural activities of
Prosper Julius A. Berckmans, the reader is referred to _The Plums of
New York_, page 159.
PEACH-PRODUCTS
The magnitude of the peach-industry in the United States is better
appreciated if figures showing values are given. The value of peaches
and nectarines in 1909, for the United States, was $28,781,078, an
amount surpassed by only one other fruit, the apple. The highest value
for a geographical division is reported for the East North-Central
States, the amount being $5,173,000, followed by the South Atlantic
States with $4,888,000 and the Pacific States with $4,887,000. Of
individual states, California with her enormous area, over most
of which the peach thrives, ranks first, the value of the crop in
1909 reaching $4,574,000; the next most important State is Georgia,
$2,183,000; the third, New York, $2,014,000; these followed in order
of value by Michigan, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri,
Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina, each with a crop of
more than $1,000,000 in value.
The peach has greater commercial value in the United States than all
other stone-fruits combined, the value of the crop in 1909, as we
have seen, amounting to $28,781,078 while the value of the plum was
$10,299,495; of the cherry, $7,231,160; of the apricot, $2,884,119; of
the almond, $712,000. The consumption of peaches is increasing year by
year. Until recently the peach has been considered a fruit of luxury,
but large plantations, good care, quick and safe transportation and
wide distribution now provide peaches for all who can afford to eat
fruit.
The profits of peach-growing are occasionally so enormous that the
publication of the figures is usually followed by excessive planting,
with consequent over-production and low prices, followed, in turn, by
scarcity and high prices. So, too, the peach is more at the mercy of
the seasons than any other standard tree-fruit and winter freezes and
spring frosts ruin crops in some part of the country every year and
often such disasters are widespread. These ups and downs, however,
instead of decreasing, seem to stimulate the peach-trade, probably, on
the part of the grower, because gambling is a universal vice; on the
part of the consumer, because he better appreciates peaches when the
blessing is occasionally withdrawn.
The chosen use for any choice fruit is to eat it as it comes from the
tree or as prepared fresh fruit for dessert. So the peach is chiefly
used the world over. Refreshing and delectable as any other fruit,
it has another quality, appreciated by those who sell as well as by
those who consume--it does not cloy the appetite. The insatiable
longing of the great lexicographer, Johnson, for peaches is common to
all lovers of this fruit. Boswell, Johnson's biographer, gives this
gustatory reminiscence of his famous patron: "He would eat seven or
eight large peaches of a morning before breakfast began, and treated
them with proportionate attention after dinner again, yet I have heard
him protest that he never had quite as much as he wished, except once,
in his life." In America the greater part of the crop is, no doubt,
eaten out of hand but peach-pie and peaches and cream, and peach-butter
are national dishes, while marmalades, jellies, pickles, preserves
and sauces are as common to this fruit as to any other. Besides the
innumerable cooked products, several refreshing domestic drinks are
made from the juice of peaches, as shrub and peach-wine, or it may be
frozen into sherbet or ice cream. Waste peaches are used with more or
less success as stock for vinegar. Peaches are canned and evaporated in
the United States on an enormous scale, nearly one-half the crop being
so utilized.
_Canned peaches._--Canning is conservation _in excelsis_. It is modern
compliance to the command, "Gather up the fragments that remain,
that nothing be lost." Without this method of preserving crops the
commercial culture of fruits and vegetables as carried on nowadays
would be ruined and no fruit would suffer as would the peach, since
it leads all others in quantity and value of the canned pack. The
value of canned peaches in the United States in 1909 was $3,753,698
or nearly one-seventh the total value of the crop and one may roughly
estimate the fruit canned at home to be half as much as that canned
in the factories. The product was put up in states, named in order
of value of the pack as follows: California, $3,013,203; Michigan,
$175,386; Maryland, $158,839; Georgia, $156,282; New York, $141,142.
These canned peaches go to every part of the world to which they can
be cheaply carried and are fit for consumption any time within two or
three years after being put up. The canning factory has revolutionized
the peach-industry in the United States by giving its products access
to the world-market.
Commercial canning is a specialist's business into which we cannot go.
The processes, essentially, are the same as those used in domestic
canning and consist in destroying all bacteria by heat and then
hermetically sealing the product in cans. In canning factories the
work is nearly all done by machinery, including peeling, pitting
and cutting the fruit, soldering the cans and putting on labels.
To purchase proper machinery, hire labor and manage both to secure
uniformity and cheapness in the product requires large capital and
keen business ability. Peaches are easy to handle in factories and
the work can be done so cheaply and the product is so acceptable that
the factory-canned fruit is rapidly taking the place of that which a
quarter of a century ago was almost wholly put up in the kitchen. The
canning industry originated, has been perfected and is now chiefly
carried on in the United States and Canada, though rapidly being
introduced elsewhere. The aid afforded the peach-grower in this country
by the canneries has been a great stimulus and makes the possibilities
of profitable production of this fruit in the future certain.
