OVER CULTIVATION OF PEACH TREES. 511 



L. W. CLEMENTS, 



PLEASANT VALLEY, SCOTT COUNTY. 



Peaches — Manner of Planting — Cultivation — Secret of Suc- 

 cess — Onions — Soil — Preparation of the Ground — Cul- 

 ture — Profits. 



Nearly twenty years ago, in planting an apple orchard 

 with rows two rods each way, I planted intermediate rows of 

 peach trees, seedlings from Hale's early. The first two years 

 I cultivated an onion crop. The trees grew finely, but owing 

 to extra cultivation, as would be expected in the hoeing and 

 care of an onion crop, the trees grew too fast, and too late in 

 the Fall, going into the Winter with unripened wood. 



TREES KILLED. 



They were all killed back. The location was a north 

 slope of timber land. In the following Spring these trees threw 

 out new shoots, and I kept them nicely trimmed, but under 

 the cultivation I gave they grew too fast again and were 

 damaged. 



SEEDING TO TIMOTHY 



I then seeded to timothy grass. This checked the growth 

 of all the trees in the sod. One row of these trees, however, I 

 continued to cultivate in garden. The following year the trees 

 fruited, those in sod breaking down with the weight of fruit, 

 which was small, and of inferior qualit3\ The row under culti- 

 vation, owing to the mild Winter preceding, came through in 

 fair condition. The trees were not so full of fruit, but were of 

 superior quality and flavor, and twice as large. This one crop 

 was all the fruit I got from tliis orchard worth mentioning. 

 The trees now became diseased. Borers began to work, the 

 gum exuded, and the fruit after this proved inferior, and the 

 trees died. In the succeeding years until 1870, I had a few 



