PEACH TREES AT THE SOUTH. 



ever they may do in Mobile) I have proved beyond doubt, by repeated experiments with 

 in the last ten j'ears. 



The first that I planted were purchased in 1842. As soon as they came into bearing, I 

 was so pleased with the fruit as to order more. Finding them to do well, I have planted 

 more or less every year since, budding and grafting from them as my leisure would allow, 

 and selling thousands just as received from New Jersey. 



My trees have not failed to bear every year since they became old enough, although in 

 some very unfavorable seasons the crop has not been large. But Columbia is so happily 

 adapted to the production of peaches, that we rarely ever miss a crop — most generally 

 having so many as to break down the trees, and diminish the size of the fruit. In this 

 respect I see no difference between my northern and native trees. 



Last year, notwithstanding repeated thinnings, my northern and other trees nearly all 

 broke with fruit, after having borne an abundant crop the year before; and yet this spring 

 they were overloaded again, till the very severe weather of the 19th and 20lhult. thinned 

 some of them out rather too much. Still there is a pretty fair crop left. 



Those persons to whom I have sold trees generally make the same complaint, viz: that 

 they bear not too few, but too many. 



Since the appearance of Mr. Harwell's piece in the Horticulturist last spring and this, 

 I have paid particular attention to the flowering of my northern and native trees, without 

 discovering any difference as to time, although they stand side by side. He says that in 

 Mobile the peach trees from the north bloom about the first of April — some six weeks 

 after those raised there. If they could be thus retarded here it would be their highest 

 recommendation, for then the crop would not fail more than one year in twenty through- 

 out the state — the late frosts here doing all the damage, and very seldom coming later 

 than the 10th or 15th of April, which would correspond with the 1st in Mobile. My 

 peaches when killed this year on the 19th of March, were about the size of a garden pea, 

 having the remains of the flower wrapped around the fruit. They would have escaped 

 of course, if they had not bloomed till the first or 15th of April. 



If we could have any assurance that trees from the north would always arrive in good 

 condition, there would be no necessity for propagating them here, except certain choice 

 kinds, of which we have several not known or cultivated by their nurserymen; for many 

 of their peaches, especially the earlier varieties, are unsurpassed in quality, while the im- 

 mense quantities produced in some of the northern and middle states for sale has reduced 

 their prices very low. 



But there is the risk of having unhealthy trees sent, of their drying out from bad pack- 

 ing, or a long voyage, and still more of their freezing on the way. From these several 

 causes many are lost every winter, and they are the only real objections to buying or 

 planting northern trees. The foregoing remarks apply to peaches only. 



As to pear, plum, and cherry trees, we are dependent for the present almost altogether 

 on the north, there being no choice varieties among us but what have been brought from 

 abroad. Of course they can be propagated here, but it requires time. Out of Columbia I 

 know of no one engaged in raising them for sale in the state. Edwin J. Scott. 



