Vol. v.— No. 2. 



NEW ENGLAND I ARMER. 



U 



fn , that you may recommend to our brother farmers 

 ecure a supply of Millet seed — now is the time 

 -no farmer should ever be without two or three 

 [shtls in his seed- room in the spring. 

 Since a short crop of liiiy became apparent, and 

 1 the season for sowinsr had past, largfc qiianti- 

 ;s of millet seed coiiM have been sold in Boston 

 four dollars per bushel. Perha|>s few crops will 

 ' found more profitable at one dollar. If I could 

 ive procured a sutnciency of millet seed, my 

 , which have not exhibited such a vncuumt'ur 

 i voars, might have been made to ijroun with re- 

 etion, and my stock to laugh at the unexampled 

 •ong-ht of the season just past. 



Yours very truly, 



S. W. POaiEROV. 

 N. B. Good millet seed should weigh 5() lbs. or 

 ore per bushel. 



OJ^The specimen of Millet alluded to by Mr. 

 oMF.BOY may be seen by calling at the New Eng- 

 nd Farmer office. It measures seven feet in 

 ight. — Editor. 



>m Memoirs of (he Philcidclpliia AgncuUural Society. 



N THE CULTIVATION OP THE PEACH. 



Riversdak, JVovember 23, 1809. 

 From a desire to promote the cultivation of fine 

 uit. and a belief that every publication of experi- 

 euts that are attended with success, may at least 

 ive the happy etfect of stimulating others in the j 

 irsuit of so desirable an object and eventually 

 Tfect it, I am induced to relate to you my mode 

 'cultivating peach trees, as well as tliat pursued 

 »" others as far as they have come under my ob- 

 jrvation, together with the effects. 

 Seven years past whon I took pn-jspssion of Riv- 1 

 rsdale farm, I planted 30 peach trees in a grass I 

 it which had not been ploughed for at least 

 xenty years, and was very tough and bound. — , 

 'he first and second year they did not grow the : 

 >ast, and appeared as if they would soon die ; my ! 

 ardener wished to cut them down, as he thought ^ 

 hem not worth removing, but I preferred trying j 

 n experiment with them ; which was to throw j 

 bout half a peck of well slacked lime (which had 

 een exposed to the weather several montlis) j 

 ound each : the following spring I was agreea- : 

 ly surprised with their very thrifty appearance ; 

 hey bore as many fine peaches as they could siip- 

 >ort, and though the ground had not been dug, it 

 vas perfectly loose four feet in circumference 

 ound them : they grew very much that year, and 

 lavc continued to produce rae a great crop every 

 ,'ear since, which increases with their si'^e, and 

 hey are now large trees. Since the first year, T 

 have had the ground annually dug about four feet 

 m circumference round them, and I do not find ihe 

 worms have attacked thorn yet. From accident 

 wo trees were neglected for two years after I 

 imed the first; they scarcely bore a leaf; the 

 ground was so hard as to be impenetrable to '.he 

 roots. I have had lime thrown around them since, 

 ind they have recovered and borne some due 

 peaches, and will, I believe grow to a good si?e. — 

 The success of this experiment having convinced 

 uie that I could successfully raise peach trees on 

 grass ground, I have been induced to plant out iip- 



J wards of eight hundred in a field that will be al- 

 ternately in grain and grass, some of which bore 

 very fine fruit last summer. Although the ground 

 hag been in clover since the trees were planted, 



they have a very healthy appearance, and bid fair 

 to be very durable, but that, time only can ascer- 

 tain ; for uiy own part, I am perfectly satisfied if 

 tiiey bring mo only four good crops, for the trees 

 are then worth nearly as much for fire wood as I 

 pay tor the young ones. I would recommend dig- 

 ging round the trees once a year ; it mixes the 

 lime with the earth, much to the iniproveaient of j 

 the soil ; fresh slack lime will not answer, as I 

 have known a young orchard entirely destroyed by 

 it, which has caused an opinion to prevail that I 

 lime in any way is prejudicial, anil I was cautioned ' 

 by old farmers from using it; hut in the way li 

 used it, after it had been deprived of its excessive ' 

 heat by a long exposure to the weatlicr, I am very i 

 certain of its producing the most beneficial efiects ! 

 on all kinds of trees. I have applied it to upwards 

 of fifteen hundred apple and pear trees, besides 

 the poaches, all of which evince its good effects : 1 

 ti load of forty bushels after being exposed to the I 

 weather from October till June, served for about i 

 eighteen hundred trees. I 



I have now given the result of my experiments, ■ 

 and will relate to J ou what has come under my I 

 observation. An ingenious farmer, Mr Ashton, in 

 my neighborhood, a few years past, planted three j 

 hundred peach trees on about three acres of ground; ' 

