The condition into which those pennywise dealers who are indifferent to
Flavor and oppose variety have brought our peach market is a national
disgrace and a gastronomic calamity. Most of the Southern peaches sent
North seem now to be of two or three kinds and those not of the best.
To be sure, it makes little difference what kinds are sent, for all are
equally spoiled by being picked, like the pineapples, before they are
ripe. California peaches melt in the mouth like ice cream--if eaten
in California. In the East they used to contrast with Atlantic Coast
peaches by their leathery consistency and lack of Flavor, due to the
fact that they had to be picked unripe to stand transportation. To-day
they contrast less, because Eastern peaches also are so usually picked
unripe.
In the peach-growing business, under present conditions, "the
proportion of failures to successes is at least as ten to one,"
according to Erwin F. Smith. The proportion might be reversed
if this expert's advice, as given in "Peach-Growing for Market"
(Farmers' Bulletin No. 33), were generally followed by farmers. The
most important point he makes is that the peaches to be marketed
successfully must not only have size, color, and firmness enough to
stand shipment, but also superior flavor.
It was by leaving his peaches on the tree till the sun gave them that
superior flavor that one man I know of became rich. He had an orchard
about twenty miles from New York and when the first crop had thoroughly
ripened he picked a wagonload to take to the city. He never reached
it. Every basket was sold before he had gone a mile, and all the other
loads were thus disposed of to his neighbors, although he charged the
full New York retail prices. The middleman's usual share of the plunder
remained in his own pocket.
What would you think, Mr. Farmer, or Mr.
Business-Man-Who-Wants-to-Live-in-the-Country, of buying a
twenty-two-acre tract of worthless pasture land, putting it into
peaches, and getting therefrom in twelve years a profit of $44,000?
It can be done, and it has been done. The very interesting and
instructive story was told in detail in the Philadelphia "Saturday
Evening Post" of September 10, 1910, by Forrest Crissey. It is the
story of J. H. Hale, of Glastonbury, Connecticut. One day he came
across an old native seedling peach tree, loaded with sweet wild fruit
that had a delicious flavor and melted in his mouth. While he was
eating one of these peaches, the thought came into his mind: "If this
stony old hillside will grow such peaches as these, wild and without
cultivation, what is to hinder its producing a splendid crop of choice,
cultivated peaches?"
There was nothing to hinder; the trees were planted, and when they
bore fruit he put up a sign reading: "Headquarters for Hale's Peaches.
Peaches Ripened on the Trees." When he began to market them in the
cities he sorted them into three grades, charging fancy prices for
the best. These and other details of his method helped; but the great
secret of his success was painted on his sign: "_Peaches Ripened, on
the Trees_"--a sign which proved that he understood the Commercial
Value of Flavor, which made him a millionaire.
Apples, fortunately, do not need to ripen entirely on the tree. They
can be picked before they are ripe and get their full flavor in the
cellar. Cold storage makes them keep longer still--unfortunately, I
feel tempted to say, for this tempts the middleman to hold them for
higher prices till they have become mealy and lost much of their aroma.
Many of the apples sold in our markets in winter are over a year old.
They will not be after the consumer rises to assert his right to
Flavor. The English are more alert. I most earnestly call the attention
of American apple-growers and eaters to the following sentences from an
article in the _Consular and Trade Reports_ (April 5, 1911), explaining
why Australian apples have an advantage in English and other European
markets over American fruit:
"Cold storage extending over a period of six months is not the
best means of preserving the flavor of a fruit. On the other hand
the Australian and Tasmanian crops being six months later than the
American, the fruit comes direct from the orchard with its original
flavor almost unimpaired."
At the Illinois Experiment Station the important fact was demonstrated
that mature apples keep much better in cold storage than immature
apples (Farmers' Bulletin No. 193).
The new method of pre-cooling fruit, especially peaches and oranges,
gives much hope for the future. Two illustrations in the "Yearbook
of the Department of Agriculture" for 1909 illustrate this point.
One pictures peaches as handled and delivered in New York by the old
method--the small, pallid, leathery, flavorless things we all know and
groan over. The other shows red, ripe peaches, luscious to the eyes and
the palate alike. Pre-cooling does it; for if this method is used, "the
fruit may be left on the trees to attain a greater degree of maturity,
thus assuming a much better quality."