454 THE PEACH. 



regular crops, out in all the Middle, Southern, and Western 

 States, they grow and produce the heaviest crops in every garden 

 and orchard. Thousands of acres v in New-Jersey, Delaware 

 and Maryland, are devoted to this crop for the supply of the 

 markets of New- York and Philadelphia, and we have seen in 

 seasons of great abundance, whole sloop loads of fruit of second 

 quality, or slightly decayed, thrown into the North river in a 

 single morning. The market price usually varies from fifty 

 cents to four dollars per bushel, according to the abundance of 

 the crop, and to the earliness or lateness of the season at which 

 they are offered ; one hundred and fifty cents being considered 

 a good retail price. Many growers in New-Jersey have or- 

 chards of from 10,000 to 20,000 trees of different ages, and 

 send to market in good seasons as many bushels of fruit from 

 the bearing trees. When the crop is not universally abundant, 

 the profits are very large, if the contrary, they are often very 

 little. But, as in some districts, especially in New-Jersey, 

 peaches are frequently grown on land too light to produce good 

 orops of many other kinds, the investment is a good one in almost 

 all cases. Undoubtedly, however, the great peach growing district 

 of the United States, will one day be the valleys of the Ohio and 

 Mississippi. With an equally favourable climate, that portion 

 of the country possesses a much finer soil, and the flavour of its 

 peaches is unusually rich and delicious. 



The very great facility with which the peach grows in this 

 country, and the numerous crops it produces, almost without 

 care, have led to a carelessness of cultivation which has greatly 

 enfeebled the stock in the eastern half of the Union, and, as we 

 shall presently show, has, in many places, produced a disease 

 peculiar to this country. This renders it necessary to give 

 some additional care and attention to the cultivation of the 

 peach, and with very trifling care, this delicious fruit may be pro- 

 duced in great abundance for many successive years. 



USES. Certainly no one expects us to write the praises of 

 the peach as the most delicious of fruits. " To gild refined gold," 

 would be a task quite as necessary, and if any one doubts the 

 precise rank which the peach should take among the different 

 fruits of even that cornucopian month September and wishes 

 to convince us of the higher flavour of a Seckel or a Monarch 

 pear, we will promise to stop his mouth and his argument with 

 a sunny cheeked and melting "George the Fourth," or luscious 

 " Rareripe !" No man who lives under a warm sun will hesi- 

 tate about giving a due share of his garden to peaches, if he have 

 no orchard, and even he, who lies north of the best Indian corn 

 limits, ought to venture on a small line of espalier, for the sake 

 of the peach. In pies and pastry, and for various kinds of pre- 

 serving, the peach is every where highly esteemed. At the south 

 and west, where peaches are not easily carried to market, a con- 



