SOILS FOR PEACHES
After climate, soil has been the next most potent natural influence in determining the location of the peach-regions of the State and of individual orchards in the several regions. The peach, of all fruits, is most particular as to soils; though, and this seems not generally understood, the physical condition of the land is quite as important as the kind of soil. That is, the peach grows well on a rather wide range of soils if the land be well drained, well aerated and if it hold heat. All subsequent treatment fails, whatever the soil, if the root-run be impeded by water or lack of air and if there be not the stimulus of considerable bottom-heat. These physical conditions modify greatly what is to be said in the next paragraph in regard to the kind of soil.
In New York the peach thrives best on a light, free-working sandy or gravelly loam but there are many good peach-orchards in gravelly and stony clays—gravel and stone furnishing drainage and aeration and holding heat. Perhaps, in this State, the light types of soil are too often chosen on the theory that the peach will grow on any light, sandy soil. Not so, for the peach will not grow on wind-blown, water-washed sands; on sand banks, in sand pits, on quicksands, on old sandbars or on pure quartz sands, though it is to be found planted on all of these. Nor will the peach flourish on sandy soils at all unless there be a fair admixture of clay and decomposed vegetable matter and the whole underlain at a depth of not more than three or four feet with a clay subsoil or stone which must have natural drainage. The clay subsoil must not come nearer to the surface than ten or twelve inches while bed rock ought not, at the very least, be nearer than twenty inches. So qualified, sandy soils are ideal soils for peaches in New York. Some of the best peach-lands in the State are exceedingly stony, the stones being no detriment except in making the land difficult to till.
The peach is conspicuous among fruits for its ability to nourish itself where the food supply is meagre—indeed it is the richest resource of fruit-growers on soils deficient in the most important elements of plant-food. This does not mean that peach-soils are cheap soils. Few other crops thrive on peach-soils, which make them of little value except for this fruit, but good peach-soils are so scarce that once their adaptabilities are discovered they are seldom cheap. Peach-soils, as a rule, are but moderately fertile. When too fertile, especially when rich in nitrogen, the foliage is dense, the wood-growth is great, the season's wood does not mature, the set of fruit is small, and the peaches lack size, color and flavor. But if not rich, never poor. On a good peach-soil the trees should make a relatively small, compact growth of firm wood which each season ripens thoroughly; and, barring accidents, they should be annually fruitful of large, highly-colored, well-flavored, properly-shaped peaches covered with sparse and short pubescence. The fertilization of peach-soils is to be considered in a separate topic.
We have been generalizing as to the adaptabilities of peaches to soils. Peach-growing, through keen competition and the great pleasure that a finely finished product gives the grower, has become a fine art. Now, in the refinement of the industry, generalizations as to peach-soils are not sufficient. Growers must find out what particular varieties grow best in their particular soil. To be sure, there are cosmopolitan varieties, Elberta for example, which thrive in a diversity of soils, but, for most part, each distinct variety or type of varieties has special soil preferences the discovery of which has often made a man a successful peach-grower. The peculiarities which adapt a soil to a variety are not analyzable but appear to peach-growers through intuition or experiment.
Some fruits are made to grow in uncongenial soils by working them on stocks adapted to the soil. Thus, the peach may be worked on plum-stocks for heavy, clay soils. Little, however, has been done in forcing the peach to adapt itself to a soil by consorting varieties and stocks. There is no doubt, however, but that much may be done when the adaptabilities of cions to stocks and stocks to soil are better known.