234 AMYGDALUS PERSICA. 
four feet the first season. Large orchards have thus heen formed of fifty to one 
hundred acres at a comparatively small expense. The knife is<seldom applied 
to standard trees, except in some instances where they have been headed down 
once when young, it having been found, that primed trees, heavily laden with 
ice or fruit, are liable to be broken down; but when suffered to grow in a natural 
maimer, the branches become multiplied, flexible, and tough; and often are so 
loaded with fruit, that its weight prostrates them to the ground unhurt. None 
break that are not primed, and most of them recover their usual position when 
the fruit is detached. The crops are certain, abundant, and well-flavoured ; and 
the fruit is little inferior to that grown on grafted or primed trees; although it 
varies much, in size, on the same tree. In three years after planting, the orchards 
come to bearing; and the trees have been known to endure fifty years. All ani- 
mals are excluded, except swine, which are sometimes suffered to feed and root, 
at pleasure, at certain periods of the year, and doubtless, are instrumental in 
destroying insects and vermin, and in ameliorating the soil by turning and loos- 
ening the surface. The trees are so easily propagated and renewed, that the 
cutting down of a peach-orchard for a course of tillage, on ground improved by 
this means, is of no uncommon occurrence. To insure a constant supply of this 
fruit, it is deemed important that a new plantation should be in progress, while 
that in profit is bearing and declining, and that it should be located at a distance 
from it, in order to be out of the reach of infection. 
The following mode of propagating the peach, may be relied on as the suc- 
cessful result of many years' experience. Although it is attended with some 
labour, and requires considerable attention, let it be remembered " that the price 
of good fruit was fixed by the Deity himself, when he created man, and placed 
him in the garden of Eden ;" for, even at that early period, when the soil existed 
in its virgin purity, it was the condition that he should 
" Dress the garden, and keep it," 
and we may venture to say, that since that time, the price has never been abated. 
MANAGEMENT DURING THE FIRST YEAR. 
The peach-stones, soon after they are extricated from the pulp, should be covered 
with earth to the depth of four inches, and remain in that condition till they are 
required for sowing, the following spring. Towards the end of March, or as 
soon as the ground is deprived of frost, let them be sown in good garden mould, 
two inches deep, and if possible, in the place where the trees are intended to stand. 
As soon as the young plants have risen high enough to throw out branches, 
which will usually take place by the first of July, the ground should be scraped 
over with a hoe, in order to destroy the weeds, and the side-shoots must be cut 
off near the main stem, care being observed not to injure the leaves which stand 
at the base of each shoot ; for, on the preservation of these leaves, depend the 
health and vigorous growth of the young trees. On August 1st, or as soon as 
shoots of choice varieties, with good eyes of the current year, can be obtained, 
the trees should be budded or inoculated, within one inch, or even below the 
surface of the ground. The buds may be known to be ready for insertion, by 
the shield, or portion of the bark towhich they are attached, easily parting with 
the wood. Let the shoots, from which the buds are to be procured for inocula- 
tion, be taken only from the outside branches of healthy and fruitful trees. The 
buds usually preferred, are those on the middle of young shoots, as they are not 
so liable to run to wood as those at the extremity, nor so apt to lie dormant as 
those at the lower end. Let the buds be collected in a cloudy day, or at an early 
or late hour of a fair one. When they are to be transported at a distance, they 
