THE PEACH-ORCHARD AND ITS CARE
The peach-orchard is the consummation of modern fruit-growing. It is more than a plantation of peach-trees, for it personifies ideals and reflects the personality of the owner. A glance at a peach-orchard and one knows whether the proprietor is lazy or industrious, slovenly or orderly, procrastinating or prompt. An orchard of dingy, unhappy peach-trees is an odious sight in the eyes of a good fruit-grower accustomed to nurturing and fondling his own trees. Tenants seldom succeed in peach-growing. Here is a case in which Cato, the sturdy old Roman farmer, is surely right: "The face of the master is good for the land." The peach in our climate is least able of all fruits to subsist without the aid of man. The best trees in the best soil, if neglected, have a short, miserable and profitless existence. These considerations, then, must bring us to the conclusion that growing peaches differs somewhat from growing other fruits. If not more difficult it is at least a finer and more delicate affair in which the laborer and craftsman working by rule give way to men of higher degree who put thought, intelligence and taste into their work.
New York is very fortunate in having much land in all of its peach-districts that is easily prepared for planting. Growers are not called upon to profane the peach by planting it in a field of boulders as in New England nor amongst stumps as in some southern peach-regions. Growers in the State long ago learned that it is an up-hill task to grow the peach in land not thoroughly fitted at the start. Usually the land is prepared a year in advance by putting in a hoed crop, after which it is plowed deeply in the fall, pulverized thoroughly in the spring and then planted as promptly as possible. Fall-planting is not practicable because of severe losses following from winter-killing.
The peach-orchard is usually laid out in meridians and parallels in New York at intervals of 18 by 18 or 20 by 20 feet, the former requiring 134 and the latter 108 trees. The topography of the land sometimes gives preference to the triangular system of setting and rich soils or large growing varieties indicate greater distance while poor soils and small trees suggest closer planting. One thing certain, it is poor orcharding to set the trees too closely. Peaches picked in the pleached alleys of a closely set orchard are few, small and poor in quality. Pride in appearance and convenience in working the trees make perfect alignment imperative. The peach readily self-pollinates so that interplanting varieties is not practiced, but, rather, for convenience in harvesting, varieties are set in solid blocks, growers seldom, nowadays, planting more than three or four sorts. Laying out the land, digging holes, trimming roots, setting trees are all kindergarten operations in fruit-growing, well understood by any one qualified to go into peach-growing.
As to varieties, Elberta is now the mainstay of all the peach-districts, coming in as the mid-season crop. Greensboro, Carman, Champion, and Belle, all white-fleshed; and St. John, Fitzgerald, Niagara and Early Crawford, all yellow-fleshed, the two series named in order of ripening, are standard varieties preceding Elberta in the markets. Standard sorts following are, Oldmixon Free, the only white-fleshed sort, and Crosby, Late Crawford, Kalamazoo, Chili, Smock and Salwey, these also named in order of maturity. A large number of new varieties are on probation in the State of which Arp, Lola, Edgemont, Rochester, J. H. Hale and Frances are now most conspicuous. The peach-flora changes rapidly and many of these favorites of today will be the cast-offs of tomorrow.
In the early life of the orchard, until bearing is well established, an inter-crop is a valuable asset in New York peach-orchards; on the other hand, planted in bearing orchards, any other crop than the peach is a heavy liability. While inter-cropping is not peculiar to New York orchards it is probably more practiced in this State than in any other. Few, indeed, are the plantations in this region that do not sustain themselves for the first three or four years of their existence on the crops grown between the trees. These are, or should be, hoed crops like potatoes, cabbage, beans and cannery crops. He is a sloven, indeed, who would crop his peach-orchard with grass or grain. Along the Hudson, small-fruits are looked upon as permissible, but are everywhere discountenanced in western New York.
Occasionally the peach itself is planted as an inter-crop in apple-orchards. The custom has little to recommend it and is not as common now as it was a few years ago. The objection to the peach as a catch-crop in the apple-orchard is that serious complications arise in orchard-operations, the two fruits often requiring quite different treatment in their care and, in spraying the apple, the peach is almost certain to be more or less injured.
In the matter of cultivation, peach-growers are not in the fog that envelopes and befuddles apple-growers in New York. The peach so luxuriates under thorough cultivation and, on the other hand, the jaundiced leaves and hectic flush of the fruit speak so plainly of evil days when the trees are in sod or unbroken ground that cultivation is universal. Cultivation, as practiced by the best growers, consists of plowing the land in the spring and then frequently stirring the soil until late July or early August. The tools are as diverse as the kinds of soil. Whatever the details, the surface must be kept level, covered with a dust-mulch and free from weeds. In soils that are light, therefore hungry and thirsty, cultivation in the best orchards is almost continuous. To do full duty in such a soil many men cultivate weekly. Disking is sometimes substituted for plowing but this is usually poor policy for the plow buries the mummied peaches that drop in every orchard to scatter countless myriads of spores of brown-rot and so perpetuate this plague of the peach-grower. Winter retreats so sullenly in New York that it is sometimes difficult to find time and weather for early spring plowing so that increasing numbers of peach-growers are plowing their orchards in the fall.
