.( 124 ) 



PEACHES. 



The preferable soil for a Peach orchard is a rich sancty 

 loam, but this fruit will succeed in any soil with proper at- 

 tention to cultivation and manuring ; particiilar care, how- 

 ever, should be taken not to plant a new orchard on the site 

 ©fan old one. It may be necessary also to remark, that the 

 ground where they are planted should be kept in a constant 

 jjtate of cultivation, as they become bark-bound and unthrifty 

 the second year after the grass has formed a sod around 

 them. There are two causes which have operated against 

 the success of this tree, and which seem peculiar to it — the 

 one is a worm which attacks the tree at the root, near the 

 surface of the ground, and often totally encircles it ; the 

 uther is a disease usually denominated the Yellows, 



The Worm, — The most proper course to obviate the de- 

 predations of the worm, is to examine the trees every spring 

 7^'^Ci autumn, and to make an application of a mixture of 

 fresh cow dung and clay to the wounds which have been 

 made by them. Lime or ashes thrown around the roots of 

 Peach Trees are found to prevent, in a great measure, the 

 depredations of the worm. 



Yellows, — This disease, which commenced its ravages in 

 New- Jersey and Pennsylvania about the year 1797, and in 

 New-York in 1801, and has spread through several of the 

 slates, is by far more destructive to Peach Trees than the 

 worm, and is evidently contagious. This disease is spread at 

 the time when the trees are in bloom, and is disseminated by 

 the pollen or farina blowing from the flowers of diseased 

 ' trees, and impregnating the flowers of those which are 

 healthy, and which is quickly circulated by the sap through 

 the branches, foliage, and fruit, causing the fruit, wherever 

 the infection extends, to ripen prematurely. That this dis- 

 ease is entirely distinct from the ivorm^ is sufficiently proved 

 by the circumstance, that Peach Trees which have been in- 

 oculated on Plum or Almond stocks, though seldotii affected 

 by the nvorm^ are equally subject to the yellows — and a deci- 

 sive proof of its being contagious is, that a healthy tree, in- 

 oculated from a branch of a diseased one, instead of being re- 

 stored to vigour and he;?lth,immediately becomes itiself infected 

 with the' disease. As all efforts totally to subdue it must re- 

 quire a long course of time, the best n^ethod to pursue to- 

 wards its eventual eradication, is to stop its progress, and 

 prevent its farther extension — to accomplish which, the foi- 



