ORCHARDS. 491 



very poor, let some good mould from the ditches, or hill sides, 

 &c. be applied. Manure is said to spoil the flavour of the fruit, 

 and to cause it to rot prematurely. The land for cherries, pears, 

 and apples, cannot be too rich, but it is otherwise with the 

 peach. "The largest and finest peaches I have ever seen," says 

 an experienced cultivator, "(the heath and yellow Canada,) were 

 raised on a soil that would not have produced more than ten 

 or twelve bushels of corn to the acre." 



Peach trees are usually inoculated on the peach stock; they 

 are, however, sometimes propagated on the plum or almond 

 stock. They may be planted from ten to twelve feet apart. 

 The ground should not be stirred about them when the fruit is 

 on; but according to some, the cultivation of the ground is 

 highly useful at other times. 



"In our climate," says KENRICK, "the peach is almost uni- 

 versally cultivated as a standard. They are rarely pruned at 

 all; they are sometimes, however, renovated by heading down; 

 this operation should be performed just before the sap rises in 

 the spring." Another writer says, "of all the fruit trees pro- 

 duced in this climate, none bears pruning so freely as the peach; 

 indeed it should be treated very much as the vine is. All those 

 branches which have borne fruit should be cut out, if there is 

 young wood enough to supply their places. In proof of which, 

 he says, if you take a limb which has borne two or three crops 

 of fruit, and observe its produce; then take another of the same 

 tree, which has never borne at all, and the fruit on this last will 

 be twice the size of the former, fairer, and less liable to rot. In 

 pruning, the branches should be taken or cut out of the middle 

 of the tree, to give more air and sun to the fruit on the outer 

 limbs. 



Peaches are either of the free stone or cling stone kind. 



We give a list of the approved sorts of each, arranged ac- 

 cording to the order of their ripening. 



Free stones. Grosse Mignone (red rare ripe), Belle Chev- 

 reuse, Double Montage, Bellegarde, Late Purple, Morrisania 

 Pound, c. 



Cling stones. Early Newington, Congress, La Fayette, 

 Oldmixon Clingstone, Pavie Admirable, Heath, &c. 



Peach trees are destroyed by a worm which feeds on the 

 inner bark of the tree, at its root. This worm is said to be 

 the offspring of a fly of the wasp kind, which deposits its eggs 

 in the bark of the root of the tree while it is yet tender and 

 young. The remedy consists in searching for the opening in 

 the bark at the root, and taking them out. If this operation is 

 repeated three or four springs, the worm never after can make 

 a lodgement there. The bark of the tree by this time becomes 