Orchard-canning on a small scale seldom proves feasible, succeeding
best, if at all, in a home industry to provide a special product for a
fancy or private trade. Occasionally, associations can command capital
enough to compete with the large business enterprises but as a rule
the peach-grower's interests are served best by the production of
acceptable fruit for those who are engaged in the canning industry.
In the East, New York for example, all surplus peaches of standard
varieties go to the cannery, though certain sorts have preference, but
on the Pacific Coast where peaches are grown for canning, the trade
demands a special type. The choice of varieties differs in different
localities so that a prescription of sorts to grow for the canning
trade cannot be made. Canners accept only yellow-fleshed peaches and
usually prefer clingstones since these stand up better in the can. This
preference is well shown in figures from California, where in 1913
only 583,800 cases, 24 cans to the case, of freestones were canned as
against 1,630,255 cases of clingstones. Fashion now demands varieties
red at the pit. Most cans in the great pack coming from California are
labeled "Lemon Cling," but this is really now but a trade name, the old
Lemon Cling, the pioneer sort in the canning trade, being little grown,
a dozen or more similar but improved peaches having taken its place.
The nectarine is canned in California but is not yet popular with
consumers despite the fact that the product is most appetizing and very
pleasing in appearance. Its smooth skin makes it one of the easiest of
all fruits to can.
_Evaporated peaches._--In regions distant from the markets evaporation
is an even richer resource of the peach-grower than canning. Thus, in
California in 1909, the value of the peaches canned was $3,013,203
while the dried product was valued at $2,333,137. The figures are
greater for canned peaches, but be it remembered that the canners'
profits and the cost of the cans must be deducted, whereas evaporated
peaches are almost wholly a home product, the grower receiving all of
the proceeds. The dried product is pure peach, almost devoid of water.
Peaches may be cured as dry as a bone and as hard as wood so that the
product will keep indefinitely in the temperate zone, and in this
super-dried state is shipped to the tropics. The apple is evaporated in
large quantities but is a by-product while the cured peach is usually
a primary product--a difference worth noting, for, with the apple, the
cream of the crop goes to the fresh fruit-market while the cured peach
is of the same grade as the dessert and canned fruit.
The dried-peach industry thrives only in regions, as California, where
the summers are sunny and rainless. The product is shipped so cheaply
that peach-growers in cloudy and humid climates, as in New York,
cannot use artificial heat in evaporators and compete with the cured
peaches from the Pacific Slope. In times past when communities were
more dependent on local resources, the farmer living almost wholly off
of his farm, peaches were cured in humid America though the product,
in appearance at least, was much inferior to that from regions having
favorable conditions for the evaporation of fruit. New York can hardly
hope to compete with California in curing peaches but two factors make
it barely possible that this State might make a minor industry out of
curing peaches. The factors are the enormous production of peaches
in the State, over-production being frequent, and the existence of a
great number of apple-evaporators which might be utilized in curing the
earlier ripening peaches. It seems worth while, therefore, to go rather
fully into the details of curing peaches as practiced in California
with the hope that their methods may be modified for use in New York
evaporators. The subjoined footnote gives the best account we are able
to find of the dried-fruit industry in California and of curing peaches
in particular.[209]
The most obvious change which takes place in curing peaches is the
loss of water but several other important changes occur which even
more materially alter the flavor of the product. According to C. F.
Langworthy[210], Chief of the Office of Home Economics, United States
Department of Agriculture, the carbohydrates which make up the largest
part of the solid matter of fruits undergo greatest changes. The crude
fibre, too, is reduced in amount or softened. Much of the starch is
changed into some form of sugar and the less soluble sugar may be
reduced to a more soluble form. Some of the volatile oils and other
ethereal bodies, so important in giving flavor to fruits, pass off
or are modified by the curing processes. These changes insure longer
keeping in the product, give it greater food value than fresh fruit,
pound for pound, leaving it quite as digestible, but not as refreshing
and palatable.
Peach-leather was a common dried peach-product in the old domestic
epoch before the coming of railroads, steamboats and the establishment
of canning and drying industries. Though not now common, peach-leather
is still made in many communities in the East, more particularly in the
southeastern states. The peaches are peeled, pitted and then mashed
into a thin layer which is dried in the sun or an oven, the resulting
product taking on the appearance of leather. Peach-leather is said to
keep indefinitely, this being its chief merit.
Peach-brandy is still a commercial product of considerable importance
though the amount made nowadays, as compared with that made a hundred
years ago before prohibition began to be preached, is but a drop in the
bucket when the number of bushels raised is considered. According to
the Commissioner of Internal Revenue,[211] the quantity of peach-brandy
made in 1908, the last year reported, was 13,649.5 gallons, most of
which came from California. Peach-brandy is made by converting the
sugar of the fruit into alcohol and then distilling. The finished
liquor contains about 50 per ct. alcohol. In European countries,
peach-kernels are much used in flavoring a liquor called Eau de Noyau.
