REMARKS ON FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES. 261 



care and cultivation. Some set out their trees, and there leave 

 Ihern ; but an orchard requires as much attention as a corn- 

 field. Mr. Rice had sent his fruit abroad for a market, and the 

 average return had been above the price of Boston market. 

 Such was the demand for American fruit, that cultivators need 

 not fear that the market will ever be overstocked. 



Major Wheeler, of Framingham, thought, that the best rem- 

 edy for the yellows was careful cultivation — that bad cultiva- 

 tion caused them. The peach is a great bearer, and thrives 

 vigorously for a time ; and then it is neglected, until disease has 

 firmly seated itself. He did not doubt, that proper attention 

 would ensure, to this tree, a long life in this country. In 

 France, peach trees, a hundred years old, bear excellent fruit. 



The cause of the destruction of the peach bud was extreme 

 cold weather, and not warm and cold weather, immediately 

 succeeding each other. Observations, extended through a long 

 series of years, had convinced him that this was the case. It 

 "was well known, that it is colder upon low, marshy grounds, 

 than upon the hills ; the buds of the peach growing upon the 

 hills have not been injured, while those of the peach growing 

 in the immediate neighborhood, on low lands, have been entirely 

 destroyed. The hill sides formed the best site for a peach or- 

 chard. 



For forty years. Major Wheeler had cultivated the apple tree, 

 and had never been troubled with the borer. He was accus- 

 tomed to wash his trees in a strong lye — say, two pounds of 

 potash to a pailful of water. The caterpillar, he destroyed with 

 the brush and the hand. He did not stake his trees, when set- 

 ting them out ; did not water them ; and did not use litter, al- 

 though it was undoubtedly very good as a fertilizer. He dug a 

 hole two feet deep, and some five or six in circumference — placed 

 a good tree from a good nursery in it, and seldom lost a tree, 

 from transplanting. 



In answer to a question. Major Wheeler said, that the buds of 

 his peach trees were nearly all destroyed. Those of his neigh- 

 bors, upon higher and more favorable ground, he had not exam- 

 ined. He had ascertained, that, when the thermometer sank as 

 low as ten degrees below zero, the buds were generally killed. 



