34 



THE DISEASES OF THE PEACH 



We find that our best and highest fla- 

 vored peaches are raised upon our light 

 land, but such land is all suitable for the 

 cultivation of wheat and other grains, and 

 although it does not produce the largest 

 crops, they are uniform, the straw is short 

 and firm, the heads well filled, and the ker- 

 nels plump. A careful analysis shows a 

 fair proportion of lime and potash in all our 

 soils, though in our sands there is not much 

 organic matter. To the presence of these 

 minerals, I attribute much of the vigor of 

 our trees, and the deep green of their foli- 

 age noticed by you. In the nursery with 

 which I am connected, (the Rochester Com- 

 mercial Nursery of Bissell, Hooker and 

 Sloan) there are peach trees, twelve years 

 old, with bark as smooth as that of a young 

 cherry tree, and tops as handsome as could 

 be wished. This smoothness of the bark is 

 maintained by annual washings with soap, 

 and the heads are kept in order by the 

 shortening metnod of pruning so highly re- 

 commended by yourself and others. 



I have lately seen peach trees here, about 

 thirty years old, that have always produced 

 good fruit, though of late years not in great 

 quantity ; it was, of course, at the tips of 

 the branches, and required to be shot off 

 with a gun, or brought down by a violent 

 shake, neither of which methods of gather- 

 ing are considered best in all circumstan- 

 ces, though they are sometimes adopted 

 from necessity. When trees thus badly 

 pruned, or rather never pruned, are not 

 more than ten or fifteen years old, they may 

 be renewed by sawing off the limbs just 

 above their junction with the body, and co- 

 vering the wound with the solution of shell- 

 lac ; in most cases new shoots -will start, 

 and a fine growth of young wood be formed 

 which will bear fruit "within hailing dis- 

 tance." • 



It can hardly be our climate that keeps 



TREE IN WESTERN NEW-YORK. 



the peach tree in health, for among the 

 thousands brought here from New-Jersey, 

 I have occasionally seen some that were af- 

 fected by a disease corresponding with the 

 descriptions of the Yellows, but they were 

 few, and iuA^ariably those set in grass land. 

 When, at my suggestion, the turf v/as all 

 well spaded in, as far as the branches ex- 

 tend, and the ground thus far kept well cul- 

 tivated, the trees recovered. 



If some of your correspondents in New 

 Jersey Avill send me, by express, some of 

 the wood of a tree that has died of the Yel- 

 lows, and some of the soil on which it grew, 

 I will upon the return of Dr. Lee, (the able 

 editor of the Genesee Farmer,) from Au- 

 gusta, have an analysis made of the same, 

 and compare it with that made from the 

 ashes of a tree grown upon land, of which 

 the parts are : 



Alumina 4.15 



Oxide of Iron, 3.41 



Silica, 78.00 



Organic Matter, 8.06 



Lime, 2.18 



Potash, 1.17 



Magnesia, 0.31 



Other minerals in small quantity & water, 2.72 



100.00 

 This soil will produce thrifty and hand- 

 some nursery trees. But I find the lime 

 and potash will thereby be reduced about 

 one quarter, and must he reiiewed for another 

 good crop. This is not as absolutely neces- 

 sary for standard trees in the orchard, whose 

 roots extend for a great distance in all di- 

 rections, as for young trees, although it is 

 of very great benefit to them. 



I have never seen an analysis of the wood 

 of the peach tree, but the loss of livie and 

 potash in soils where numbers of them have 

 been grown, shows that these minerals en- 

 ter largely into their composition. May not 

 the diseases so feelingly described by some 

 cultivators, be attributed to the absence or 