According to Bulletin 133, Bureau of Plant Industry, United States
Department of Agriculture, valuable fixed and volatile oils can be
produced from the kernel of the peach. Peach-stones are now burned as
fuel by most canneries, excepting small quantities sold to nurseries
for propagation. The possibility of producing oils from the kernels
seems well worth looking into, since there is now an enormous waste of
this part of the fruit by canneries. Oils extracted from peach-kernels
may be used for the same commercial purposes as the almond oils;
namely, in medicine, for soaps, cosmetics, perfumes and confections.
The processes of extraction and distillation are not complex and
establishments equipped with steam would have little difficulty in
extracting these oils. It is said, too, that the press-cake from
which the oils have been extracted makes valuable stock-foods or
fertilizers owing to its high content of nitrogenous matter. It is
estimated that in California alone the quantity of peach-pits obtained
as a by-products of canneries amounts to 10,000 tons in a normal
year; that these would yield from 600 to 1,200 tons of kernels from
which 210 to 420 tons of oil could be extracted. The wholesale price
of bitter-almond oil, or oils purchased under this name, for which
peach-oil could be substituted, is from $3.25 to $4.75 per pound.
Pliny named several medicinal uses for the peach and from his time
down the flesh, kernels, leaves, bark and blossoms have had a place
in the pharmacopoeia of various countries though nowadays little used
except in domestic therapeutics. All of the structures named abound in
a bitter and astringent principle and most of them produce hydrocyanic
acid upon maceration with water. The peach might have value in medicine
for this acid were not the chemical more easily obtained elsewhere. The
oils from the kernels, as we have seen, may be used in medicine. Noting
the medicinal uses to which peach-products have been put by various
peoples in various times we find: The leaves are pounded and boiled in
vinegar for a liniment, an eye-wash, a cure for "scurf," a preventive
of bald heads, and as an insecticide on the heads of children. The
blossoms, treated in various ways, have been used for the same ailments
and also as a febrifuge. The burned pits are also used in making
lampblack for paints.
For more than two thousand years stories have been rife of the
poisonous properties of peach-pits and peach-leaves. In a careful
perusal of peach-literature for this period and in several languages
we have not found a single case cited of fatal results to man or beast
from eating the leaves or kernels of peaches. No doubt these stories
arise from common knowledge that parts of the peach, as the kernels
and possibly the leaves, contain prussic acid though in so minute
quantities as never to be toxic in any quantity likely to be eaten by
humans or animals. No doubt, too, the myth that the Persians sent the
peach to the Egyptians as a deadly poison is still perpetuated.
The wood of the peach is fine-grained and takes a beautiful polish and
in Europe is used somewhat in cabinet-work and toy-making. Its numerous
reddish-brown veins make it a most beautiful wood but the trees seldom
attain sufficient size to give the species value as a lumber-product.
The peach is attractive to the eye at all seasons. A tree or an
orchard in bloom is a strikingly beautiful sight while a panorama in a
peach-country in flowering-time is one of the most beautiful scenes in
nature. There is a great difference in the floral beauty of varieties,
some sorts having very inconspicuous flowers while others rank with our
finest ornamentals when in bloom. Several types of _Prunus persica_
are planted for beauty of flower and foliage but the fruit-producing
peaches are almost never planted for landscape effect though their
peculiarly sunny expression in leaf and flower, one of the best types
of cheerfulness among trees, should make them useful either standing
alone or in mass for ornamental planting. Those who have seen the wild
wayside peaches of Kentucky or Tennessee in bloom will always think of
the species as an ornamental as well as a fruit-tree.
PEACH-YELLOWS
Yellows is a disease or malignant condition, it is not known which,
virulent and contagious whatever it may be, and is the possession
primarily of the region north of the Ohio and Potomac and east of the
Mississippi. At one time or another it has been a cause of decline of
the peach-orchards in every part of the region outlined. Epidemics of
yellows have wholly obliterated thriving peach-industries which in some
cases covered counties. The changes wrought by yellows come so quickly
and are so final, so complete and so widespread in their consequences
that the disease stands alone among the troubles of plants in the
extent of its influence on the crop affected. Under somewhat better
control now, its havoc is less than formerly, but in the past it has
outdone all other accidents combined that have happened to peaches
in America, including frosts, floods, drought, insects, fungi and
injuries due to man and quadrupeds. The mystery of yellows in most of
its aspects makes its known history all the more significant. We lack
knowledge of what it is, or whence it came, nor do we know of any cure;
we know only some of the circumstances and the terrible consequences to
the peach. Yellows began its siege of the peach in the very beginning
of commercial peach-growing in America. Much of the history of the
peach is written in the hundred-years-warfare that has ensued.
