520 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
The next thing is to remove carefully all feeble, dead, and broken limbs. These are 
such as are near the ground, and have been so far deprived of their sap by the upper 
and more vigorous ones as to become unfruitful. As they would soon die, it is best to 
remove them at once, and thus give more room as well as more sap to the thrifty and 
fruit-bearing ones. After a bountiful crop many broken limbs will be found; some- 
times the whole tree will be demolished and apparently ruined. By careful and 
judicious pruning much may be done to repair the injury and restore the tree to its 
former beauty and usefulness. 
After this the root of every tree should be carefully examined for the borers and every 
one be destroyed, the ground carefully plowed and cultivated down, andall completed by 
the 1st of October. ‘The ripening of late fruit may retard the plowing, but the worm- 
ing must not be deferred if you value fine trees, and wish to preserve them. In a well- 
attended orchard the labor will be light ; for, where the planter is vigilant, few worms 
will ever obtain a lodgment in his trees. After the examination of each tree the soil 
should be carefully replaced, so that the tender neck of the stem will not be exposed. 
After the fall plowing it is advised to give the orchard a top-dressing 
of lime, or barn-yard manure, ashes, or superphosphate about the roots. 
Although this is somewhat expensive, any good orchard that is worth 
keeping at all is worth good culture, and whatever dressing it gets 
should be in the fall, that the fertilizers may dissolve, soak in, and reach 
the roots during the winter, in time to stimulate and strengthen the 
next year’s growth and crop. Neither weeds nor grass should be per- 
mitted to grow, and the ground should be kept as clear and smooth as 
a floor. 
But little is yet settled in regard to the diseases of the peach. The “yel- 
lows” is regarded as ineurable, and eradication is the only remedy recont- 
mended. ‘This disease is ascribed to bad cultivation, or rather to long 
cultivation.on the same soil. Atan early day in this country the yellows 
was unknown, and in newly-cleared districts and fresh soil it is never 
seen except where it has been introduced by diseased trees. The borer is 
the most troublesome enemy of the peach, but if looked after in time it is 
easily subdued, and need not seriously interfere with cultivation. 
The eggs from which this pest is produced are deposited by a four- 
winged, wasp-shaped insect, during the summer, on the tender bark of 
the tree, at the surface of the ground. As the season advances the 
eggs hatch into small white grubs or borers, abowt an inch long and an 
eighth of an inch in diameter, which penetrate the bark and bore into 
the sap-wood, where they remain all winter. The next spring they 
emerge in their perfect winged form, and soon commence depositing 
eggs for another generation. While in the tree they devour voraciously 
the bark and sap-wood, and one or two are sufticient to destroy a young 
tree in a single season, and four or five will destroy an old one. A 
little experience will enable one to detect the borer. The most certain 
and obvious sign is the gum at the neck of the tree; that is, the tender 
part which extends about an inch above and two below the surface. 
When this is discovered, the earth\should be scraped from the root, the 
gum and decayed wood cut away, and a stiff wire or whalebone thrast 
into the curving cavity, and the worm be thus destroyed. Care must 
be taken to kill all, as sometimes five or six will be found in the same 
tree. The dead and diseased wood should be carefully removed, so that 
the new growth may cover the old wood as soon as possible. After the 
operation the soil should be drawn up to the neck of the tree again, to 
prevent the evil effects of the sun or dry winds in summer, or the severe 
frosts in winter. The application of boiling water, the waste water 
from salt-works, and oil diffused in water have all been proposed as 
remedies, but are all inferior to the punching operation with a wire 
or whalebone. Sheathing the tree with strips of thick paper, straw, or 
cloth, a foot wide, is a good preventive, if kept on from the middle of 
June till the middle.of October. The paper should extend two inches 
