150 THE PEACH. 



poor tree is cursed for not being what it can not be, because it is forced to stand in a lean 

 soil and bear the peltings of storms and winds without protection and without nutriment. 

 We are apt to think that inanimate beings may be left to shift for themselves. We fear 

 there may not be a due degree of sympathy for these beings : yes, sympathy, even for 

 inanimate beings, and we fear that where this is really wanting, we might reasonably 

 expect that those persons will neglect their cattle, starve their sheep, and drive their 

 horses unmercifully. 



But the subject of fruit culture is getting to be understood. Read the books published 

 by the elder and younger Thomas and the Downings, and all who reflect will see that a 

 better day has risen upon fruit culture. 



It is supposed, and even maintained and practiced upon, that a light, sandy soil is best 

 for the peach. There is probably an error in this view of the matter ; and it is undoubtedly 

 favored by the fact that the tree can live, and produce much and very good fruit, under 

 these circumstances. When, however, we take into consideration, that the peach is shorter 

 lived when planted in a light soil, and that it must necessarily take from the soil a large 

 amount of those matters which constitute the wood, foliage and fruit, we must of necessity 

 come to the conclusion that the soil in which the tree stands becomes exhausted, and it 

 becomes first feeble for want of nutriment and finally perishes from starvation. Very little 

 of true economy is put in practice when the peach is cultivated on a large scale. The or- 

 chardist is too prone at least to act upon the supposition that, as the tree is short lived it is 

 necessary to obtain the most from it ; and hence, allows it to bear exhausting crops, and 

 that without a thought of giving to his orchard nutriment. Hence premature old age comes 

 on. This view of the subject appears the more natural when we find peach trees growing in 

 a better soil and where annual supplies of nutriment are furnished they attain a great age, as 

 in a garden or standing near dwellings, where both nutriment and protection from winds are 

 furnished. The idea that a light soil — and I mean by a light soil one which is poor in the 

 earthy and alkaline phosphates and other mineral matters — is adapted to any fruit tree, is 

 entirely fallacious. It is here that it maintains, it is true, an existence ; it lives, but it is 

 precluded from permanent fruit bearing, because the essential elements of all fruits come from 

 the soil. There are, it is true, certain plants adapted to a most meagre soil, as the lichen 

 upon the rock, or the cuticle of a tree ; others maintain an existence in clefts of rocks upon 

 high mountains, just below the limit of perpetual snow ; but in these cases there is a con- 

 stitutional adaptation to circumstances. The plants appear necessarily stinted ; climate, 

 however, is the controling element in these cases. No time is given for the growth of 

 foliage, which indicates a rich soil, and the functions of the plant are limited to the produc- 

 tion of seed in a capsule, which is sessile upon the earth. Whatever may be true of certain 

 thorn-bearing shrubs and alpine plants is certainly not true of fruit-bearing trees. We 

 may take a lesson on fruit raising from the whortleberry. This fine shrub, with its delicate 

 fruit, springs up in soils where the alkalies abound ; but as soon as these are measurably 

 exhausted it ceases to yield supplies of fruit, and in a few years the plant itself dies out, 



