.'>92 THE PEACH. 



from the latest ripening varieties, or pi-ocure them from distiicts of the 

 country where the diseat^e ia not known. 



3. So far we have aimed only at procuring a healthy stock of trees. 

 The most important matter remains to be stated — how to preserve them 

 in a healthy state. 



The answer to this is emphatically as follows : jmrsue steadily, froni 

 the first hearing year, the shortening-in system of 2)>'uning already ex 

 plained. This will at once secure your trees against the possibility of 

 over-bearing and its consequences, and maintain them in vigor and pro- 

 ductiveness for a long time.* It will, in short, effectually prevent the 

 Yellows where it does not already exist in the tree. To whoever will 

 follow these precautions, pursue this mode of cultivation, and adopt at 

 the same time the remedy for the Borer already suggested, we will con- 

 fidently insure healthy, vigorous, long-lived trees, and the finest fruit. 

 Will any reasonable man say that so fine a fruit as the peach does not 

 fully mei'it them ? 



Whether the system of shortening-iu and cai-eful culture ^vill pre- 

 vent the breaking out of the Yellows, when constitutionally latent in 

 the tree, we -will not yet undertake to say. In slight cases of the dis 

 ease we believe that it may. Of one thing, however, we are certain : it 

 has hitherto failed entirely to reclaim trees in which the malady had 

 once broken out. Neither do we know of any well-attested case of its 

 cure, after this stage, by any means whatever. Such cases have indeed 

 been reported to us, and published in the journals, but, when investi- 

 gated, they have proved to be trees suti'ering by the effects of the borer 

 only. 



A planter of peach-trees must, even with cai'e, expect- to see a few 

 cases of Yellows occasionally aj)pear. The malady is too widely ex- 

 tended to be immediately vancpiished. Occasionally trees having the 

 constitutional taint will show themselves where least suspected ; but 

 wheu the peach is once properly cultivated these will every day become 

 more rare, until the original health and longe^"ity of this fruit-tree is 

 again established. 



The Curl is the name commonly given to a malady which often at- 

 tacks the leaves of the peach-tree. It usually appears in the month of 

 May or June. The leaves curl up, become thickened and swollen, with 

 hollows on the under and reddish swellings on the \i})per side, and 

 finally, after two or three weeks, fall off. They are then succeeded by a 

 new and healthy crop of foliage. Althoiigh it does not appear mate- 

 rially to injure either the tree or the crop, yet it greatly disfigiu-es it for 

 a time. 



Innumerable seedlings have been produced in this country, and 

 some of them are of the highest excellence. It is very desirable to re- 

 duce the collection of peaches to reasonable limits, because, as this fruit 

 neither offers the same variety of flavor nor the extent of season as the 

 apple and pear, a moderate number of the choicest kinds, ripening from 



* The following' remarks, directly in point, are from Loudon's last work 

 " The effect of shortening the shoots of the peach is not merely to throw more 

 sap into the fruit, but to add vigor to the tree generally by increasing the 

 power of the roots relatively to the branches. The peach bei-^g a short-lived 

 tree, it has beenjmtl}/ remarked by Mr. Thompson, were it alPnced I-) erpcnd ell iti 

 accumulatfd sap everi/ year, it icould soon exhaust itself and die of old age.'" — Su- 

 burban Horticulturist. 



