ON SPECIFIC NEEDS 
The peach in particular is a tender and short- 
lived tree, peculiarly subject to the attacks of 
insects and to fungoid pests. 
Seemingly the developers of this luscious fruit 
have been so concerned to foster the remarkable 
qualities of the fruit itself that they have neglected 
the tree on which the fruit grows. So the peach 
orchard, instead of outlasting a human generation 
as it should, is an ephemeral growth, the indi- 
vidual trees of which are in good bearing only for 
a few years, after which they must be replaced. 
The peach grower is always uprooting the 
dead trees in one part of his orchard and planting 
new ones in another. 
THE QUESTION OF STAMINA 
Unfortunately the peach is so specialized that 
it will not thrive on any roots except its own. It 
should be possible, however—at least the project 
is one that invites the experimenter—to develop a 
more vigorous and longer-lived race of peaches. 
Something could doubtless be done by mere selec- 
tion, taking cions for grafting or raising seedlings 
from the hardiest and most vigorous trees of the 
orchard. It has been shown that it is possible to 
hybridize the peach with its hardier relative the 
almond. Probably in successive generations there 
might be developed a hybrid stock of trees that 
would retain all the good qualities of the peach 
[15] 
