PROFESSOR J. J. MAPES'S ADDRESS. 607 



ence which would have produced a plough capable of increas- 

 ino- our whole production, either in the economy of its use or 

 greater ability of action, the one per cent, above referred to, 

 but the fact that this one per cent, would not find its way to 

 the public treasury causes our representatives to forget that 

 they are the servants of the people, and not the advocates of 

 the federal government, abstractedly a distinct body. Under 

 the sanction of fashion and scientific bedazzlement, they have 

 appropriated a much larger sum for improvements in the tel- 

 escope, as if the examination of the surfaces of other planets 

 was more important than a close understanding of the qual- 

 ities of our own. 



I have been requested in this address to refer particularly to 

 the cultivation of the Peach. It is true that New England is 

 not as well positioned in climate for the cultivation of the 

 peach as New Jersey, Delaware and some other States, and 

 hence the greater necessity for more exact cultivation, for with 

 it this crop may be grown in sufficient quantities for home 

 consumption and to prevent the necessity of import which is 

 now a large item in most of the Eastern States. The peach 

 tree where native (Persian) is of slow growth, producing a 

 hard texture and firm wood. With us it is an exotic, and as 

 such should be treated. The ordinary mode of raising peach 

 trees is to give them little or no care. They are taken from 

 the nursery rows in a deformed shape, consequent upon grow- 

 ing in a crowded nursery row, and placed without alteration 

 or amendment where they are intended to remain, usually in 

 holes only sufficiently large to admit the roots, with the assist- 

 ance occasionally of an uncouth pushing of the foot, planted 

 at a greater depth than that at which they grew, and suffered 

 to put out new growth from the ends of a few straggling 

 branches; so that, by the time they bear fruit, its weight on 

 the extreme end of long limbs, causes them to bend so as to 

 break off" at the tree, or by bending to close the capillary tubes 

 on the lower side of each branch, so as to prevent the flow of 

 pabulum for fruit making. After three or four years of strug- 

 gling they die, producing, in the interim, fruit of inferior quality 

 and of inconsiderable quantity. 



All this may be prevented by judicious treatment. In placing 

 the pit in the ground, don't bury, but insert, it, point down- 



