Perhaps it is worth while putting on record an opinion as to the status of peach-growing in the State at present, 1916. The acreage is certainly the greatest yet planted in the State--as has been said nearly or quite double the number of trees bearing in 1909 which the last census gives as 1,014,110. Certainly, too, orchards were never as well cared for as now. Yet the percentage of unprofitable peach-orchards in the State is high--at least fifty per centum--for which several causes can be named; as, competition and over-production with consequent low prices, poor distribution, a series of seasons with much winter-killing, and a succession of cold, wet springs. These are episodes in the industry hard to overcome. Of the avoidable causes of the present high percentage of unprofitable orchards perhaps the most common is the attempt to do too much whereby many eventually come to bankruptcy. Another reason for the many unprofitable orchards of the present is that the peach is a favorite fruit for beginners. Profits in peach-growing are often luring, the peach is an attractive fruit, it seems easy to grow and the fruit-grower plants, to learn by experience that peach-growing is not, as so often pictured, a pleasant and profitable avocation but a most exacting vocation. Why is the peach so localistic? In particular, what has set the bounds of the three restricted peach-areas in New York? To some extent, of course, man-governed agencies have determined where peaches may or may not be grown in the State. Peaches must move quickly and the carriers must not dip too deeply in the grower's pockets; therefore markets must not be too distant and transportation must be cheap and efficient. Again, peach-growing is a fine art and becomes thus a specialist's business that must be learned in the peach-orchard; therefore, even if soil and climate be favorable, the industry lags if it lacks leaders to teach and to set the pace in orcharding. But, outranking by far the agencies depending on man, are natural conditions, two of which, climate and soil, predetermined where peach-industries were to stand in New York. CLIMATE