THE PEACH. 283 



"i'.^irtg peaches. Dried peaches are likely to constitute 

 an important article of commerce. The comparative cheap- 

 ness of the crop in this country, the ease and safety of 

 transportation in this form, and the great value of the dried 

 fruit when the finest sorts are used, cannot fail to increase 

 the demand for them. For the most perfect success, the 

 following are requisite : 1. The richest, high-flavored sorts 

 -^-for unpalatable seedlings, so commonly used, can never 

 be good, fresh or dried. 2. In drying by fire-heat, a free 

 circulation is essential to carry off the air loaded with the 

 moisture. A neglect of this is the reason that open air dry- 

 ing is usually so much the best. 3. A support of netting 

 made of small well-twisted twine stretched on frames, over 

 which the fruit is spread, and through which the air will 

 pass freely. These may constitute shelves to a room 

 heated by fire. 



INSECTS AND DISEASES. 



Peach trees are liable to injury and destruction from two 

 causes, the worm or borer, and the yellows. 



The Peach-worm or borer, (^Egeria exitiosa,) cuts into the 

 bark (never into the wood,) just below the surface of the 

 ground, and if badly or wholly girdled, the tree languishes 

 or dies. Its presence is indicated by the exudation of gum 

 at the root, mixed with excrementitious matter resembling 

 saw dust. It is very easily destroyed by scraping away the 

 earth at the foot of the trunk, and following the worm to 

 the end of its hole with a knife, beneath the thin shell of 

 bark under cover of which it extends its depredations. If 

 an orchard is thus examined once in spring and once in 

 early summer, few will escape. But to exclude the insect, 

 as a means of prevention, heap round each tree half a peck 

 of air-slaked lime or ashes, in spring, allowing it to remain 

 till autumn, when, spread beneath the tree, it forms a good 

 manure. This remedy, in many cases, has proved quite 

 effectual. It will in all cases lessen the labor of examina- 

 tion with the knife. 



The perfect insect of the peach worm, fig. 234, a, is a 

 four-winged moth, much resembling in form a wasp, but 

 totally distinct, and in its character and habits closely allied 

 to the butterfly and miller. It deposits from early in sum- 



