No. 3. 



Culture of the Peach Tree. 



87 



and grow well from ten to twenty years; 

 and the natural existence of the peach tree 

 in our climate, is at least a dozen years of 

 fruitfulness. 



What I gathered some years ago from 

 this reasoning is, that we make a mistake 

 in this part of the Union, when we plant 

 orchards with the expectation of raising the 

 finest fruit, or healthy long-liv§d trees on 

 light thin soil. 



It is my own belief, based on some little 

 observation and practice, that no soil will 

 grow the best peaches, i. e. the largest and 

 finest flavoured^ — except it is good tcheat 

 land. 



I have some land in this county of the 

 character usually selected for peach or- 

 chards, and I have grown a limited orchard 

 for many years past, with the usual success, 

 viz., tolerable fruit and short-lived trees. 

 About eight years ago, after visiting a 

 neighbour in the upper part of New Jersey, 

 where the soil is good strong wheat land, I 

 determined to change my plan of raising 

 them altogether. I considered that we mis- 

 took the nature of this fruit tree ; that it 

 really requires more generous culture. 



Choosing a tolerably good field on my 

 farm, I set about preparing it for an orchard. 

 This was in October. It was on a fair sandy 

 loam, rather light, on a subsoil of gravelly 

 loam. 



My idea was to deepen and enrich the 

 soil of this field before planting the trees. 

 It is not, I believe, considered well to sub- 

 soil where the underlayer is gravel. But I 

 made the experiment nevertheless, as it was, 

 I thought, my only chance for decided suc- 

 cess. 



The trees in tiiis orchard were to be 

 planted sixteen feet apart. As labour and 

 manure were both of consequence to me, I 

 determined to make my first experiment by 

 subsoiling only half the area to be set out 

 with trees. 



This I did by ploughing and thoroughly 

 subsoiling straight strips across the whole 

 field, eight feet wide. The subsoil plough 

 followed after the common plough, and had 

 two yoke of cattle to draw it. By this 

 means I loosened and stirred up the gra- 

 velly substratum to the depth of sixteen 

 inches; it became, also, considerably min- 

 gled with the top soil. The land was in 

 tolerably good order, but I had it dressed 

 with a strong lime compost, — lime and peat, 

 — ^just before the subsoiling was begun. 



The remaining strips of the field were 

 simply ploughed in the common way, and 

 the whole harrowed together. 



I then planted the rows of trees as nearly 

 as I could, in lines running through the 



middle of the subsoiled strips. This gave 

 them a prepared surface four feet wide on 

 each side, and sixteen feet in the row from 

 tree to tree. 



The trees grew more vigorously the first 

 season after transplanting, than I ever saw 

 any do before. Here and there as I saw a 

 sickly looking one, during this and the next 

 two years, I immediately took it out, and 

 filled its place with another of healthy 

 growth. 



The result of my experiment has been 

 most satisfactory. The orchard is in excel- 

 lent health and a good bearing state, though 

 it has been in bearing now to the sixth year. 

 The flavor of the peaches raised in it, is 

 much finer than I have ever raised other- 

 wise in the same soil. And a small orchard 

 set a year since on a joining farm, in a soil 

 quite like my own, but planted in the ordi-* 

 nary way — that is on thin light soil, unpre- 

 pared, bore its two crops of fruit, then failed, 

 and had to be rooted out. 



There is no doubt but my success would 

 have been more complete if I had subsoiled 

 the whole of the land. This I could not af- 

 ford to do at the time, but those having capi- 

 tal would of course do so. I remarked du- 

 ring the first three years, when I raised 

 root crops in my orchard, that the growth of 

 the crops was a great deal finer, and the 

 yield nearly a third more on the strips that 

 were prepared or subsoiled, than on those 

 that were only surface ploughed. 



Your readers may draw their own conclu- 

 sions. I will add, before finishing my letter, 

 that after some little practice, I am strongly 

 in favour of the mode of shortening in the 

 peach, which you have so strongly urged 

 upon all cultivators of this fruit. It appears 

 to me to be a great improvement upon all 

 other modes of pruning the peach tree. 



Your friend, S. 



Bucks CO., Pa., Sept., 1847. 



Smoked Mutton. — The Editor of the 

 Tennessee Farmer declares his preference 

 for the ovine over the bovine or the swinish 

 race. He says on his knowledge of physi- 

 ology, — which none will dispute, — that a 

 pound of lean, tender mutton, can be pro- 

 cured for half the cost of the same quantity 

 of fat pork; and that it is infinitely healthier, 

 in summer, especially; and that those who 

 feed on it becomes more muscular, and can 

 do more work on it, with more ease to them- 

 selves. He knows of nothing more delicious 

 than smoked mutton hams. 



To cure scratches on a horse, wash the 

 legs with warm soapsuds, and then with 

 beef brine. 



