90 OUE COMMON FETJITS. 



by excessive and unintermittent cropping, it having been 

 found impossible to trace it to any external cause what- 

 ever ; and as it is well known that the hardier apple-tree 

 requires a year to recover its strength after having borne 

 a very full crop, while the great natural luxuriance of the 

 peach induces it to begin forming new fruit-buds even 

 while its branches are still laden with the harvest of the 

 current year, it is only reasonable that the latter should 

 require a larger supply of nutriment in order to enable 

 it to maintain such extraordinary activity ; and therefore 

 its becoming enfeebled when left wholly to itself, un- 

 pruned and unmanured, is no more than might have been 

 expected. The injurious effects of this disease are not 

 confined to impairing the size and quality of the fruit, 

 but are also manifested in the premature decay of the 

 tree itself, now proverbially short-lived ; whereas in lands 

 far less favourable in point of climate, but where art has 

 lent its kindly aid to the peach, its existence has been 

 prolonged beyond even the term which Nature seemed 

 to have assigned to it ; for while the American peach, left 

 to itself, never lives beyond 20 or 30 years, trees in France 

 subjected to annual pruning have been found, when up- 

 wards of 60 years old, still in full health and vigour. 

 Future peach prosperity in America is therefore considered 

 to depend on the observance of three requirements the 

 extirpation of every diseased plant, the sowing of none 

 but healthy stones, and the yearly pruning of all new 

 trees ; and it would certainly be worth while to comply 

 with harder conditions than these, rather than forego the 

 advantages afforded by Nature in so well adapting the 

 climate to this fruit that our best sorts when taken there 

 become still better, whereas their first-rate ones if trans- 

 planted here prove but of very inferior quality. 



In the Southern and Western States, where imperfect 

 means of communication prevent the surplus of the 

 farmers' orchards being sent to regular markets, it is dis- 

 posed of by being converted into peach brandy, hundreds 

 of barrels being sometimes supplied from the produce of 

 a single orchard ; while the refuse of the stills is employed 

 to fatten hogs a fact which probably gave rise to an error 



