CULTIVATION. 



The peach of all the fruits has for the last fifty 

 years made better return for good and careful cul- 

 tivation and labor expended, than all the other 

 fruits for market purposes within reach of our 

 northern cities. It will pay better than any crop on 

 the farm and from my experience nothing I believe 

 will pay the farmer better for the money and labor 

 expended than its cultivation. The idea is preva- 

 lent at the North that in the healthy districts in 

 Maryland and the South the tree springs up and 

 without culture or care grows up and flourishes in 

 health and productiveness for almost an indefinite 

 period, but this is a mistake, as the apple and other 

 fruits which we see there running into old age have 

 had their culture in the rotation of field crops and 

 if standing in gardens they have had their annual 

 culture incidentally with the cultivation of the 

 flowering plants and vegetables. Under these cir- 

 cumstances we see these old relics of a past century 

 from three up to seven feet in circumference of 

 body, and two to two and a half feet around in 

 limbs, still responding faithfully in good crops of 

 fruit almost yearly for the little care bestowed upon 

 them. Many of them through a long life of sacred 