The cover-crop follows the last cultivation. There is a growing suspicion in the State that the value of cover-crops in orchards has been magnified. Comparative tests do not show that trees or small-fruits respond to cover-cropping to as great an extent as from theory one might expect them to do. Thus, in several experiments being conducted by this Station, apples and grapes give no very appreciable response to the various cover-crops—at least pay but doubtfully for the expense of seed and seeding. While there are no very satisfactory experiments to confirm the assumption, it would seem, however, that the peach of all fruits would be most benefitted by cover-crops. It is patent to all who have had orchard-experience that land is in better tilth when some green crop is turned under in fall or spring; so, too, all know that a cover-crop sowed in mid-summer causes the peach to mature its wood and thus go into the winter in better condition; it is not unreasonable to assume, though it is impossible to secure reliable experimental data to confirm the belief, that cover-crops protect the roots of peaches from winter-killing. Leaving out, then, the doubtful value of the cover-crop in furnishing plant-food to the peach, at least three sufficient reasons make it a necessary adjunct of a peach-orchard.
Several cover-crops are now in general use in the peach-orchards of New York, in order of frequency of use about as follows: Clover, vetch, oats, barley, cow-horn turnip, rape, rye, buckwheat. Combination cover-crops are less popular than formerly, cost of seed being the deterrent. Yet many years of experience at this Station and wide observation in the State, unsubstantiated, however, by any experimental work, lead to the conclusion that some combination of a leguminous and a non-leguminous crop makes the most satisfactory cover-crop for the peach. A half-bushel of oats or barley plus twenty pounds of winter vetch or twelve pounds of red clover is possibly the most satisfactory of all cover-crops for this fruit in New York. Occasionally a change from oats to barley, and clover to vetch should be made and once in four or five years rape or cow-horn turnip should be worked into the rotation.
In the matter of fertilizers, the peach-grower early learns humility. He is no sooner certain that his trees must be fertilized and that he has at last hit upon the right formula than his check plats or his neighbor's orchard convince him that he is not getting the worth of his money in fertilizers. In eastern New York, peach-orchards are very generally fertilized and rather heavily, the amounts and formulas being nearly as diverse as the men applying them. In western New York, commercial fertilizers are comparatively little used in peach-orchards. Experiments in fertilizing peaches in progress at this Station are inconclusive and there is nothing to offer from the work here as to what the peach needs in the way of plant-food. In the present state of our knowledge, about the best the peach-grower can do is to assume that, if his trees are vigorous, bearing well and making a fair amount of growth, they need no additional plant-food. If they are not in the condition described, look to the drainage, tillage and health of the trees first and the more expensive and less certain fertilization afterward. More and more, in western New York at least, growers are carrying on simple experiments to obtain positive evidence as to what elements of plant-food their trees need.
The following is an example of such an experiment: (1) Acid phosphate to give about 50 lbs. of phosphoric acid to the acre; (2) phosphate as above and muriate of potash to give 100 lbs. of potash to the acre; (3) phosphate and muriate as above and nitrate of soda and dried blood to give 50 lbs. of nitrogen per acre; (4) six tons of stable manure is applied on a fourth plat; (5) a similar plat is left unfertilized for a check.
No fallacy dies harder than that fertilizers will cure yellows. Nitrate of soda is a great rejuvenator of trees suffering from yellows brought on by sod or lack of tillage but no fact in peach-orcharding has been more thoroughly demonstrated than that neither this fertilizer nor any other will in the least benefit trees suffering from true yellows or from the somewhat similar trouble, little-peach.
Of all fruit-trees, pruning is most used with the peach in regulating the development of the tree. In its early years, we may almost say that the peach "lives by the knife." At all stages of growth the vigorous use of the knife is indispensable in keeping the peach in proper bounds, and yet, rather paradoxically, knife and saw must be used sometime or other in the life of every peach-orchard to stimulate growth or at least to force out new growths. Indispensable as a certain amount of pruning is in training the peach, there is no question in the minds of those who have studied the subject but that it is much more often overdone than underdone. There are no fixed rules in pruning peaches and to discuss in full the diverse theories and practices is not within the range of this exposition. All that can be attempted is briefly to set down what the present practices are in the State.
In transplanting, the peach suffers severe root-pruning, an operation that it does not bear well. Thus deprived of its roots, the young tree must have its top correspondingly diminished. Two practices are in vogue in New York in this curtailment of the top as the trees go from the nursery to the orchard. The most common practice is to cut the young tree back to a whip and then shorten-in the whip. New branches spring freely from this bare stub but these do not always come where they are wanted and often the new wood comes only from the stock. These objections to pruning to a whip have brought about a modification in which the branches are cut back to stubs of two or three buds. In a series of experiments now in progress on the Station grounds it seems certain that the second method is better than the first.
