CULTURE OF PEACH ORCHARDS. 



35 



•v^egetable substances, tending to produce a 

 similar character as to the effect. An inte- 

 resting experiment, mentioned by Edmund 

 Ruffin, in his Essay on Calcareous Manures, 

 nnay serve as an illustration : 



" One of the washed and barren declivi- 

 ties, (in lower Virginia,) which are so nu- 

 merous on all our farms, I had, in February 

 or March, packed full of green pine bushes, 

 and then covered with the earth drawn from 

 the equally barren intervening ridges, so as 

 nearly to smooth the whole surface. The 

 whole piece had borne nothing previously, 

 except a few scattered tufts of poverty 

 grass and dwarfish sorrel, all of Avhich did 

 not prevent the spot seeming quite bare at 

 mid-summer, if viewed at a distance of one 



hundred yards. The land was not cultiva- 

 ted nor again observed, until the second 

 summer afterwards. At that time, the 

 piece remained as bare as formerly, except 

 along the filled gulleys, which, throughout 

 the whole of their crooked courses, were 

 covered by a thick and tall growth of sor- 

 rel, remarkably luxuriant for any situation, 

 and which, being bounded exactl}' by the 

 width of the narrow gulleys, had the ap- 

 pearance of some vegetable sown thickly in 

 drills, and kept clean by tillage." The 

 species of pine is not named — there may be 

 a great difference in the effect of different 

 species — the acid taste of its leaf is men- 

 tioned. 



Ma.cedon, 6 wzo., 1846. 



ON THE CULTURE OF PEACH ORCHARDS. 



BY J. W. THOMPSON, ^^^LMI^'GTON, DEL. 



[Mr. Thompson, one of the most intelligent 

 orchardists in the country, has kindly sent 

 us the following letter. It has already been 

 published in the Southern Planter ; but the 

 whole subject of the peach culture is touch- 

 ed upon in so interesting and practical a 

 manner, that we shall very gladly lay it al- 

 so before our own readers. 



We are gratified to perceive that Mr. 

 Thompson agrees with us in our opinion 

 that a rich and rather strong soil, — that is, 

 " a rich sandy loam with clay," is the best 

 for this fiuit tree. Our readers may not all 

 be aware that ours is, at the present mo- 

 ment, the largest peach growing country in 

 the ivorld. One must remember that even 

 in " sunny France," the peach is chiefly 

 grown on walls or trellises, to understand 

 how superior is our climate for the orchard 

 growth of thi.-? delicious fruit. We olmht 



to add, however, that many of our great 

 market growers raise peaches of compara- 

 tively inferior flavor — chiefly because such 

 are usually enormously productive sorts. So 

 soon as the taste of consumers reaches that 

 point that they are willing to pay extra pri- 

 ces for high flavored sorts, so soon we shall 

 have these high flavored sorts brought to 

 market in abundance. Last season we ob- 

 served that a few hundred baskets of this 

 kind were readily sold in the markets of 

 New- York, at prices one-third higher than 

 the ordinary ones. The moment this ap- 

 preciation o[ quality becomes more general, 

 the common Melocotons will give way to 

 such fruits as George the Fourth, large Red 

 Rareripe, &c. There is as great a differ- 

 ence between the two classes, as there is 

 between a sour orange, and a genuine lus- 

 cious Havana. — En.] 



