that might not boast its peaches, melons, apples, grapes, and all the other luxuries of 

 the garden now confined to a comparatively limited range.* 



And this is not only the most interesting of all fields for the lover of the country 

 and the garden, but it is that one precisely ready to be put in operation at litis season. 

 The month of April is the blossoming season over a large part of the country, and 

 the blossom governs and fixes the character of the new race, by giving a character to the 

 seed. Let those who are not already familiar with hybridizing and cross-breeding 

 of plants — always efi'ected when they are in bloom, read the chapter on this subject in 

 our " Fruit Trees," or any other work which treats of this subject. Let them ascer- 

 tain what are the desiderata for their soil and climate, which have not yet been suppli- 

 ed, and set about giving that character to the new seedlings, which a careful selection 

 from the materials at hand, and a few moments light and pleasant occupation will af- 

 ford. If the man who only made two blades of grass grow where one grew before, 

 has been pronounced a benefactor to mankind, certainly he is far more so who origi- 

 nates a new variety of grain, vegetable, or fruit, adapted to a soil and climate where 

 it before refused to grow — since thousands may continue to reap the benefit of the la- 

 bors of the latter for an indefinite length of time, while the former has only the 

 merit of being a good farmer for the time being. 



ON THE DISEASES OF THE PEACH TREE. 



BY AV 



I have been for a few years a slight observer of the disease, as it is manifested in this re- 

 gion, and which your correspondent, " C. E. Goodrich, Utica," designates " the curled 

 leaf on the peach tree." It may be that our peach trees are afflicted with a different dis- 

 ease from that mentioned by your correspondent, as it varies in many particulars from 

 that described by him. And first, the trees having serrated leaves, are generally much 

 more affected by the curl, than the glanded sorts; in some few cases, however, the gland- 

 ed are more affected. But the effect on the after health of the tree, is uniformly more in- 

 jurious on trees whose leaves have not glands. Again, the large uniform glanded leaves, 

 are less liable to the curl, and the trees suffer, afterwards, less than any other. 



The general symptoms of the disease resemble those described by your correspondent, 

 with some additional ones, which I shall presently describe. 



The disease is not owing to an exhausted soil. The character of our soil is threefold. 

 On the flat, a rich black mold, with a sub-soil of clay or gravel ; on our east hill, general- 

 ly, a rich sandy loam; and on our south hill a heavy clay. On all these soils are to be 

 found peach trees, varying in their age from fifteen to thirty years, and from eight to 

 twelve inches in diameter — which are no more affected by the disease than those upon the 

 various soils in localities which have never been cultivated until within the last 4 or 5 years. 



* Nature is always giving us both liints and materials for tliis purpose. For instance, the peach, so conimon in our 

 orchards all over the middle states, does not ripen well, and is rarely seen in northern New-England. Yet in a large 

 of seedling peaches, that we saw in a cold part of Massachusetts, where all the better varieties had failed, there 

 ee or four so perfectly hardy as to bear every year the finest crops. The fruit was only second rate— but by 

 ossing with the hardier of the fine sorts, might in one generation have been rendered both hardy and delicious 



