On the Management of Peach Trees. 171 



ture or decay of peach trees ? A good deal, as any one will 

 see, who gives the subject a little reflection. It is a common 

 proverb, that "knowledge is power;" this, however, is only 

 when it is reducible to practice ; and that the first steps 

 towards the cure of a disease is to obtain a knowledge of the 

 cause ; to effect this, we must sap the foundation of the sub- 

 ject; in short, we must begin at the beginning. What would 

 be thought of a man seeking a physician's diploma, who 

 knew nothing more of the human body than could be seen 

 from the outside ? We must study the secret causes of those 

 wonderful results which are daily produced in the vegetable 

 world. Thus, we obtain a key whereby we may unlock the 

 storehouses of nature, and thereby be enabled to form methods 

 and principles of action most suitable to the constitutions 

 and requirements of those vegetable productions, which con- 

 tribute so largely to the pleasures, the comforts, and the ne- 

 cessities of man. I am not setting myself up as a physiolo- 

 gist, or a teacher of chemistry ; I know but little of the one, 

 and am almost profoundly ignorant of the other ; but I am a 

 keen lover of nature, and delight in contemplating the vari- 

 rious modus operajidi by which vegetables develop them- 

 selves under various circumstances, I frequently take notes 

 of her workings, just by way of seeing what she is up to, and 

 I find these observations very useful in my practical opera- 

 tions. I am not attempting to establish any new theory, or 

 to upset an old one, nor even a new system of practice, but 

 simply to point out a few plain and simple reasons for the pro- 

 priety and success of a system of practice, which has been 

 adopted with benficial results, in a country far less favorable 

 for the culture of fruit trees than any part of the temperate lati- 

 tudes of North America ; where the prevalence of late springs, 

 wet soils, and short summers, call forth all the energy and 

 skill of the most experienced cultivator, to produce even a 

 tolerable crop : And if these remarks serve merely as an in- 

 centive to the investigation of the cause, and the discovery 

 of a system whereby the premature decay of peach trees 

 may be prevented, my object in writing will then be fully at- 

 tained. 



There can be little doubt but the chief causes of these 

 evils are to be found in the excessive rapidity of its growth, 



