The peaches of New York

by U. P. Hedrick

Peach-growers, in the period under consideration, gave their trees much the same care as is given in the present time except that they did not spray. Pests were fewer and yet some were especially troublesome, notably the peach-borer, the remedies for which were as numerous as today. Curculio, then as now, almost prohibited the culture of nectarines. A rot, the brown-rot, without doubt, did much damage. Peach-yellows, as yet, was not the scourge it now is but, as we shall see, was well in evidence. There were faddists in those days as in these. Thomas Coulter of Bedford County, Pennsylvania, was one of the original "sod-mulchers"—at least year in and year out he inveighed against cultivation. He managed to get himself in all of the publications of the times for a period of a half-century. We find his method discussed in Volume V of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, in the Domestic Encyclopaedia[140] in 1803 and, as late as 1821, a full account was published in the American Farmer.[141] We quote the article in full, as it came out in the three publications named, as a record of the times and because it contains a number of novel ideas some of which may commend themselves to modern orchardists of the sod-mulch school who want a cheap and easy way of growing peaches.

"Transplant your peach-trees, as young as possible, where you mean them to stand; if, in the kernel, so much the better ... because, in that case, there will be no check of growth, which always injures peach-trees. Plant peach-trees 16 feet apart, both ways, except you would wish to take your waggon through the orchard to carry the peaches away; in that case, give 24 feet distance to every fifth row, one way, after transplanting. You may plough and harrow amongst your peach-trees, for two years, paying no regard to wounding or tearing them, so that you do not take them up by the roots. In the month of March, or April, in the third year after transplanting, cut them all off by the ground; plough and harrow amongst them as before, taking special care not to wound or tear them in the smallest degree, letting all the sprouts or scions grow that will grow; cut none away, supposing six or more should come from the old stump; the young scions will grow up to bearing trees on account of the roots being strong. Let no kind of beasts into peach-orchards, hogs excepted, for fear of wounding the trees; as the least wound will greatly injure the tree, by draining away that substance which is the life thereof; although the tree may live many years, the produce is not so great, neither is the fruit so good.

After the old stock is cut away, the third year after transplanting, the sprouts or scions will grow up, all round the old stump, from four to six in number; no more will come to maturity, than the old stump can support and nourish; the remainder will die before ever they bear fruit. These may be cut away, taking care not to wound any part of any stock, or the bark. The sprouts growing all round the old stump, when loaded with fruit will bend and rest on the ground in every direction, without injuring any of them, for many years, all of them being rooted in the ground, as tho' they had been planted. The stocks will remain tough, and the bark smooth for 2 years and upwards; if any of the sprouts or trees from the old stump should happen to split off, or die, cut them away, they will be supplied from the ground, by young trees, so that you will have trees from the same stump for 100 years, as I believe. I now have trees, 36, 20, 10, 5 and down to one year old, all from the same stump.

The young trees coming up, after any of the old trees split off or die, and are cut away, will bear fruit the second year; but this fruit will not ripen so easily as the fruit on the old trees from the same stem. Three years after the trees are cut off by the ground, they will be sufficiently large and bushy, to shade the ground so as to prevent grass of any kind from matting or binding the surface, so as to injure the trees; therefore; ploughing is useless, as well as injurious; useless, because nothing can be raised in the orchard, by reason the trees will shade all the ground, or nearly so; injurious, because either the roots, stocks or branches will be wounded: neither is it necessary ever to manure peach-trees, as manured trees will always produce less and worse fruit, than trees that are not manured; although by manuring your peach-trees, they will grow larger, and look greener and thicker in the boughs, and cause a thicker shade, yet on them will grow very little fruit, and that little will be of a very bad kind generally looking as green as the leaves, even when ripe, and later than those that never have been manured."

None of the varieties that we now grow was then cultivated. Taking the sorts described in 1800 we find that four were red-fleshed; eight, yellow-fleshed; thirty-four, white-fleshed; eighteen, freestones; nineteen, clingstones, and twelve nectarines. There were no flat, or Peento, peaches but a sort known as Venus's Nipple was seemingly a typical beaked peach.

