■■• ■ -is 



1864:. 



THE ILLINOIS FAKMER. 



119 



amount of printing for the returned veteran regi- 

 ments. It will thus be seen that the enrollment 

 lists, the printers* "strike" and the blanks and oth- 

 er printing for the veteran regiments took prece- 

 dence, and the Farmer came out last. These diflS- 

 culties are now happily out of the way, and the 

 Farmer will soon be again on time. At the best, it 

 is difficult to keep up to time, from the fact that 

 the editor is ninety miles distant from the office of 

 publication, and as it must be more or less of a 

 guess in regard to copy, it requires some days to 



make up the deficit of a short guess. — Ed. 



•o* 



Peach Trees in Egypt. 



Dr. N. C. Meeker, of Dongola, Illinois, writes as 

 follows to the Farmers' Club, of the American In- 

 stitute, New York : 



"I report to the Fruit Growers' Club the condi- 

 tion the peach trees have been left in by the cold 

 weather here in Southern Illinois, where orchards 

 of this fruit have been planted on an extensive 

 scale, the largest being over a hundred acres. — 

 Some parties were preparing to plant, this coming 

 spring, from 10,000 to 50,000 trees, and others 

 very many smaller lots At first I paid no attention 

 to my trees, and, though I heard that every tre«> in 

 the county was killed, I did not believe a word of 

 it. Not long ago, I saw a trustworthy fruit agent, 

 who had been continually travelling ; he informed 

 me that if I would closely examine my trees, or any 

 others all through this country, I would change my 

 opinion. On cutting into the bark of young and 

 old, thrifty and unihrifty, I find the bark and wood 

 of the same color — that of wood which has long 

 been soaked in oil ; and this to within three or four 

 inches of the ground. I have several hundred 

 peach trees set out last spring, which were budded 

 the fall previous — which, by the way, is the best 

 way to plant this tree where they are moved but a 

 short distance ; they were well cultivated and made 

 a fine growth ; these are in the same condition, 

 and, though we budded them very low, it will be a 

 pretty tight squeeze for buds to start on the wood 

 of the old bud. Trees of this kind show the best 

 chance, and I should say all others are killed. It 

 is likely they will sprout from the roots, and can 

 be budded again, but it is thought they will have 

 60 rank a growth that the buds will be in danger 

 of breaking off. More than this, the frost blight 

 appears to be working downward, for it was gene- 

 rally reported that the trees were all safe below the 

 snow line ; the fact is, they are blighted at least 

 ten inches below the snow line. They are wither- 

 ing day by day, and what seemed so thrifty during 

 and just after the snow look as if only fit to be cut 

 away and burned. Here we are, then, with our 

 grand, semi-tropical cotton and peach climate, 

 with a probable prospect of not seeing a peach for 

 three years. But I am not much disappointed, I 

 never had the peach fever very badly. Strawber- 

 ries have been my hobby. But we must keep try- 

 ing." 



— It would appear by the above that the Dr. takes 



a rather doleful look of the subject. We think he 

 is worse scared than hurt, as most of the trees we 



think will recover, especially all the young trees. 

 It is probable that many of the old trees that bore 

 full crops last year are dead. 



If ational Farms and Garden. 



Washington, D. C, March 10, 1864. 

 M. L. Dunlap, Esq., Dear Sir : 



I am exceedingly obliged to you for your kind- 

 ness in transmitting a copy of your periodical to 

 my address. 



I propose trying various cotton seeds this spring, 

 but our grounds are entirely too limited for the 

 purposes of comparative experiment. We desire 

 to have facilities for growing specimens of every 

 kind of fruit, grain and vegetable, so that we can 

 describe them accurately, establish synonyms* 

 throw out useless varieties — ^in short, do for the 

 fiirm and vegetable garden what pomolgis*s have 

 done and are doing for fruits. But we want a farm 

 of a hundred acres, instead of a garden of five 

 acres as at present. 



Yours very respectfully, 



William Sacndkbs. 



— The above letter from Mr. Saunders, Superin- 

 tendent of the government gardens at Washington, 

 is just to the point, and in a few words describes 

 what we need 



Many people suppose the object of these gardens 

 and the contemplated farm is to get up a model 

 farm and garden, but such is not the case. They 

 are needed for experiment in testing new plants 

 grown East and for the purpose of settling the val- 

 ue and nomenclature of the older or imperfectly 

 known specimens. — Ed. 



^m* ■ 



How to Grow Peaches every year. 



An article is going the rounds of the papers, from 

 a correspondent of the Ohio Cultivator, which, if 

 followed, it is asserted, will insure a crop of peach- 

 es every year, beyound a peradventure, bidding de- 

 fiance to all the usual casualties to which this de- 

 licious fruit is subject. The whole secret of the af- 

 fair is summed up in the following: "Procure 

 your trees grafted on the wild plum stock. 

 The tree partakes of the nature of the plum, being 

 hardy, and will never winter kill, and putting out 

 late in the spring, will- never be injured by frost. It 

 is also a certain preventative against the workings 

 of the peach grub, while the natural life time of 

 the tree is beyond that of our own ; so you may de- 

 pend on peaches every year, and for a long period 

 of time, without the destructive and discouraging 

 influences attending the growth of the common 

 peach. 



There is the mystery of the whole matter in a 

 nut-shell. Perhaps, if the said correspondent had 

 lived forty years ago, he might have heard the 

 same doctrine preached and practiced from to a 

 very considerable extent in some parts of the couil. 