Judge Richard Peters of Philadelphia first described and gave name to
peach-yellows. February 11, 1806, he read a paper "On Peach Trees"
before the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture. In this
paper we have the first clear account of yellows:[212]
"About fifty years ago, on the farm on which I now reside, my father
had a large peach orchard, which yielded abundantly. Until a general
catastrophe befell it plentiful crops had been for many years produced
with very little attention. The trees began nearly at once to sicken,
and finally perished. Whether by the wasp then undiscovered, or by some
change in our climate, I know not. For forty years past I have observed
the peach trees in my neighborhood to be short-lived. Farther south, in
the western country, and, it seems, in some parts of New Jersey they
are durable and productive as they had been formerly here. * * * The
worm or grub, produced by the wasp depositing its progeny in the soft
bark near the surface of the ground, is the most common destroyer. *
* * When trees become sickly I grub them up. I find that sickly trees
often infect those in vigor near them by some morbid effluvia. Although
I have had trees twenty years old, and knew some of double that age
(owing probably to the induration of the bark rendering it impervious
to the wasp, and the strength acquired when they had survived early
misfortunes), yet in general they do not live in tolerable health after
bearing four or five crops. * * * Fifteen or sixteen years ago I lost
one hundred and fifty peach trees in full bearing in the course of two
summers by a disease engendered in the first season. I attribute its
origin to some morbid infection in the air. * * * The disorder being
generally prevalent would, among animals, have been called an epidemic.
From perfect verdure the leaves turned yellow in a few days, and the
bodies blackened in spots. Those distant from the point of infection
gradually caught the disease. I procured young trees from a distance
in high health and planted them among the least diseased. In a few
weeks they became sickly, and never recovered. * * * After my general
defeat and most complete overthrow, in which the worm had no agency, I
recruited my peaches from distant nurseries, not venturing to take any
out of those in my vicinity. I have since experienced a few instances
of this malady, and have promptly, on the first symptoms appearing,
removed the subjects of it, deeming their cases desperate in themselves
and tending to the otherwise inevitable destruction of others."
In the last few lines of this account, Judge Peters gives the only
means so far discovered to check the spread of the disease--the prompt
destruction of affected trees--a striking commentary on the baffling
nature of yellows when we consider what science has done, since Judge
Peters wrote, toward the control of other plant-diseases. In a note of
later date, page 23 of the same article, Judge Peters speaks of "the
disease I call the yellows," thus giving name to a trouble that until
then had been known as "decay" or "degeneracy" in the peach.
Later Judge Peters writes:[213] "I am pursuing my old plan of
re-instating my peach trees lost last season (1806 or 1807) by my
unconquerable foe, the disease I call the yellows. I obtain them from
different nurseries free from this pestiferous affection. The worm or
wasp (Ægeria) I have in complete subjection. I should be perfectly
disinterested in proposing that the society offer a premium for
preventing the disease so fatal; for I shall never gain the reward."
And again:[214] "I still think that the disease so generally fatal
(more so this year than any other in my memory), called the yellows,
is atmospherical. * * * Compare this account (of thrifty orchards in
Delaware) with the actual state of the peach in our country, and judge
whether we live in a region favorable to its growth. Mr. Heston's
attempt at cultivating this tree in the Southern manner begins already
to fail. His trees are evidently infected, and many are on the decline.
The yellows are universally prevalent this season throughout the whole
country (_i. e._, around Philadelphia)."
We have given but little out of much that Judge Peters wrote on
yellows, his observations and experiences covering nearly a generation.
We have quoted sufficiently from his accounts, however, indubitably to
establish the fact that peach-yellows was rampant about Philadelphia at
least as early as 1800. Smith[215] puts the appearance of yellows in
this region as probably some time prior to 1791. By this time there was
a considerable body of scientific and practical agricultural literature
in America, and we may assume, since no trouble that could possibly
be identified as yellows had been described as existing elsewhere in
America, though the peach-borer is frequently discussed, that the
disease at this period, about 1800, was restricted to the neighborhood
of Philadelphia.
We now find the yellows gradually extending into neighboring
states--Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and New York. Wm. Coxe of New
Jersey who in 1807 wrote Judge Peters, "I am perfectly ignorant of the
disease to which you give the name yellows," in 1817 knew it only too
well as "a malady which no remedy can cure nor cultivation avert," and
devotes nearly two pages in his _Fruit Trees_ to a discussion of its
nature.[216] References to yellows in all of the states named by this
time had become general. Our purpose to show the spread, effects, and
early treatment of the disease is fully served by quoting at length
from a single author--a keen observer, careful writer and the most
notable horticultural and botanical authority of his time, Wm. Prince,
of Flushing, Long Island.[217] To Prince, by the way, we are indebted
for the first reference to what is now considered the most certain
symptom of yellows--premature ripening of fruit. Prince says:
"This disease, which commenced its ravages in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania about the year 1797, and in New York in 1801, and has
spread through several of the states, is by far more destructive to
peach trees than the worm, and is evidently contagious. This disease
is spread at the time when the trees are in bloom, and is disseminated
by the pollen or farina blowing from the flowers of diseased trees,
and impregnating the flowers of those which are healthy, and which
is quickly circulated by the sap through the branches, foliage, and
fruit, causing the fruit, wherever the infection extends, to ripen
prematurely. That this disease is entirely distinct from the worm, is
sufficiently proved by the circumstance, that peach trees which have
been inoculated on plum or almond stocks, though less affected by the
worm, are equally subject to the yellows--and a decisive proof of its
being contagious is, that a healthy tree, inoculated from a branch of
a diseased one, instead of restoring the graft to vigour and health,
immediately becomes itself infected with the disease. As all efforts
totally to subdue it must require a long course of time, the best
method to pursue towards its eventual eradication, is to stop its
progress, and prevent its farther extension--to accomplish which, the
following means are recommended, which have been found particularly
successful.