In 1800, Baltimore was the best market for peaches in America and was near the Chesapeake peach-belt. We are fortunate in having a description of peach-growing around Baltimore at about that time. Richard Parkinson, an English farmer and agricultural writer, came to America to rent one of George Washington's farms in 1798. The two could not agree and Parkinson rented a farm near Baltimore on which was a peach-orchard. He published an account of his experiences in two very readable volumes and from this work we quote in part the story of his peach-orchard. Perhaps allowances should be made, for Parkinson seems to have been soured by failure and some of his expressions are such as might be expected from an opinionated Englishman undergoing new experiences in America just after the Revolution. Parkinson says:[142]

"It would astonish a stranger to see the quantity of fruit in these parts, which makes the country to look beautiful twice a-year, when the trees are in blossom, and when the fruit is on the trees ripe. But the fruit is chiefly for the use of hogs and can be applied to no better purpose.

On my farm at Orange-Hill, only three miles from Baltimore, the last year I was there, I sold all my peaches to two men at four pence per peck, and let them have a cart and a horse to take them into the city to sell, knowing I had only made four pence per peck on the average the year before, and gathered them myself. These men agreed to pick them, and feed the horse in town at their expence. It was the opinion of every one that they had got a great bargain, and many others wished they had had it. They picked about one-half of them, and carried them to Baltimore: but, alas! they gave up the business, saying they could not make wages, although they at first had said that they would certainly take every peach, intending, if the market should not suit, to carry them to the stills, &c. I was in hopes all this exertion would make this bargain successful, as four pence per peck would pay much better than to give them to hogs, as I have no knowledge of what number a hog will eat. Seeing this scheme frustrated, and thinking it a sin and a shame to see such a number of fine peaches rot on the ground, I mounted my horse and rode to the stills, as there were many small ones within three or four miles of me in the country. They have been erected for this use; but many of them are never used after the first year; and I am of the opinion that they will not pay expences. The men at the stills were civil enough; they offered to lend me the still, and let me find a man to work it, &c. or they would work it for me; but, from every information I could obtain, I found that my peaches would not more than pay the carriage to the stills and hardly that; and after selling them to the owners of the stills, they would not give me so much for my fruit, as would pay me for my trouble; nor will peaches pay the farmer, to be given to the hogs, if they be not so situated that the hogs can run where they are; and that happened not to be my case.

As a striking instance of the little profit of stills, Mr. O'Donnel, at Canton, had planted an orchard, of great extent, of red peaches, for the purpose of making peach-brandy. The red peach is reckoned much superior to any other for brandy. Although Mr. O'Donnel's orchard had grown to bear in great perfection and he had a still and the other necessary apparatus, the profit proved so small, that he suffered the whole to go waste, and his pigs consumed the produce; and, in the winter, rooted up all those fine peach trees, and planted the ground with Indian corn, having previously manured the land with dung from Baltimore for the purpose of an orchard. Now this gentleman had some hundreds of acres of woodlands unimproved in this plantation; therefore, the cause could not be for want of land.

My fine turnips, Indian corn, potatoes, &c. were in the field by the orchard without any fence. Indeed hogs are not allowed to run at large within five miles of Baltimore, by an act of assembly; and mine were too valuable to risk such a misfortune; and especially as I was a great hog-shooter myself, it would have been fine diversion for any of my neighbours to have shot one of my fifty-dollar pigs. Seeing that these plants would not succeed, all that remained was to fatten my own hogs with them. I had but seven hogs; and they would have employed a man with horse and cart half a day to feed them; for, after a short time, they will only eat the best peaches, and refuse the others as a man would. I found this plan would not answer; and the consequence was, that, after every trial and exertion, they rotted on the ground. Now my farm was so situated that the great road through the heart of the country went through it, five or six stage-coaches, and great numbers of other carriages of all kinds. In all probability some of my own countrymen as merchants (for there begin to be many of these gentlemen to settle their accounts with the American merchants, and I suppose they will increase) seeing this waste committed, would, on returning to England, relate their story in this way—That when at the tavern at Baltimore on the same day, the fruit-people were asking eleven pence apiece for peaches. An Englishman says to himself, 'What idle fools those Americans are! and I think all the English, when they get to America, are as bad: but, when I get there, I will set them the example.' But when there, he finds himself much disappointed, and does not know how it is that he does not increase in riches, while neither himself nor his family enjoys any comfort. He at last finds out that the Americans are not a set of fools as he once thought: and, as he must have a name for them, perhaps he calls them rogues; which, if Lord Chesterfield was right in his observation, pleases a man the best of the two.