152 Peach Rot. 



nal requirements to avoid peach rot are, to prevent all mechanical 

 injuries to the peach, which are mainly by curculio, and to save its 

 infectious spread by destroying it as fost as it appears. These two 

 thino-s faithfully done, and a peach crop can be saved whenever there 

 is one set on the trees. Thorough and clean cultivation is very desir- 

 able on all accounts ; and the use of lime, sulphur, or charcoal, as a 

 manure, and whatever tends to sweeten the soil and the air, will have 

 a good effect. 



The first impression of most persons who read of this energetic 

 management most likely is, that it won't pay, or that it is wholly im- 

 practicable ; all of which is a mistake. Parties here have kept a care- 

 ful account of the time employed in killing the curculio on a given 

 number of trees during the two or three months in which the " curculio 

 catcher " must be run daily, and the average cost this past season has 

 not exceeded ten cents per tree. The cost of picking oft' and destroy- 

 ing the decaying fruit has not been so exactly ascertained, but it is not 

 so great as to be any proper discouragement to the effort. But, what- 

 ever the labor and expense may be, it is the price of having peaches 

 in all old 'peach-growing neighborhoods. A few men practising this 

 plan in a peach district, where a majority neglect it, — as a majority 

 are quite sure to do, — will have a vastly greater work than would 

 be necessary where all would join in the work. But they will have 

 peaches that will sell, while the negligent and lazy will not. Similar 

 energy and faithfulness arc becoming more and more necessary to 

 success in every branch of fruit-growing ; and all our past experience 

 and observation indicates that profitable fruit culture in this country 

 will very soon be in the hands of the comparative few who will use 

 system, energy, and pluck. 



November 1, 1869. 



