THE PEACH. 95 



The reasons given for this practice are that it is 

 more profitable to tax the trees to their utmost 

 while they are young and vigorous, and then 

 speedily to abandon them before they become en- 

 feebled by the " yellows." By proper culture and 

 judicious pruning the trees may be continued for 

 twenty, or even for forty years, and doubtless 

 even this period might be doubled, as it is in 

 France, with proper care to nourish and keep in 

 health. It is, however, a tree so easily produced 

 and so quick to come into bearing, that it is gen- 

 erally best to get the vigor of youth with every 

 decade. The law of rotation would also indicate 

 that a new location would yield advantages. 



Wood ashes are considered to be the best fer- 

 tilizer for the peach. They furnish the principal 

 elements of food required, and it is believed they 

 impart a vigor which enables the tree to resist the 

 disease known as "yellows." Professor Goess- 

 man mentions two forms of fertilizer in use at the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College. No. 1 con- 

 sists of rectified Peruvian guano, thirty pounds ; 

 dissolved bone-black, twenty-five pounds ; sul- 

 phate of potassa (Stassfurt salt, having twenty- 

 five to twenty-eight per cent, of potassium oxide), 

 thirty pounds; crude sulphate of magnesia 

 (kieserite), twenty pounds. This amount for 

 one tenth of an acre. No. 2 contains the same 



