72 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and want fun and have some cash or good credit, try a peach 

 orchard rather than State or Wall Street. If j'ou lose you will 

 know it is Nature that has disappointed you and not some human 

 or inhuman creature that has cheated you. 



Discussion. 



The essa3'ist added that too many persons propagate trees by 

 buds from the nursery rows. The buds should be taken from 

 healthy bearing trees, so as to afford assurance of the correctness 

 of the varieties. He has planted altogether in his orchards about 

 twelve thousand trees. The yellows is generally discovered about 

 the first of Jul3\ A wire is seldom needed to destroy the borers. 

 The tree mentioned as having over thirty borers was in a block 

 where the wash was forgotten. It pays to put up fruit honestlj' ; 

 if 3'ou have but one poor specimen in a basket put it on the top. 



E. W. "Wood was called upon and said in regard to the essay- 

 ist's recommendations concerning marketing, that few of the 

 members of the Societ}^ had been troubled on that point of late 

 years. All agree that the peach is the most delicious of all our 

 fruits. The essayist was not certain that he could produce crops 

 regularl}', and the only waj- is to keep setting out, and when we 

 meet with success we are repaid for all our trouble. The speaker 

 had felt that the greatest obstacle to peach culture is the weakness 

 of the trees we plant. In manj' nurseries there are trees dying 

 with the 3'ellows, and buds for propagation are taken from these 

 unhealthy trees. He could remember when the crop of peaches 

 was as certain as that of pears. On the 24th of December, 1884, 

 he visited Mr. George Hill and asked about the condition of the 

 peach buds, and was told that they were all killed though the 

 thermometer had not marked below ten degrees, but there had 

 been a week of cutting west winds. At the same time many 

 evergreen trees were destroyed, and Mr. Harris, Mr. Hunnewell's 

 gardener, attributed this to the freezing up of the ground when 

 dry and the cutting west winds. The speaker said that he 

 intended to plant a few trees every year as recommended by the 

 essayist. 



William C. Strong said it would be a question among those who 

 had listened to the essayist whether the example of skill or of 

 enterprise was most striking. He asked Mr. Hale how he 



