AND ITS DISEASE. 23 



Chester, then a fair market even for foreign peaches, 

 upon which we were depending, that it would be 

 the best scheme for me to plant this land in peach 

 trees, which, if successful, would give me a double 

 advantage ; first, by improving the land, and giving 

 a crop of fruit for the market. In a proper routine 

 of peach culture yearly, poor or medium land 

 greatly improves; plowing down the weeds and 

 stuff that springs up in thj summer, with the foli- 

 age of the trees in the fall, is almost equal to a 

 light coat of manure. Having fully determined on 

 this course, against the ridicule of some and the 

 remonstrance of other friends, with the old stereo- 

 typed declaration. u You can't raise peaches in Ches- 

 ter county," backed up by directing my attention 

 to the hundreds of skeleton trees, dead and dying, 

 about the yards and gardens of the town, and 

 around the dwellings of the neighborhood, I went 

 to work. All this was no terror t:> me, as I had 

 seen it all in my younger days, in Upper Dela- 

 ware, and I had enquired into the cause of it. If 

 you want healthy peaches, do not plant your trees 

 about a farm house, or in a farm garden, if it is an 

 old one, unless you know of a proper system of 

 renovation ; for peach trees have been planted there 

 from time immemorial, and in planting young trees, 

 as many do every year or two, and on the very 

 graves of a dozen predecessors, all of whom have 

 died in rapid succession with the yellows, leaving 

 the ground filled with the seeds of the disease, to 



