142 



Peach Trees. 



Vol. III. 



the rarious districts of the State, as to make 

 jt of easy access to most of its inliabilatits. 

 A knowledge of the advantages derived 

 from the application of lime has lonsf been 

 linou'ij to many who have availed them- 

 selves of its use ; but during the last ten or 

 lifleen years, the consumjjtion of it, for agri- 

 cultural purposes, has been prodigiously ex- 

 tPiuied, and at the present time very few 

 intelligent farmers omit a regular applica- 

 tion of it in the rotation of their crops; and 

 it appears probable I'rom the energy and spi- 

 rit displayed by very many in the improve- 

 ment of the soil, that a gradual renovation 

 of it will take place, and that in a few years. 

 we shall see our farms brought up to their 

 original state of fertility. 



Those who have cajefully observed the 

 effects of the application of lime to the soil, 

 concur in the opinion, that it renders a clay 

 soil more open and porous, and that when it 

 is ploughed, it is more friable, or falls to 

 pieces more readily — that it compacts a loose 

 sandy soil, rendering it more firm and reten- 

 tive of moisture. 



That where lime has been applied, vege- 

 table manure or dung is more durable, pro- 

 ducing its beneficial eflTects for a longer 

 period of time; and it has been noticed, that 

 crops sustain less injury from drought where 

 the soil has been dressed with lime. 



Grass and grain grow with more luxuri- 

 ance, are of a deeper hue, continue longer 

 green, and are' more tardy in ripening, where 

 there lias been an application of lime ; this 

 is very conspicuously the case with wheat 

 and oats ; they are ofien a week or ten days 

 longer in filling and perfecting the grain, 

 than when no lime had been applied; but 

 this procrastination in ripening adds mate- 

 rially to the weight and value of the crop. 



The effects of marl in promoting vegeta- 

 tion and in increasing the productions of the 

 soil are unexampled, but it is believed by 

 many that it exerts no beneficial agency in 

 ]/rotecting vegetation from the blighting in- 

 lluonce of gi-eat drought ; for duriiig the past 

 severe season some of those who had used" 

 it most copiously suffered most from want 

 of moisture. 



It would be both interesting and useful, if. 

 some intelligent and observing farmers, who 

 p.pply this valuable mineral extensively, 

 would furnish the result of their observa- 

 tions on its use for publication in the Farm- 

 ers' Cabinet. 



How to save time. 



Have a place for every thing, and when 

 you have done using it, return it to its place. 

 This will save much time in hunting after 

 articles which are thrown carelessly aside, 

 and lie you know not where. 



Forlhe Farmers' Cabinpt. 



Peach Trees,— "No. I. 



Advice cnunilmis is nauirlit, 

 If merely riinl, 'lis dearly lioughl ! 

 Fix \i\\\. llic jirioc, al cpih fier cent ; 

 'Tis wisdujn's voice, and kittdly meant. 



Anunymoua. 



The subscriber has lived many years, 

 has published something like the present 

 before, and as such advice costs nothing, he 

 knows but few who have profited by it; 

 though long experience has convinced him 

 that it is infallible in preserving the peach- 

 tree from injury by the worm tliat destroys 

 the tree by eating the bark olT near the 

 root. 



I have paid much attention to the natural 

 history of the insect that is so fatal to the 

 peach-tree, and have become familiar with 

 some of its habits : and seeing in the 

 " Farmers' Cabinet" suggestions to guard 

 against its destructive influence, 1 am will- 

 ing to give, through the columns of your 

 useful paper, my experience and success in 

 preserving that valuable tree from its ene- 

 mies, or at least from une, the worm at the 

 root. 



My first effort was directed to find the 

 habits of the insect, the better to guard 

 against its depredations ; and 1 shall relate 

 the process which I took to discover whence 

 it came, and if you should not think it 

 tedious, I shall be sufficiently minute in my 

 relation. 



I procured in the spring of the year, say 

 1800, one hundred and fifty trees about one 

 foot high. 1 set them out singly in a rich 

 'soil in my garden, and in two years I 

 removed them to the situations where they 

 were to stand. I trimmed the superfluous 

 limbs off before 1 dug them up, and dis- 

 covered the under side of the tender branches 

 jhad been stung by some insect the season 

 before, and in the after-growth and run of 

 jlhe sap in August the wound had grown 

 over, leaving a small seam in the bark, and 

 [in digging up the trees, found in the mellow 

 I ground numerous small white worms, one- 

 third of an inch in length, over the whole 

 nursery, and in paring the bark away in 

 the wounded part of the limb, it apj. eared 

 clear that they must have dropped hke our 

 17 ye-.ir locusts, i'rom the wounded limbs. 

 vSlill [ursuing my inquiries, and digging up 

 more trees, I found at the roots of many of 

 theii', those little worms fretting the bark 

 which puts out the gum, and formed a more 

 couLenial home, without as yet making 

 much wound at the root of the tree; thence 

 I c; me to the conclusion that some unknown 

 inject, and, as I supposed, some winged 

 insect, was the parent, which, like the locust, 

 by opening the tender bark, had there depo- 



