APRIL. 121 



of which £254 are for fruit, £179 for stove and greenhouse plants, 

 £187 for Orchids, £90 for Azaleas, £82 for Pelargoniums, &c., &c. 



With so much that is satisfactory, it is much to be regretted that 

 the great error of fixing the day for a Saturday should have been com- 

 mitted, and I trust that in a future year this will be altered, as the 

 Horticultural Society has wisely done. It is impossible for those ex- 

 hibitors who live at a distance, which many of the principal ones do, to 

 reach home after the exhibition closes, before the Sabbath ; and the 

 Exhibition should close at 6 o'clock. 



Scrutator. 



AMERICAN ORCHARDS. 



American Peach Orchards. — New Jersey, Delaware, and 

 Maryland are famed for their orchards, and New Jersey, especially, for 

 its immense produce of Peaches. Orchards of ten to twenty thousand 

 Peach trees are not uncommon in this State. Each tree yields, when 

 in bearing, an average produce of a bushel of perfect fruit. This is 

 sent, in vast quantities, to the markets of New York and Philadelphia, 

 where the price varies from fifty cents (25. 2<i.), to four dollars (17^- 6 J.) 

 a bushel — the average retail price being about 65. 6d. a bushel. 



The remarkable facility with which the Peach tree grows on the 

 soils of this State has led to the great extent to which the culture of the 

 tree is carried. On the greater part of its surface, however, the tree is 

 very short-lived — continues in profitable bearing only about three 

 years, and rarely yields more than two or three good crops. The large 

 Peach-grower has always, therefore, a succession of young trees coming 

 forward. They bear the third year, and if they produce two good 

 crops afterwards they repay the investment. The ground thus occu- 

 pied is poor, thin, light, and sandy — of little value for the growth of 

 corn-crops, and is, therefore, profitably covered with these quickly 

 dying orchards. 



Yet better, richer, and deeper soils in these States are also covered 

 with Peach orchards, and in these the trees take deeper root, grow up 

 healthily and in luxuriance, and, with proper care, yield crops of 

 marketable fruit for twenty successive years. The mode of culture on 

 the two qualities of soils is very different. On the light soils, Indian 

 corn or rye, or some other suitable crop, is sown between the rows of 

 trees, which are planted sixteen to twenty-five feet apart, during the 

 first season, only, after the trees are planted. The surface is then left 

 at rest, is enriched by top dressings, and is undisturbed by the plough. 

 This treatment is best, under the circumstances. The soil is poor and 

 thin, the roots run along the surface in search of food, the plough, if 

 put in, would injure them, and would retard the growth of the tree. 



On the richer, deeper, and stronger soils the interspaces are ploughed 

 and cropped, year after year. The roots of the trees descend beyond 

 the reach of the ploughshare ; the land is kept open, mellow, and clean, 

 by the culture, and the tree flourishes for a series of years, and is 

 more luxuriant than when the soil is unbroken. 