As soon as a tree is discovered to possess the characteristics of the
disease, which is generally known by the leaves putting on a sickly
yellow appearance--but of which the premature ripening of the fruit is
a decisive proof--it should be marked, so as to be removed the ensuing
autumn, which must be done without fail, for if left again to bloom, it
would impart the disease to many others in its vicinity; care is also
necessary, in its removal, to take out all the roots of the diseased
tree, especially if another is to be planted in the same place, so that
the roots of the tree to be planted may not come in contact with any of
those of the one which was diseased.
If your neighbour has trees infected with the yellows in a quarter
contiguous to yours, it will be necessary to prevail on him to remove
them, that yours may not be injured by them. By being thus particular
in speedily removing such trees as may be infected, the disease is
prevented from extending itself to the rest of the orchard, and the
residue will consequently be preserved in perfect health at the
trifling loss of a few trees annually from a large orchard."
The influence of yellows on the peach-industry of the country is shown
by indicating when it appeared in the various states in which peaches
are grown in eastern America and by noting the effects of epidemics of
the disease.
In Pennsylvania, following the first outbreak, peach-growing all but
disappeared, to reappear again from time to time in new regions or in
old ones following an interval of years after a plague had passed.
Periods and places of epidemics are indicated by such quotation as
follow: Wm. G. Warren, Centre County, reports in 1851: "A majority
of the peach trees have been destroyed by the yellows."[218] In
the proceedings of the American Pomological Society for 1852, a
Pennsylvanian reports for the State: "Peaches have done but ill with
us for some years past. The yellows have swept off thousands of
trees."[219] In 1880 in a book on the peach, Rutter devotes many pages
to yellows in Pennsylvania and speaks of "thousands of trees dead and
dying from the disease in Chester and Delaware counties."[220] The
epidemic in the eighties seems to have been particularly severe, there
being at the end of the decade but 1,146,342 bearing trees in the State
which by 1900 had increased to 3,521,930 trees.
Perhaps of all states, in proportion to area planted, New Jersey has
suffered most from yellows. Beginning with the epidemic mentioned by
Coxe in 1817, there have been several disastrous irruptions of the
disease in that State. A particularly destructive epidemic must have
raged in the early forties, for in 1846 W. R. Prince, Flushing, Long
Island, says:[221] "Any one who visits the once splendid peach orchards
in various parts of New Jersey will be struck by the desolate aspect
of innumerable plantations of dead trees, with only here and there
a sprig of verdure amid the mighty mass." Another writer, Colonel
Edward Wilkins, says: "Fifty thousand acres in peach trees, in two
counties only, had been destroyed by the yellows prior to 1850;" and
in 1858, he further states that "at that time nearly the whole of the
peach orchards of New Jersey had been destroyed by yellows."[222]
He concludes, in the same article, that "in New Jersey the peach
belongs to the past." We choose as the last of the many accounts of
disaster from yellows in this State two quotations from Professor P. D.
Penhallow written in 1882:[223]
"In New Jersey, where the ravages of the disease have been more
seriously felt than elsewhere, the southern counties were formerly
the center of the peach industry for the entire State, but, owing to
the prevalence of the yellows the peach orchards have been gradually
moving northward, until at the present time the counties of Morris
and Hunterdon have the largest interest involved, and the prospect is
that a few more years will see even these localities deprived of the
industry."
"The peach growers of New Jersey consider an orchard worth nothing
after the age of nine years. At that time they root out all the trees
as they would so many corn stumps, and use the land for general crops,
planting a young orchard of seedlings each year to make good the loss."
Still passing northward from the first center of infection, we come to
New York, where, according to Wm. Prince, in a foregoing quotation,
the disease appeared as early as 1801. The son of this writer, W.
R. Prince, in the continuation of the article quoted on page 121,
written in 1846, says: "In this island the malady became exhausted
some years since by the utter destruction of the old orchards, and
the determination not to plant new ones until it became extinct. This
proved most fortunate as the disease has been for years banished from
Long Island, and now new orchards are springing up everywhere, and
every garden is becoming readorned with the finest varieties of the
Peach 'redolent with health.'" A. J. Downing,[224] writing in 1849,
reports: "Fifteen years ago there was scarcely a tree in the vicinity
of Newburgh that was not more or less diseased with the yellows. By
pursuing the course we have indicated (destruction by burning), the
disease has almost disappeared." Thirty years later, Charles Downing,
writing from Newburgh, states: "We have had the yellows here at
intervals for over sixty years, some times continuing for five or six
years and then several years free from it."
