No. 10. 



The Mustard Plant — Pruning the Peach. 



325 



of preserving the milk in sweet or pure state, 

 mucii longer than other pans used. 



Dr. Hare remarked that great care would 

 be necessary to keep them perfectly clean, 

 or the milk and butter might be unwhole- 

 some, lie thought it probable that a small 

 block of zinc, placed in a tin pan, might pro- 

 duce the same effect on the milk by prevent- 

 ing its getting sour too soon. 



Extract from the minutes. 



A. Clement, Rcc. Sec'ry. 



The Mustard Plant. 



The following paragraph is found in an Address de 

 livered by Jacob Green in Albany, in 1814, before the 

 Society for the promotion of Useful Arts. In confirm 

 ation of the sentiment there expressed more than thirty 

 years ago, that this plant " might yield no trifling pro- 

 fit to the American cultivator," we would refer to the 

 99th page of our ninth volume, where the account of 

 a crop raised by J. H. Parmlee, of Ohio, is given by C 

 J. Fell and Brother, of tliis city.— Ed. 



The Sinapis or Mustard, is a plant which 

 might yield no trifling profit to the American 

 cultivator. Small clusters <if it are seen 

 growing in our fields and gardens; but whe- 

 ther it is a native of the country, or merely 

 the fruit of chance, I am not able to deter- 

 mine. In some catalogues, however, it is 

 marked as an exotic; but our climate is con- 

 genial to its habit, and almost every soil is 

 adapted to its growth. A gentleman from 

 Orange connty, in this State, has informed 

 me, that he collected from half an acre of 

 but tolerable land, fourteen bushels of the 

 seed, which he believed equal in quality to 

 that of the Sinapis Arvensis, commonly 

 known by the name of Durham mustard. 

 There are many species of this herb, but it 

 would be well for the cultivator to confine 

 his attention to the one just mentioned, the 

 seed of which is more abundant and of a 

 better quality than in the other kinds. The 

 high price given for imported mustard, and 

 the facility with which it can be raised, in- 

 duce a belief that farmers generally might 

 find their account in making it an article of 

 culture and traffic. 



The best Mode of Pruning the Peach. 



It seems to me that the promulgation of 

 the improved mode of pruning, called the 

 ^^shortening-ill''' mode, in the "Fruits and 

 Fruit Trees of America," is one of the 

 greatest benefits yet conferred on the thou- 

 sands of cultivators of this bestr of all our 

 fruits — the peach. 



I believe you state that this mode has long 

 been known and practiced in Europe, and 

 that the peach tree is hence a great deal 



longer lived there than in the United States. 

 Be this as it may, I am sure that it was pre- 

 viously little known or practiced on stand- 

 ard trees in this country; that the great 

 benefits that would result from it were be- 

 forehand quite unknown to the majority of 

 our peach growers. 



It is, indeed, the only scientific mode of 

 pruning this tree; for the common way of 

 thinning out the branches, practiced with 

 little care or skill on most of our fruit trees, 

 is particularly unsuited to this. No better 

 proof of this fact can be desired than one 

 which I have everyday before my own eyes. 

 In my neighbour's grounds is a quantity of 

 peach trees, six years old, which have never 

 been pruned at all, except to thin out a few 

 branches, which have borne two heavy crops, 

 and already have that exhausted and lean 

 appearance, indicative of feebleness and old 

 age. The fruit which they bore last year 

 was small, and comparatively flavourless. 

 In my own garden I have a small plantation 

 of peach trees, set at the same time as my 

 neighbour's, but presenting a very difi^erent 

 appearance indeed. They have been pruned 

 for the past three years on the shorlening-in 

 mode. They have borne every year good 

 crops of the largest and most delicious fruit 

 to be found within my knowledge, — the crop 

 regularly distributed over the branches. The 

 trees are in most capital health; foliage deep 

 green, and their shape, from the system of 

 pruning adopted, round, bushy and symmet- 

 rical. Altogether, I am very proud of the 

 effect of this mode of pruning upon my trees; 

 and I assure you that many persons, who 

 have come here to examine them, have gone 

 away firmly resolved to "do likewise." 



There cannot be a doubt that the peach 

 tree exhausts itself, and is short lived in 

 many soils, especially in those that are not 

 deep and rich, by excessive over bearing. It 

 is one of the great merits of the shortening- 

 in mode, that by taking off a portion of the 

 ends of every bearing shoot — that is to say, 

 the young growth of the previous year — it 

 effectually prevents this evil; since if you 

 shorten-back the branch one-half, you neces- 

 sarily take off one-half of the blossom buds, 

 and diminish the probable crop of fruit one- 

 half. This is treating the peach tree very 

 nearly as it needs to be treated ; for if one- 

 half of the blossoms are thus taken off, it 

 leaves the tree provided with just so many 

 as it can carry regularly, every year, with- 

 out exhausting itself; and the fruit that is 

 left is much larger, and a great deal more 

 delicious than if the tree goes unpruned, 

 and bears a full crop. This I have twice 

 satisfied myself of by direct experiment, on 

 trees side by side, of the same variety; and 



