PEACH ORCHARDS. 301 



to the markets of New York and Philadelphia, where 

 the price varies from fifty cents (2s. 2d.) to four dollars 

 (17s. 6d.) a bushel the average retail price being about 

 6s. 6d. a bushel. 



The remarkable facility with which the peach-tree 

 grows on the soils of this State has led to the great 

 extent to which the culture of the tree is carried. On 

 the greater part of its surface, however, the tree is very 

 short-lived, continues in profitable bearing only about 

 three years, and rarely yields more than two or three 

 good crops. The large peach-grower has always, there 

 fore, a succession of young trees coming forward. They 

 bear the third year ; and if they produce two good 

 crops afterwards, they repay the investment. The 

 ground thus occupied is poor, thin, light, and sandy, 

 of little value for the growth of corn crops, and is 

 therefore profitably covered with these quickly-dying 

 orchards. 



Yet better, richer, and deeper soils in these States are 

 also covered with peach orchards, and in these the trees 

 take deeper root, grow up healthily and in luxuriance, 

 and, with proper care, yield crops of marketable fruit for 

 twenty successive years. The mode of culture on the 

 two qualities of soils is very different. On the light soils, 

 Indian corn or rye, or some other suitable crop, is sown 

 between the rows of trees which are planted sixteen to 

 twenty-five feet apart during the first season only after 

 the trees are planted. The surface is then left at rest, 

 is enriched by top-dressings, and is undisturbed by the 

 plough. This treatment is the most proper, under the 

 circumstances. The soil is poor and thin ; the roots run 

 along the surface in search of food ; the plough, if put 

 in, would injure them, and would retard the growth of 

 the tree. 



On the richer, deeper, and stronger soils, the inter 

 spaces are ploughed and cropped year after year. The 