At present, 1916, peaches are freely planted along the Hudson in the
region of which the Downings wrote, and, whether from following the
method of A. J. Downing in burning the trees, or whether we are in one
of the intervals of immunity noted by Charles Downing, peach-yellows,
while present, causes but small losses. One might enlarge at length on
the vagaries of yellows but we can concern ourselves only with the main
facts of its history. We now follow the disease from eastern to western
New York.
Looking through the records of the hundred years of peach-growing in
western New York, we find little to indicate that yellows has ever
been the scourge in this region that it is pictured to have been
eastward and southward or even westward in Michigan. The explanation?
Growers, as a rule, promptly cut out diseased trees. Here there has
been less dilly-dallying and fewer hocus-pocus remedies in treating
yellows. Western New York, more than other regions, has been favored
in the century past by its many eminent horticulturists, several
fruit-growers' societies and by farmers' publications. The result is
that there is an enlightened and energetic body of peach-growers, who,
instead of catching and catching at every will-o-the-wisp notion about
yellows, have prevented its spread by proper orchard-sanitation. Yet
the yellows is here and has been since 1824 at least. In that year
David Thomas, father of J. J. Thomas, the pomological writer, planted
peaches from Flushing, Long Island, on the shore of Cayuga Lake, which
developed yellows with the resulting loss of every tree.[225] But in
1844 John J. Thomas records: "In Western New York it is comparatively
unknown, and great care should be used by cultivators that it be not
introduced by importations."[226] In New York the depreciation of real
estate caused by yellows has not been nearly so marked as in other
peach-regions because of the greater diversification of fruit-growing
than in other eastern states.
This region not only has not had yellows continuously but has never had
the sudden and violent invasions of the disease that have laid waste
the orchards in other communities of intensive culture of this fruit.
The one exception, possibly, was in the decade running from 1875 to
1885. A. M. Smith,[227] writing in 1878, says that hundreds of bushels
of high-colored, insipid, premature peaches were sold in western New
York in 1877, that one orchard in Niagara County was destroyed by the
disease and that others in the vicinity were badly affected. Charles
W. Garfield, a prominent Michigan horticulturist, reported in 1880
that J. S. Woodward of Lockport, New York, had a young orchard of
peaches, covering thirty acres, so badly diseased that the trees would
have to be taken out before having produced a crop. Later, 1887,[228]
Mr. Woodward, speaking for his neighborhood, says that yellows has
"nearly finished the orchards."[229] To conclude as to the conditions
of orchards at the close of this epidemic, we have from Col. F. D.
Curtis[230] the report, in 1887, that yellows had destroyed whole
orchards in the western counties of New York especially in Niagara
and Ontario. At this writing, 1916, yellows may almost be said to be a
minor difficulty in peach-growing in western New York.
Peach-culture has been comparatively unimportant in Connecticut and
Massachusetts until recent years but the toll taken by yellows has
been proportionately as high as elsewhere in the hundred years of its
trespassing. The history of its ravages is told in such statements
as follows: "Yellows appeared in the vicinity of New Haven in 1820
and destroyed thousands of trees nearly putting an end to peach
growing."[231] "The yellows are destroying our peach trees."[232]
"Peaches are infected with yellows and are generally things of the
past."[233] "Cultivation of the peach is now abandoned in consequence
of that scourge to that fruit known as yellows."[234] The foregoing
accounts apply to Connecticut but reports are much the same for
Massachusetts, the following being typical: A writer in 1882 declares
that yellows about Boston was unknown in 1837 but that "when it came
it swept everything."[235] "Thirty or forty years ago (1842-1852)
peaches were grown in great abundance in this vicinity (northeast
Massachusetts) but for the last twenty years have been almost
abandoned."[236] "In former years (said in 1854) peach trees have
rarely suffered from yellows in this neighborhood (Cambridge) where now
many trees are affected by it."[237]
Sweeping westward from New York, yellows appeared in Ohio about the
middle of the Nineteenth Century, for, in 1851, an orchard of 600 trees
at Saint Clairsville was said to have been destroyed by it.[238] In
the same year the report came from Richard County: "Our peach trees
are somewhat affected by yellows."[239] In the years that follow, down
to the present time, the presence of yellows, its symptoms, affects
and treatment are discussed in the voluminous records of agriculture
in Ohio as a commonplace part in the culture of the peach though the
disease seems not to have been quite so virulent nor so often epidemic
in Ohio as in other prominent peach-growing states.
Nowhere has the haste and waste of yellows been more apparent than
in the peach-belt of western Michigan. The history of the disease is
well established in this region, the main facts being: The disease
appeared about Saint Joseph and Benton Harbor, Berrien County, in
the late sixties of the last century. At first spreading slowly, its
movement became more rapid "until by 1877-78 it was destructively
prevalent in nearly every orchard in the county."[240] "The peach
industry was literally swept out of Berrien County in one decade.
