THE CULTIVATION AND DISEASES OF THE PEACH. 61 



trees were double the size of the rest. All were well shortened in 

 the next spring, and bone and potash were applied as before and 

 good clean culture given. The proportion of growth between the 

 old fertilized parts of the field and the poorer portions was much 

 the same as the first year. The potashed portion of the poorer 

 part of the field, however, made a slightly better growth than that 

 where the potash was left off and ripened up its wood better and 

 earlier. 



The winter was a very severe one, the mercury touching twenty- 

 eight degrees below zero, and in the spring we found all the trees 

 in the low land dead, and also a part of those on the warm, rich 

 portion of the field, where they had made such a rapid growth. 

 The rest of the trees had some little bloom and set a small amount 

 of fruit. Although the trees were all vigorous and of a health}^ 

 green in foliage, some trees on the sections where there had been 

 no potash ripened their fruit prematurely. All of these but one 

 were at once "hewn down and cast into the fire." The following 

 spring found all the trees dead on what I have termed the garden 

 spot, except four that had annually had plenty of potash. P'ertil- 

 izer was applied as before to the whole field and to one diseased tree 

 that had been uncut the year before. Ten pounds of muriate 

 of potash was applied and all its branches were severel}' shortened 

 in. There was no fruit this year, yet the unpotashed sections 

 showed many trees with signs of yellows, and they were cut out. 

 Similar treatment was given for two jears more, at the end of 

 which time there was not a live, healthy tree on the unpotashed 

 section, except the one that had once prematurely ripened its fruit 

 and then been heavily potashed. This was to all appearances a 

 healthy tree and was this last season, when it produced over eight 

 dollars' worth of fruit. On the potashed section not a tree had 

 yet shown signs of disease. Meanwhile, the first two years of 

 these experiments had partially convinced us that we were on the 

 right track, so that in 1878 we planted 1,000 trees, and 2,000 in 

 1879, selecting high, dry ground with a northern and western 

 exposure, and soil mostly a sandy loam — what might once have 

 been good corn land, but now all worn out by years of cropping 

 without manure of any sort, except, possibly, a few " ashes in the 

 hill" at planting. This laud was well ploughed and. harrowed, 

 manured with about one thousand pounds of ground bone and three 

 hundred pounds of muriate of potash per acre* broadcast, and then 



