1851. '\ IIoio to Plant and Treat Peach Trees. 159 



other words, we must work if we are to enjoy tliis luscious fruit. 

 We deserve v.o better treatment, for we were perverting rapidly this 

 boon to the worst of purposes ; for a distillery was erected beside 

 every spring, on every other farm, for the manufacture of this fruit 

 into brandy. 



PREPARATION OF GROUND, ETC. 



First, then, subsoil your ground, unless it be a deep rich new loam, 

 then a deep plowing will be sufficient. Next throw four furrows to- 

 gether where you intend to plant; hack furroiv, as it is called. 

 Plant your trees upon this ridge, doing nothing more than to open 

 holes sufficiently deep simply to cover the roots. If during the first 

 spring and summer after planting, you cover deeper for protection 

 and retention of moisture, do it by drawing up soil that must be re- 

 moved in the latter part of July. Your trees being thus planted, 

 the next point is to watch and guard against the encroachments of 

 the worm. It must be an unremitted warfare. Nothing will facil- 

 itate the ravages of the worm more than to put the stem of the tree 

 into the ground. Therefore keep bare to the roots; and if any 

 worms are found, remove them in the fall, and at the same time wash 

 your tree after this process with strong soap suds. The pouring of 

 hot water around the roots is also good ; ashes mixed with a little 

 lime is good. 



In the spring go through the same process again. In despite of 

 all efforts, some will escape and more or less injury will be done. 

 To compensate for the weakening occasioned, and to impart vigor to 

 your branches, you must give your roots less to do than is required 

 to start all the buds. It was formerly the doctrine not to prune peach 

 trees when they grew and bore as before described. We have seen 

 trees twenty-five years old, a foot in diameter at the base, that had 

 never been pruned, and as thrifty as a poplar. But this doctrine 

 will not now do. The enfeebled condition of the tree, its stem ex- 

 hausted by the worm girdling the root, demands that we head in, by 

 cutting off from a third to one-half of the previous year's wood; and 

 when the fruit buds shall pass uninjured as they did two year's 

 since, it will pay to remove two, or even three out of five, of the 

 fruit on the fruit spurs. Those who did not trim their trees or re- 

 move fruit year before last, had the mortification of seeing them 

 wither even before ripening their load of fruit. Their hopes were 

 bli""hted on the very eve of their realization. Now if my readers 



