For this purpose raffia is now almost universally used. It is cut into lengths of eighteen or twenty inches and moistened to make it soft and pliable. The strand is first brought firmly across the upper end of the bud to keep it from working out. Beginning then at the bottom of the slit, the raffia is wound smoothly upward covering everything but the "eye" and is tied in a single square knot. This winding must be tight to hold the bud immovably in place. In from two to four weeks, depending on the growth of the stock, the raffia should be cut to prevent its girdling the tree.
In the nursery trade, peach-trees are graded according to caliper or according to height—rarely both since there is a very definite relation between the two. The common sizes by caliper, or diameter of the trunk, are five-, seven- or nine-sixteenths of an inch. According to height, the grades are "three to four foot," "four to five foot," or "five to seven foot." The medium-sized grade is usually the best since fewer trees die in transplanting, they are much easier to handle and, more important, provide a better opportunity for the grower to form the head as he wants it. The smallest grade often has many stunted trees. A first-class tree is free from insects and fungi or the effects of either. Other things being equal, a short, stocky tree is better than a tall, spindling one; one with many branches better than one with few. The best stamp on a peach-tree, however, is a well-developed root-system—many-branched, well-distributed, fibrous, fresh roots. Practically all peach-trees in New York are dug in the fall and kept in storage through the winter.
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.