 I saw them last summer, they were vcrj thriving, | 

 and he lately informed me he had gathered about | 

 five hundred bushels of good fruit, and sold them 

 readily on the ground at a dollar and fifty cents \ 

 per bushel. He adopted no other mode to bring 

 them to perfection than ploughing ; he informed [ 

 me that he had raised a crop of Indian corn on the 1 

 ground every year since he planted the trees and j 

 that without manuring ; but the ground was in \ 

 good order when he planted the trees which he 

 raised from the stono, even without being inocula- 

 ted; he obtained more money from those three acres 

 than his whole farm would have rented for, aud , 

 that too without losing one year's crop from the 

 ground, the faithful cultivation of which in pro- 

 curing other crops, insured him success in his 

 crop of fruit. Thus you see the peach, when con- 

 stantly cultivated, will succeed without lime or any 

 manure ; though in grass grounds I am confident ■ 

 they would not. j 



With respect to plums and nectarines, I have 

 tried various experiments without success, and 

 though I have about fifty trees which are healthy, 

 blossom well and bring their fruit to a considera- 

 ble size, yet they all drop before they come to per- 

 fectioir: and I have never got one nectarine excep- 

 ing from a young tree planted in the fall, which 

 yielded me fourteen fine nectarines the ensuing 

 summer; since when I have not had another, and I 

 find the older my trees are, the more they are in- 

 fested with insects, from which I conclude that 

 were they attacked on their first appearance, by 

 destroying the eggs in the fallen fruit, or other- 

 wise it might prevent their increase, and eventual- 

 ly destroy them. For several years my family 

 have been supplied with the finest plums by a 

 neighbour, who is the only person I know of who 

 has had uniform success with them : last year 

 while his trees were in full bearing, I carefully 

 examined them, particularly as respected their 

 culture and local situation, and I found that no 

 uncommon pains had been taken with them ; on 

 the contrary, they appeared neglected, as was 

 evident from the numerous dead and broken limbs 

 that hung about them, and that the very great 

 success he had. could only be attributed to their 



situation, which was at the place where his hogs 

 laid and were fed ; he told me that the hogs never 

 lot a plum that had fallen, remain many minuteB 

 undevoured, and thereby destroyed the insects 

 that hung about, and the eggs that were deposited 

 in them, tljough of late there had appeared hut 

 few insects about the trees. 



How easy would it be to inclose a piece of 

 ground for the purpose of feeding hogs in, which 

 if planted with the best plum tree.s, might be 

 made to yield more profit than twenty times the 

 same ground would in grain or grass, when it is 

 considered the enormous price that fruit commands, 

 no doubt owing to the difficulty of raising, which 

 I am confident might be surmounted by the above 

 mode. 



I should now apologize for trespassing on your 

 patience, wore I not certain that your real zeal in 

 similar pursuits, would render it unnecessary, and I 

 remain Yours biucerely. 



W.M. PHILLIPS.* 



Dr. James Me ask. 



TO RIPEN FRUIT. 

 To lovers of gardening it may not be unac- 

 ceptable to know, that painting the walls black 

 greatly forwards the ripening of fruit. Experience 

 has proved, that a vine of an uncommon size, 

 which, even in the hottest years, would not pro 

 duce any ripe fruit, has now, for several years, 

 regularly yielded the finest grapes ; all other 

 fruit, the trees of which are planted against that 

 black \rall, ripen much sooner than those in the 

 neighbourhood. 



As a (specimen of the losses incurred of late in 

 commeAial transactions, we may mention the in- 

 stance, Veil known on Change, of a vessel recent- 

 ly arrived in the river from Bengal. She was a- 

 bout to sail from Calcutta for Cliina, \\ itii a cargo 

 of 7,000 bags of cotton, but intelligence arriving 

 of the high price that article had attained here,the 

 course of the vessel was changed for England. — 

 She reached the Thames under prices so different 

 of the same article, that the owners sustain a loss 

 of near £40,000, on a single cargo ! [Lon.Globe] 



* The success of the fruit on trees in the plan- 

 tations frequented by hogs is evidently owing to 

 the destruction by them, of the curculiones. Mr. 

 Phillips' farm is near the Delaware. Peaches gen- 

 erally thrive best near rivers ; and especially those 

 of brackish water. Digging round all trees is 

 highly beneficial. The lime promotes healthy 

 vegetation, but when the worm curculiones, get 

 possession, they are not affected by lime. These 

 latter are the masters-foes to all fruit. The fallen 

 fruit is their nursery, and whatever destroys that, 

 is their enemy. Cherries and other common fruita 

 are in such plenty, that the banishment or extirpa- 

 tion of the curculio, is an event more anxiously to 

 be wished, than expected. They avoid moist at- 

 mosphere and salt air, on the borders of rivers or 

 the sea. In cities and towns they do not delight. 



This is a bold and laudable experiment made by 

 Mr P. on this short lived tree. The result we 

 shall be anxious to know. We have unwilling 

 doubts as to duration. 



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 bound and lettered at 75 cents, which in as cheap as 

 they can be done in this city — by scndiyig them to 

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