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BRUITS IN THEIR SEASON 47
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
, . , —' Xi. The Peach. Its Itaxy *' Hom...
delphia . Extreme plenty _causing fastidiousness , in seasons of abundance whole sloop-loads of this fruitof second quality or
, slightly decayed , may be seen thrown into the North river in a single morning . The market price of those which are considered worthy
of being sold varies from fifty cents to four dollars a bushel , according to the season and the abundance of the crops—when
universally plentiful , the accruing profits are very small , when but partially so , often very large—but as they grow on lands
too light to afford good crops of almost any other kind , the investment can never be a very bad one . Many growers in New Jersey
have , therefore , orchards of from ten to twenty thousand trees , and in the course of a good season send out about that number of
bushels of fruit from , such of the trees as are in bearing . Mr . Downing , however , has no doubt that eventually the valleys of the
Ohio and Mississippi will be the grand peach-growing districts of the United Statessince with an equally favorable climate that part
of the country possesses , a much finer soil , and the flavor of its peaches is unusually rich and delicious . This enthusiastic champion
of tjie chosen fruit of his native land boldly throws _, down the gauntletoffering to maintain its peerless beauty against all rivals
butconvinced , that to praise the American peach would be at least , as superfious , an undertaking as " to gild refined goldor paint the
, lily , " he proposes to stop the mouth of any one who may presume to question its excellence by presenting him with one of his best
growth- —"• a soft answer" indeed , wMch might " well turn away wrath" but the prospect of which would be rather calculated to
tempt , a provocation of the discussion , for the sake of incurring the termination of it by so melting an argument .
Besides the immense quantities consumed while fresh , peach-pie being as common fare in an American farm-house as apple-dumpling
in an English one , the fruit is also largely used during the winter in a dried state , being prepared either on a small domestic
scale by being * placed in ovens after the withdrawal of the bread , orwhen for salein small drying-houses heated by a stove and
fitted , with drawers , formed of laths with spaces between to allow the air to circulate ; in these the fruit is placed , skin downwards ,
being left unpeeled though cut in halves in order to extract the stone . After being left thus for a short timethe drying process
, is complete ; and in the South a still simpler one is adopted , the fruit being merely laid on boards and dried in the sun after dipping
them , first while whole , a basketful at a time , for a few minutes in boiling water .
The peach was introduced into America by the early settlers , somewhere about 1680 , and before long was grown everywhere
south of forty-eight degrees latitude literally without cultivation , it being only necessary to plant a stone and . in the course of a few
long years future abundance _^ This of is fruit still was the obtained case in , the the Far supp West ly continuing , and indeed for in a
Bruits In Their Season 47
_BRUITS IN THEIR _SEASON 47
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1861, page 47, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091861/page/47/
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