The peaches of New York

by U. P. Hedrick

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.