170 



THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 



[Cfiap 



likely to stand twice as long yet to come. It is 

 now growing in the garden of the late Mr. James 

 Paul, in Lower Dublin Township ; and there any 

 one may see it. — It is clear to me, therefore, that 

 the short life of the peach-orchards is owing to the 

 stock being" peach. No small part of the peach- 

 trees are raised /rom the stone. Nothing is more 

 frequent than to see a farmer, or his wife, when he 

 or she has eaten a good peach, go and make a little 

 hole and put the stone in the ground, in order to 

 have a peach tree of the same sort ! Not consider- 

 ing, that the stone never, except by mere accident^ 

 produces fruit of the same quality as that within 

 which it was contained, any more than the seed of 

 a carnation produces flowers like those from which 

 they proceeded. — The peaches in America are, 

 when budded, put on peach-stocks ; and this, I 

 think, is the cause of their swift decay. They 

 should be put on plum-stocks ; for, to what other 

 cause are we to ascribe the long life and vigorous 

 .state of the Nectarine at Mr. Paul's ? The plum is 

 a closer and harder wood than the peach. The 

 peach-trees are destroyed by a worm,, or, rather, a 

 sort of maggot, that eats into the hark at the stem. 

 The insects do not like the plum bark ; and, be- 

 sides, the plum is a more hardy and vigorous tree 

 than the peach, and, observe, it is frequently, and 

 most frequently, the feebleness, or sickliness, of the 

 tree that creates the insects, and not the insects 

 that create the feebleness and sickliness. There 

 are thousands of peach trees in England and 

 France that sue fifty years old, and that are still in 

 vigorous fruitfulness. There is a good deal in cZz- 

 mate, to be sure ; but, I am convinced, that there 

 is a great deal in the stock, — Before I quit the sub- 

 ct of stocks, let me beg the reader never, if he 



