No. 129.) 309 



last year, received as mach fruit in one day as London did in a 

 week — not equal to our peaches of one day. 



Chairman — ^They cannot so well afford to buy fruit as we can. 



Professor Mapes. — The truth is that our people eat too much. 

 Many gormandise on it. We have also many poor peaches 

 brought in. The valuable crops are, for a short time, from an 

 orchard. These are worth two dollars a basket, while the resi- 

 due are really not worth two shillings — better thrown away than 

 brought here. Peach trees can as well last fifty years as five. 

 They do in India and become hard wood. Shorten the head of 

 the tree, when young, until you have nearly made a walking 

 stick of it. Make its head like a horse chestnut* tree, round. I 

 have one that has a fine round head; it is about twenty-five years 

 of age. It had stood where horses bit it freely; it has a round 

 head. % 



Judge Van Wyck. — There are said to be at the South sone 

 peach trees of one hundred years of age. 



* 



Professor Mapes. — From the pit. But not one scarcely ia a 

 thousand are good for any thing. Harker^s seedling is a yeiy 

 remarkable one — one of the best peaches known. This tree has 

 been almost denuded by the multitude of grafts taken from it. 

 The fruit is yellow on one^side, the other fine red. 



Professor Mapes proposed as the next subject — " Root crops, 

 their culture and uses." 



George Dickey. — Add ''the best mode of collecting and pw- 

 serving seeds.^' Adopted, 



The Chairman suggested the propriety of taking into socoimf: 

 the age of the tree from which w© take grafts or buds. 



Tb« Club then adjourned. 



H= MEIGS, S$oreiary, 



