PEACH TREE BORDER DT LIGHT SOILS. 107 



soils may be well known, but I have not seen it de- 

 scribed by any gardening author. The idea has come 

 to me from observing peach trees, trained to walls, re- 

 fuse to do well in the light sandy soil forming a part 

 of my nursery, except near paths, and to grow and 

 do well for years in the stiff tenacious loam forming 

 another part. My bearing trees in pots, for which I 

 use tenacious loam and dung, rammed down with a 

 wooden pestle, also bear and flourish almost beyond 

 belief; and so I am induced to recommend that, in 

 light soils, the peach tree border should be made as 

 follows : — To a wall of moderate height, say nine or 

 ten feet, a border six feet wide, and to a wall twelve feet 

 high, one eight feet wide should be marked out ; if the 

 soil be poor and exhausted by cropping, or if it be an 

 old garden, a dressing of rotten dung ' and tenacious 

 loam, or clay, equal parts, five inches in thickness, 

 should be spread over the surface of the border : it 

 should then be stirred to two feet in depth, and the 

 loam and dung well mixed with the soil. The trees 

 may be planted during the winter, and in March, in 

 dry weather, the border all over its surface should be 

 thoroughly rammed down with a wooden rammer, so 

 as to make it like a well-trodden path; some light 

 half-rotten manure, say from one to two inches in 

 depth, may then be spread over it, and the operation 

 is complete. This border must never be stirred, ex- 

 cept with the hoe, to destroy weeds, and, of course, 

 never cropped : every succeeding , spring, in dry 

 weather, the ramming and dressing must be. repeated, 

 as the soil is always much loosened by frost. If this 



1 If the border be new or rich with manure, a dressing of the loam, or clav 

 only, four inches in thickness, "will be sufficient 