There can be no doubt of this. From being the foremost peach county
in Michigan, with an acreage more than equal to that of all other
counties combined (6000 acres in 1874), it became ninth in order, and
could boast of only 503 acres."[241] In 1877, T. T. Lyon declares:[242]
"This violent and contagious disease has nearly destroyed the peach
orchards at Saint Joseph." Three years later in the annual report of
the State Pomological Society, Charles W. Garfield, secretary, says
"there are scarcely any peach orchards left at Saint Joseph."[243] The
depreciation of peach-lands at this time, due to yellows, was so great
as to threaten the community with bankruptcy.
Pitiful was the case of the growers in Berrien County; pitiful enough
that of those in Van Buren County, next on the north, but not so bad
owing to the timely and strict enforcement of a "yellows law" early
passed by the State legislature. The disease seems to have become
established in Van Buren County about 1870 but did not become rampant
until four or five years later "when about five per cent of the trees
were found diseased and were taken out."[244] Then came such reports
as these: "At least 5,000 trees have been destroyed by this disease
the past season in this county alone."[245] "That dreaded ravage of
the peach-grower, yellows, has made slow but marked progress during
the years in this locality."[246] "If the yellows continues to spread,
it will be only a question of years when peach-growing will cease on
the lake shore."[247] These three reports, out of many such, give the
condition of the peach-orchards in western Van Buren. In the eastern
part of the county, especially about Lawton where the peach is largely
grown, the disease was later in appearing, cutting out was more
strictly attended to, and the damage, therefore, was markedly less.
Allegan County, north of Van Buren, along the lake shore at least,
suffered from yellows rather less, though nearly as badly as the
region to the south. The disease was less and less virulent as the
peach-belt extends northward. At Traverse City, the most northern
point in the peach-belt, yellows has never been epidemic. Passing
eastward, the disease appeared about Grand Rapids, the center of
peach-culture in Kent County, in 1883 and in the decade that followed
took from peach-growers the toll usual in western Michigan. Eastward
from Kent County, however, in the several small and rather isolated
cases of peach-growing yellows either has not appeared or has been an
unimportant factor.
The lowest ebb in Michigan orchards from yellows was reached in the
eighties after which new plantings increased remarkably, the number
of bearing trees in 1889 being but 1,919,104 and in 1899, 8,104,415.
The disease still persists in Michigan wherever in former times it
became established. Yellows seems, however, to have lost much of its
old time virulency; or, perhaps, the fact that peach-growers are more
prompt and thorough in destroying diseased trees accounts for the
decrease of the disease. Then, too, the Michigan peach-belt has had the
bitter experience in the last decade or two, of several winter freezes
which have wiped out whole orchards, discouraged many planters, and,
together with the keen competition of new peach-regions, reduced the
size of orchards and scattered the plantations so that, in the lessened
communal intensity, yellows has less opportunity.
Going back, now, to the place of first infection and passing southward,
we find that yellows, though not more virulent in Delaware than in
Michigan, was much more devastating. Destruction is the only efficient
method in treating yellows. The necessity of this drastic measure
has been proclaimed by every authority from Judge Peters, discover
of yellows, down. The strong arm of the law in many states enforces
destruction. In Delaware, however, growers were more dilatory in
destroying yellows-trees than elsewhere--in fact for the first
half-century made little attempt so to check the disease. When the
scales fell from the eyes of orchard-owners in this State the industry
was already ruined. From hundreds of accounts, the ups and downs of
peach-growing in Delaware as caused by yellows may be shown by a few
brief statements.
The peach-industry began in Delaware about 1830 and there are few
references to peach-yellows until a decade or two after that time,
though Dr. John J. Black says that the disease had been known in the
State "since the war of 1812."[248] The yellows-sweep really began
in the northern part of Delaware in New Castle County, in the early
forties, when, according to John Delano, Isaac Reeves' peach-trees
were dying of yellows by the score "maugre all his care, cultivation
and circumspection."[249] In 1846, James W. Thompson, in a splendid
account of the peach-industry in Delaware, names the borer and yellows
as the two devastating enemies of this fruit and speaks of the
latter as a "constitutional, consumptive or marasmatic disease for
which no other remedy is known or to be practiced, but extirpation
and destruction."[250] "By 1855 the yellows had taken possession of
nearly all the orchards, and peach culture in this section was at an
end."[251] Yet in the same county, about Middletown, but a few miles
to the south, the disease though present was not epidemic nor did it
become so until twenty years later.
With the passing of the orchards in northern New Castle, the southern
part of the county became the center of the industry in Delaware.
