346 



STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



any orchard requires, and many orchards do not need it at all. Muriate of potash, 

 kainit, or sulphate of potash may be used in large quantities without injury. Four 

 to five hundred pounds per acre will do no harm, provided it is not put too close to 

 the trunks of the trees. 



The same remarks apply to dissolved 

 rock phosphates and to bone superphos- 

 phates and various bone mixtures. 

 They have been applied in large quan- 

 tities, even as high as a thousand 

 pounds per acre, without injury; gener- 

 ally lesser quantities will suffice. Pot- 

 ash salts and phosphates should be put 

 on and plowed down in the autumn 

 and nitrogenous fertilizers always in 

 the spring. Usually the effects of the 

 latter disappear the same season. 

 Where the grower has opportunity to 

 procure unleached hardwood ashes 

 these also may be used, and can be ap- 

 plied in large quantities without 

 injury. A good home-made fertilizer 

 can be prepared by composting broken 

 or coarsely ground bones with un- 

 leached hardwood ashes until the 

 bones become soft. The grower who 

 has not tried the effects of regularly 

 fertilizing bearing orchards will be sur- 

 prised at the difference in quantity and 

 quality of the fruit which will result 

 from careful fertilization. Judicious 

 fertilization will bring large returns in 

 the way of fine crops and good prices. 

 Even the most barren-looking yellow 

 sands without clay subsoils can be 

 made to produce enormous crops of 

 luscious fruit year after year by 

 proper attention to cultivation and fer- 

 tilization. Where it is impossible to 



procure fertilizers the grower must ^^^- ^--^oot knots due to nematodes, 



depend on prolonged cultivation of the soil and the occasional growth in the 



orchard of green crops for plowing 

 under, such as cow peas, crimson 

 clover, etc. Much can be done in the 

 way of furnishing an orchard food by 

 repeated stirring of the soil. 



The peach tree is subject to various 

 diseases, and no one should venture 

 upon peach-growing in a commercial 

 way without having a reasonably 

 good understanding of what the diffi- 

 culties are in this direction. Peach 

 yellows (fig. 4) and peach rosette (fig. 

 5) are two of the most destructive 

 diseases. No remedy is yet known 

 for either, but experience seems to 

 show clearly that yellows may be 

 held in check by the destruction of 

 affected trees as soon as it appears, 

 provided all the growers of a com- 

 munity unite in practicing it. In 

 planting an orchard the grower will of 

 course, if possible, select a region free 

 or nearly free from such diseases. These 

 diseases attack all varieties. Mildew (fig. 6), on the contrary, is a fungous disease 



Fig. 10.— T he peach tree borer (Sannina exitosa). 

 (1 and 2, original; 3 and 4, after Riley). 



