WINTER MEETING AT CARTHA.GE. 109 



thick and spade them under. In the spring, the soil for the nursery being prepared 

 and laid out in furrows four feet apart and several inches deep, the seeds are taken 

 from the seed-bed and the earth sifted from them, dropped two and oae-half inches 

 apart in the furrows and covered. 



The young trees soon appear, are cultivated till August, when they are bud- 

 ded with the desired variety. The following spring as soon as vegetation starts 

 the stocks are cut oft" above the bud ; the soil is well cultivated all the season, at 

 the close of which, when the leaves begin to fall, the trees are ready to be set in the 

 orchard ; planting is done in the fall or spring ; a high northern slope is generally 

 preferred, except in extreme northern localities a southern exposure may be best ; 

 the trees are set ICi^ feet apart each way, and the spaces between occupied by some 

 hoed crops until the trees need the room. During this time the trees have the 

 needed pruning to form their heads; they come into profitable bearing the third 

 and fourth year. Picking is done when the fruit is in such a condition that it will 

 be lit for use by the time it reaches the consumer; a single soft peach will spoil the 

 rest in a basket or crate ; they are shipped in baskets holding | of a bushel, or in 

 crates with a partition in the middle ; extra choice fruit is packed in single layers 

 in trays with tissue paper, or sprigged by having a leafy branch of the tree at the 

 top of the basket or crate. 



Nature, ever lavish with her fruits for the sustenance of man, creates also the 

 insects for their destruction. The peach-grower has many enemies to contend, 

 with. The curl is a disease which attacks the young leaves, causing them to swell 

 up and become distorted. It is supposed to be due to an aphis or plant louse, but 

 this is very doubtful. It is not nearly so serious as the yellows, which manifests 

 itself in premature ripening, weak growth of shoots and sickly yellow leaves, and 

 soon causes the death of the tree. The curculio, so destructive to the plum, 

 attacks the peach also ; the best remedy is to jar ofi'and kill the insect. The peach- 

 borer is the larva of {JEgeria exitioso), and the most troublesome of all the ene- 

 mies to the tree. The perfect insect, though it has much the appearance of a wasp, 

 is a moth. The female is dark blue, the under wings transparent ; she deposits 

 her eggs upon the bark of the tree near the ground, beginning in the early part of 

 June and sometimes appearing all summer. The young larva makes its way into 

 the tree and lives upon the new wood to which it is very destructive ; it undergoes 

 its transformation and comes out ihe next spring as a perfect insect. The presence 

 of the borer is indicated by an exudation of gum from the wound, and the only 

 remedy is to cut it out. In the orchards the hands, after picking is over, are set 

 at working or searching for and killing borers. 



The rot of peaches has long been a source of annoyance and loss to the grow- 

 ers. The suggestions which Prof. E. F. Smith, of the Mvcological Section of the 

 Department of Agriculture, offers as a result of his observations in various peach- 

 growing sections of the United States concerning peach-rot and peach-blight, may 

 be able to overcome this serious obstacle. The disease is due to a parasitic fungus, 

 which produces many small gray tufts on the surface of the rotten fruit; these 

 tufts consist of spore-dust, which is washed by rains or blown about, and causes 

 the rot to develop in sound peaches. The fungus lives over winter in the decayed 

 fruits, and in this way is reproduced year after year. This fungus also canses a 

 blight of twigs and branches ; in the spring those dry, wrinkled fruits which still 

 cling to the branches, swell and soften under the influence of repeated rains, and 

 produce a new crop of spores exactly like those of the previous season : could the 

 blighted twigs and rotted fruits of one season be entirely destroyed, the fungus 

 would disappear, and the rot with it ; for this reason all rotten peaches should be 