Here, in the early seventies, there were from 1,000,000 to 1,750,000
trees covering from 10,000 to 17,500 acres.[252] Yellows, according
to numerous accounts, became virulent about 1870, was at its height
in 1875, after which the progress and outcome of the epidemic is
essentially the same as in the northern part of the county--the
yellows-sweep was driving slowly but surely southward. Thus, in 1880,
the center of the industry was in Kent County, second south of the
three counties in Delaware, there being in 1879, according to the
census of 1880, nearly 2,000,000 trees covering nearly 20,000 acres in
this county. Yellows, present and widespread at an early date in Kent,
was not alarmingly destructive until the summers of 1886 and 1887, when
in the northern two-thirds of the county the disease "spread like wild
fire." At this time and as late as 1890, there was little yellows in
southern Kent and northern Sussex, but before the end of the century
the whole State had been swept by yellows. There are no census figures
for peaches until 1890 when the number of bearing trees in Delaware was
4,521,623. The toll taken by yellows, augmented by San Jose scale, is
indicated by the falling off in number of trees in the next decade, at
the end of which there were 2,441,650 trees and after another decade,
1909, but 1,177,402 trees.
Beginning late in the last century, however, there was a revival in
peach-planting in Delaware, especially the northern part of the State,
and now a new peach-industry seems well started in which, through
energetic orchard-sanitation and diversified horticulture, yellows, for
the present at least, is held at bay. The palmy days of fabulous prices
for peaches and peach-lands, however, are past in Delaware. Here, as in
other communities ravaged by yellows, the value of lands has sunk to
a half or a quarter of what it would have brought a generation ago in
the height of peach-culture. In some cases property, formerly valuable,
has lost all value--a peach-farm will not sell at any price. The best
peach-lands are seldom fit for other crops, so that in Delaware, New
Jersey and Michigan the whole community, including railroads and
steamboat lines, suffers to the verge of bankruptcy when yellows
exterminates the orchards.
Probably in no other State in the Union is the peach more perfectly
at home than in Maryland, it having held undisputed supremacy among
fruits in that State for over a century and a half. Yellows, though
always menacing, has not been so devastating as in Delaware to the
north. Erwin F. Smith thinks that yellows has been present in the
northern counties of eastern Maryland for many years--since 1844 or
1845. In his detailed account of the disease in this State[253] he
records but one destructive outbreak of yellows, this occurring in the
summers of 1886, 1887 and 1888 in the northeastern part of the State
where in two counties along the whole length of the Sassafras River
it was destructively present. Smith notes that yellows, at this time,
"is moving southward on the peninsula." Since Smith's account, 1888,
reports from Maryland show that, while the disease is still present
and is now in practically all parts of the State, either it is not now
so virulent or is kept in check by extirpating diseased trees. Still,
however, the great decrease in the number of peach-trees in Maryland in
the last twenty years is largely due to yellows, there being 6,113,287
bearing trees in 1889, but 4,017,854 in 1899, and only 1,497,724 in
1909.
In the South, west of the Mississippi, and on the Pacific Coast,
yellows does not exist or if so is not epidemic.
Would that it could be recorded, as we conclude this brief account of
yellows and its plague-spots in America, that in the hundred years
of conflict some headway had been made in ascertaining from whence
the disease came, what its cause and what the cure. Would, too, that
we could believe that the final holocaust has passed. But we cannot
bandage our eyes against the facts. We are as profoundly ignorant
of yellows as at the start. And, while New York at the moment is
nearly free from yellows, everywhere the sinister reminders of ancient
epidemics, like skeletons at a feast that are never out of sight, bid
us be on our guard for new outbreaks.
PEACH-BREEDING
But little effort has been made, as the histories of its varieties
show, to breed peaches. All but a very few varieties have come from
chance seedlings. Peaches were grown from seed for centuries and many
types now come true when seeds are planted. After budded trees became
the vogue, until Mendel's great discovery, breeding the peach consisted
in selecting an occasional meritorious tree, multiplying it by budding
and, if it had pronounced merit, turning it over to a nurseryman
for the trade. The art progressed no further because selection was
thought to be the fundamental process in improving plants and breeders
preferred to work in fields where the harvests were more immediate
than in tree-fruits. Now that plant-breeding centers around controlled
hybridization, plants propagated vegetatively should receive quite as
much attention as those grown from seed. Mendel has opened the door
to intimate familiarity with some of the fundamental phenomena of
hybridization, and, despite the difficult and complex literature the
professionals are imposing on the art, chiefly discussions of methods
and disputations about principles, the layman finds Mendelian laws easy
to put in practice; and peach-breeding is certain to go forward in
leaps and bounds as the irresistible fascination of the subject seizes
peach-growers.
Meanwhile, as a foundation for future work, it becomes highly important
to know how the varieties we have came into existence. The known
histories of the many diverse kinds of peaches show that this fruit
has been improved almost wholly through new varieties by chance
hybridization--self-fertilized seed, selection and mutations are almost
negligible factors. The following are the data: No case is recorded
in _The Peaches of New York_ of a variety known to have come from a
self-fertilized seed. The seed parent is given for 214 varieties; the
seed and pollen parents of 37 varieties. But 4 varieties are reported
to have come from bud-mutations. Of chance seedlings, sorts from seed
with neither parent known, there are 161. The origins of 1765 of the
varieties described in _The Peaches of New York_ are unknown. The total
number of peaches described is 2181.