28 BOARD OF ACxRicuLTURE. [Jan., 



and pruning considerable, and have experimented with prun- 

 ing and shortening in from the 1st of September or until the 

 time they bloom in the spring, and we are fully convinced, as 

 Mr. Augur says, that it is not safe to prune peach trees until 

 after the leaves are off. Oftentimes, if a tree is pruned 

 almost any time in September, it will start a second growth. 

 If pruned later, perhaps some time in October, if it does not 

 start a second growth, the wood is apt to die back from two 

 to six inches from where it was cut off, and of course, when 

 you cut off just where you wanted to shorten it, you get just 

 so much less, I do not think it is safe to recommend prun- 

 ing peach trees until after the leaves are off. 



I think Mr. Van Dusen struck the key-note of successful 

 peach culture when he said, " Plant on poor land." If we 

 plant on rich land, the tree, he says, like the horse fed witli 

 too many oats, will grow and get away from us ; but if we 

 plant it on poor land, we can make the tree just what we 

 "p^ant. We know a great deal more about fertilizers to-day 

 than we did a few years ago, and are learning every day. I 

 think we can make a peach tree almost anything we want. 

 We can keep it well in hand if we have it on rather poor soil. 

 We have grown ours well on chemical fertilizers. While we 

 have not followed out the experiments of Prof. Penhallow, we 

 have always depended on bone and potash for our main stock 

 of plant food. On one plot of about 200 trees, we have not 

 used potash, as an experiment, to see what the result would 

 be. A good percentage of those 200 trees, which are four 

 years' old, show traces of the yellows, while of the other five 

 thousand and seven or eight hundred, there is only one tree 

 that shows any trace of the yellows whatever, and those have 

 all been liberally treated with muriate of potash. This past 

 year we sold in Hartford (and Hartford is not a market that 

 is willing to pay for the very finest fruit) forty dozen peaches 

 for $1.75 a dozen at wholesale, and a number of them retailed 

 at twenty-five cents apiece. This was in July. 



Mr. HoYT. I would like to ask what fertilizers you use for 

 your peaches ? 



