50 FACT NUMBER THREE. 



the orchard plat, especially if the enoculation be made close 

 to the ground, which should always be the case with a 

 healthy seedling plant. 



Then the Peach Tree seed demands, invariably, a dry, 

 warm, and strong soil, free of stones, loeeds, and grass, 

 and smally declining in some direction, so as to avoid stand- 

 ing pools of water. From this ground, which should be lo- 

 cated quite remote from all old and sickly peach trees, the 

 weeds. &e. should be carefully dressed out two or three 

 times during each season, and all cob-web nests, and the 

 homes of insects, should be thoroughly brushed away. Any 

 other course than this, may possibly save labor, but it inevi- 

 tably leaves the infant tree exposed to incurable disease and 

 early decay. 



In the next place, in order to preserve the nursery plant 

 from the visitation of the white grub-like worm and all other 

 unfriendly insects, the earth immediately about the root of 

 each plant, must be effectually drenched with stale chamber 

 lye, and this must be followed up faithfully during the 

 months of August. September and October of each year of 

 the seedling's nursery growth. The free application of this 

 lye to the ground about the plant, has been found effectual 

 in keeping every kind of noxious insect out of the way, and 

 preserving the plant not only in a healthy state, but in a fair 

 and thrifty condition for the orchard. 



It will probably be said that this mode of preserving the 

 seedling plant against the inroads of the worm, &c, imposes a 

 great deal of labor. The objection has some weight ; but it 

 is all much more than counterbalanced by the consideration 