Two forms of top are open to choice—the vase-form, or open-centered tree, and the globe-form, or close-centered tree. In the first the framework of the tree consists of a short trunk, surmounted by four or five main branches ascending obliquely. In the second the trunk is continued above the branches, forming the center of the tree, and, later being headed in, a globe-like head is formed. In New York the vase-form is nearly always chosen. In neither case is the task difficult since the peach springs almost at once into tree-form with a full complement of branches. Beginning with the second year the main branches are shortened back from one-third to one-half their growth, if heading back seem necessary, cutting to upper and inner buds so that the oblique ascending vase-form is maintained. The pruning of the third season is much the same, except that some of the interior branches should be removed to open up the heads to air and sunshine. The third season's pruning is repeated from year to year, having in mind that the slow-growing, hardy, productive sorts can be pruned much more severely than the free-growing, tender kinds. Open forks are a serious menace and are carefully avoided to lessen the danger of splitting when branches are heavily laden. About the most common mistake is that of cutting out too much wood, thereby inducing so heavy a growth in the parts that remain that winter-killing takes place; at best it makes necessary continued heavy pruning for several seasons to keep the trees in manageable size and shape.
Heading-in as described in the foregoing paragraphs is necessary because the peach bears the bulk of its crop high up on its branches, which are often broken by the weight so that after a bountiful harvest the orchard looks as if a cyclone had swept through it. As the limbs lengthen, too, it becomes increasingly difficult to pick the peaches. Even with annual heading-in the bearing wood eventually gets too far from the ground and the grower may have to resort to decapitating the trees—an operation commonly known by the inapt term "dehorning." When old trees are thus to be rejuvenated the limbs are sawed off during the dormant season to within two feet or thereabouts of the trunk. The tree will then form a new head which will in a season or two set fruit-buds and bear a crop. The orchard may thus very often be renewed or even re-renewed, lengthening its life by several seasons. In thus decapitating trees, however, one season is always lost, sometimes two, and the writer questions if it is not better to give the peach a "merry life and a short one" rather than resort to decapitation to prolong its days. Most growers may well throw dehorning into the rubbish-heap of the not-worth-while.
Occasionally one sees in the State orchards in which the top is sheared to a level plane. This shearing follows a fashion, now happily going out, as it cannot come from any well-thought-out design. It takes but a moment's study of the sheared tree to see the faults of the method. Strong shoots are cut back too much, weak ones not enough; superfluous shoots are not removed but, to the contrary, multiplied as in shearing a hedge. Heading-in some or all of the shoots may be very necessary but shearing to a line—never.
Summer-pruning is not practiced in New York peach-orchards. No doubt every grower, however, as he goes about among his trees in the growing season cuts back a branch outstripping its neighbors, removes an occasional unruly member or one out of place, pinches here and rubs there, better to train his trees to the ideal he has in mind. Certainly no harm is done by such summer-pruning when the trees are strong and vigorous.
This record of pruning practices in New York cannot be closed without stating that there are growers who do not prune—not only through neglect but as a matter of principle. Chiefly, these are men more accustomed to the other tree-fruits—most of which make a fair showing without pruning—than to the peach. The peach can go a few years unpruned without becoming an abnormal orchard-specimen but left to itself to the prime of life without the reinvigorating and form-giving knife a peach-orchard becomes a woeful spectacle. The limbs crowd, choke and kill each other, except the strongest or those most fortunately placed, which push aloft, bearing at their extremities sparse-foliaged, parasol-like canopies of jaundiced foliage which furnish no protection from the blaze of the sun to the bare, bark-burned, gum-covered trunk and branches. The tree-tops are populous with dead and dying twigs and do not furnish sufficient nutriment for the normal development of fruit or tree. These unpruned peach-orchards, come to old age, are the saddest sights of the country. After the first few crops, when the flush of vigor has passed, they cannot be profitable and it would seem the sooner the axe lays them low the better for the owner. Not to prune the peach is consummate neglect.
Peaches are thinned to improve the fruit that remains, to save the vigor of the tree, and destroy insect- or disease-infected fruits. Commendable as these objects are, the practice is all too seldom observed in New York. The objections are scarcity and high cost of labor. Still the best growers always thin, doing the work soon after the summer drop which usually occurs six to eight weeks after the blossoming-time and just as the pits in the embryonic fruits begin to harden. It requires good judgment to tell at the time of thinning what will prove superfluity at the harvest. Vigor of tree, variety, fertility and moisture in the soil, the season, diseases and insects, all must be considered. The common advice is to thin the fruits so that they will not be nearer together than from four to six inches but the skillful growers adjust the size of the crop to the orchard and seasonal conditions. Thinning really begins, it should be said, in the winter when the trees are dormant and redundant branches and superfluous wood on the parts remaining are cut out. By delaying winter-pruning until danger of winter-killing is passed many growers save labor in summer-thinning, since, as early as this, fruit-prospects are fore-shadowed.
It is interesting to record that peach-orchards are never top-grafted in New York though it seems to be a matter of rather frequent practice in the South and far West. There are plenty of occasions for working over peach-trees in this State; as, when poor varieties are substituted, or in changes in fashion in peaches, or on finding a variety poorly adapted to orchard-conditions. But under any of these unfortunate circumstances in New York the axe and the grub-hoe make way for a new planting rather than trust to the skill of the grafter. Old peach-trees can, of course, be either budded over or grafted over to a new variety but we take it that a century of experience has demonstrated that changing the whole tree is better than changing the top.