520 AGRICULTURE. 



from cuttings. When the tree has stood two years in the nur- 

 sery, plant it where it is to remain permanently. Take care that 

 it has only one stem. Let no limb come out to grow nearer 

 than six inches to the ground. Prune the tree every year. 

 Keep it thin of wood. Keep the middle open and the limbs 

 extended, and when these get to about three feet in length, cut 

 off last year's shoots every winter. If you do not attend to 

 this, the tree will be nothing but a great bunch of twigs, and 

 you will have but little fruit, and that of an inferior quality. 

 Cultivate and manure the ground as for other fruit trees. In 

 this country the currant requires shade in summer. If exposed 

 to the full sun, the fruit is apt to become too sour. Plant it, 

 therefore, in the south border. 



Grapes. The grape vine is raised from cuttings or from 

 layers. As to the first, you cut off, as early as the ground is 

 open in the spring, a piece of the last year's wood ; that is to 

 say, a piece of a shoot which grew last summer. This cutting 

 should, if convenient, have an inch or two of the former year's 

 wood at the bottom of it ; but this is by no means absolutely 

 necessary. The cutting should have four or five buds or joints. 

 Make the ground rich ; move it deep and make it fine. Then 

 put in the cutting with a setting stick, leaving only two buds or 

 joints above ground. Keep it cool and moist. 



Layers from grape vines are obtained with great ease. You 

 have only to lay a shoot or limb, however young or old, upon 

 the ground, and cover any part of it with earth. It will strike 

 out roots the first summer, and will become a vine to be carried 

 and planted in any other place. But observe that vines do not 

 transplant well. For this reason, both cuttings and layers, if 

 intended to be removed, are usually set or laid in flower-pots, 

 out of which they are turned, with the ball of earth with them, 

 into the earth where they are intended to grow and produce 

 fruit. 



Peach. The soil should be a light, warm, sandy, or gravelly 

 loam, in a sunny exposure, protected from bleak winds. Thus 

 situated, and in favorable latitudes, it often flourishes in luxuri- 

 ance, and produces the most luscious fruit. Transplanted at 

 two or three years of age, they are worn out, cut down, and 

 burned, at the age of from six to twelve years. They should be 



