SOUTHERN HORTICULTURE. 



257 



years ; applying the food cliirlng the fall or 

 vrinter to the surface, immediately over the 

 spreading roots, slightly forking or digging 

 it in. 



No one need expect fruit trees to thrive 

 and do well on natural soil that will not pro- 

 duce good corn ; and even on good soils, they 

 will from time to time need applications of 

 compost containing wood ashes, &c. Good 

 swamp mud is, I think, decidedly preferable 

 as the basis of any compost that may be pre- 

 pared for fruit trees. 



Northern Peach Trees. — It appears that 

 in the last year or two, there has been almost 

 an entire failure in the fruiting of all the 

 peach trees brought from the north, east and 

 west ; in consequence of which, public opinion 

 seems now to set strongly against them ; and 

 whether this opinion has been properly found- 

 ed or not, is a matter that I think deserves 

 some examination, which I will very briefly 

 attempt to do. 



Every body who has cultivated northern 

 peach trees, has not failed to observe how 

 tenaciously they cling to their northern habit 

 of blooming late in the spring, and to this 

 very fact is to be attributed all the failures 

 that have occurred, so far as I have observed. 



In the spring of 1849, my northern peach 

 trees began to blossom about the last of 

 March and first of April, and on the 15th and 

 16th of April the weather was nearly as cold 

 as at any time during the previous winter, 

 which, as a matter of course, killed all the 

 young fruit that had shed the blossom, as well 

 as all that was in bloom. 



In the spring of this year (1850) my north- 

 ern peach trees were more tardy in preparing 

 to blossom than they were last year. About 

 the 20th of March I could just discover that 

 the fruit buds had began to swell a little. 

 Eight days after this (28th March") we had an 

 excessively cold day and night ; this severe 

 cold, as might have been expected, killed all 



the fruit in the bud. I had a great number 

 of trees loaded with fruit buds, nearly ready 

 to open, and so dead were they killed that 

 they remained in that half expanded state 

 until they were forced off by the general 

 rush of sap late in the spring. I examined a 

 great many of those fruit buds with my knife, 

 and found that they were perfectly dead. 



I think the foregoing observations will suf- 

 ficiently explain the failure of last year and 

 this year, with our northern peaches. 



Our native peach trees always blossom very 

 early in the spring, very often in February, 

 and to this alone were they indebted both last 

 year and this year for their partial success. 

 The main and only drawback to our success 

 with our northern peaches, is certainly to be 

 found in their late habit of blooming. And 

 if we can invent any plan by which we can 

 coax them to blossom two or three weeks 

 sooner in the spring, we can have plenty of 

 the very finest peaches. 



The Stock and Graft. — I have found by 

 experiments made, that the graft has almost 

 entire control over the stock in all cases. I 

 have cherries growing on Chickasaw plum 

 stocks, and as this plum is one of our very 

 earliest fruit trees to put out in the spring, 

 we would very naturally suppose that such 

 stocks would give our cherry trees an extra 

 early start ; not so, however, — the stock will 

 throw out thrifty shoots and grow rapidly, 

 while the cherry part will look just like win- 

 ter, until the same variety of cherries in the 

 orchard begin to bud. It will then put out 

 and grow rapidly. 



Peaches on Plum Stocks. — Peaches unite 

 very readily with our native, or Chickasaw 

 plums, which will no doubt prove to be the 

 very best stock on which peaches can be 

 grown, with us at least. The roots of the 

 plum are much more hardy and fibrous than 

 the peach, and extend far in every direction 

 in seai'ch of food. 



