92 MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 



Some of the seedlings produced unusually line 

 peaches ; but partly from neglect and partly 

 from avarice, I permitted them to overbear. 

 Another year I shall believe in the paradox, 

 that when the trees are loaded, if you will pick 

 off two-thirds of the green ones when large as 

 hickory-nuts, you will have more fruit. More- 

 over, the hornets, wasps, and yellow-jackets got 

 nearly half the crop. As soon as a peach 

 begins to mellow on one cheek they puncture it 

 and appropriate the best part, leaving the 

 remainder to speedy decay. From the time of 

 raspberries forward I hardly know how to deal 

 with these little stern-armed pirates. When 

 you approach they leave you in miserable 

 uncertainty whether they will fight or fly, and 

 most of us would rather endure the stings of 

 conscience than their envenomed attacks. I 

 '*ave hit on one means of fighting them that is 

 Doubly " sw^et," since it is composed of molas- 



