Peach-growing on a commercial scale in the United States began in
what is known as the Peninsula, consisting, technically, of the
Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey but
horticulturally, because of similitude of soil, climate and products,
taking in a bit of Virginia, touching eastern Pennsylvania and running
up to Long Island. All of this region, including the southern reaches
of the Hudson, may be considered as one commercial territory. The peach
began its undisputed supremacy among fruits in the orchards of the
Peninsula as early as orchards were planted but, beginning with 1800,
the industry pushed ahead with leaps and bounds so that the figures at
times remind one of Alice in Wonderland when she drank from the magic
bottle and immediately grew to gigantic proportions.
In 1800 an orchard of 20,000 trees was set in Anne Arundel County,
Maryland, the product to be used in brandy-making.[191] The last
peach-grower to engage in the liquor business seems to have been
a certain Mr. Bayley in Accomack County, Virginia, the tip of the
Peninsula, who in 1814 planted 63,000 trees which six years later
yielded fifteen gallons of brandy per 100 trees, worth $2 per
gallon--not profitable unless the seed were sown in rows, as was
probably the case, and the seedlings permitted to crowd rather
closely.[192] One of the first large orchards planted in this region
to supply city peach-markets was that of a Mr. Cassidy who set an
orchard of 50,000 trees in Cecil County, Maryland, about 1830.[193] The
product of this orchard went to market in sailboats and large wagons.
The industry was not in full swing in this region until the fifties
when orchards were planted all along the water courses in Cecil, Kent
and Queen Anne counties, making a continuous forest of peach-trees two
miles back from the rivers.[194]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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