56 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



pose are botVi men and women, who earn from fifty to seventy-five cents a day besides be. 

 ing found. These baskets are gently emptied into the regiiliir market baskets, which are 

 all marked with the ow^ler's name and strewed along the whole line of tlie orchard to be 

 picked. As these are tilled they are put into spring wagons, holding from thirty to sixty 

 baskets, and taken to the wharf, or landing, where there is a house, shed or awning, for the 

 purpose of assorting them, each kind by itself, which is into ])rime and callings — the prime 

 being distinguished not only by their size and selection, but also by a handful of peach leaves 

 scattered through the top. They are then put aboard the boats in tiers, separated by boards 

 between to keep them from injury, and so reach their destined market. We consider a 

 water communication from the orchai'ds, or as near as may be, most essential, as all land car- 

 riage moi-e or less braises or destroys the fruit. Our roads through the orchards and to the 

 landings are all ke])t plowed atid harrowed down smooth and even. The ba.skets for mar- 

 keting the peaclies are generally obtained in New-,Iersey at from twenty-five to thirty -seven 

 dollars and fifty cents per hundred. With trifling modifications our culture and practice may 

 be made to suit not oidy the southern but the south-westeni StJites. I may here, perhaps, 

 properly remark that the average life of our trees is fi'om nine to twelve years, when prop- 

 erly cared for and protected, as I have described. That the two great and devastating ene- 

 mies that the ti-ees have to contend against are the " peach icorm " and the " yellou-s ; " the 

 first readily yielding to the knife and the ti'eatment of semi-annual examination ; the latter 

 being a constitutional consumptive, or marasmatic disease, for which no other remedy is as 

 yet knowir to be practiced but extirpation and destruction. There are many theories and 

 some practice recorded on this by far the most destiiictive enemy of the peach tree. I may 

 hereafter give my own views on this pailicular and obscure disease. I concur, however, 

 with Mr. Downing, of Newbu^rgh, that the great and prevailing disposition of the peach ti-ee 

 in our climate is to over production of fniit in favorable seasons. Our remedy for this is to 

 carefully tliin it oft' by plucking all those that touch, or are within two or three inches of 

 each other, when the size of hickoiy nuts, which are thrown into some ranning stream or 

 into the hog-pens to be devoured. His mode of " heading in," or praning one-half of the 

 producing buds, is new to me, but which I have just tiied upon my gai-den ti-ees in the cit}% 

 and will be able to speak of, experimentally, hereafter. With us in Delaware, as eveiy- 

 where else, the peach tree succeeds best in a good soil. That preferred is a rich sandy loam, 

 writh clay. Many of my finest ti-ees and choicest fniits are grown in a loose and stony soil. 

 The trees should never be set out in wet, low or springy situations, and for the same reasons 

 high and rolling gi-oimd should be selected for your plantations, and for the additional circum- 

 stance that they are less obnoxious to early frosts. While in the vicinit)' of Richmond, Nor- 

 folk, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Winchester, and other large tov^^ls of Virginia, the peach 

 tree may be cultivated with profit for the market, and all over the State for the pni-pose of 

 di-ying, every farmer and owner of a lot may raise them in abimdance for his own use. But 

 I am persuaded that the best fiiiit crop that Virginia larmers could raise is the apple — the 

 pippin apple, with perhaps some other of the finest fall and wHnter vmieties ; they will bear 

 ti-ansportation — always command a good price, and be saleable in our middle States and 

 northern markets, and find a ready sale in London and Liverpool. The veiy best and foir- 

 est I have seen for years was during the past winter, the giowth of Claike and Jefierson 

 counties, Vii-einia. 



THE CANE-BRAKE REGION OF ALABAMA. 



CHARACTER OK ITS SOIL. 



We have already alluded, incidentally, to this district of country, as perhaps 

 the most fertile, and extraordinary in various respects, and adapted to a greater 

 number of important staples, as cotton, corn and wheat, than any other portion 

 of our widely extended and still extending country ; and yet, confident as we feel 

 in its title to this distinction, we have to confess with deep regret that we were 

 compelled to pass and repass without going through it last spring. But we saw 

 and heard enough to convince us tliat its natural attractions have drawn to, and 

 formed for it, a society of active and intelligent young larmers from Virginia and 

 the Carolinas, as the rosemary trees of ISarbonne are said to draw industrious 

 bees from afar off, and to give to Narbonne honey a ciiaracter for excellence 

 equaled only by the celebrated honey of Mount Ida. Some of the soil from the 

 banks of the Tombigbee, from a region that extends fur many miles, and to the 



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