240 



PEACK-TREE. 



the use of the knife ; a piece of wire will often answer the 

 purpose quite as well, and does not wound the bark." 



Mr. Wilson, of New York, in his Economy of the Kitchen 

 Garden^ Sic.j a valuable work, lately published, says, 

 " Grafting-clay, applied to the bark of trees, does not injure 

 the circulation, and, if the stems of peach-trees were en- 

 veloped with a thin coat of it, I am persuaded no worm 

 could hurt them. If properly prepared and applied, it ad- 

 heres to the stem, or any other part of a tree, with great 

 tenacity, until expanded and broken by the frosts and thaws 

 of winter. It is made in the following manner : — -Take 

 three parts of any kind of clay, free from stones, the stiffer 

 the better, one part of horse-dung, free from straws, and 

 one part of fresh, but not thin, cow-dung ; mix and incor- 

 porate the whole well together, adding a sufficient quantity 

 of water to render it of a consistency of good, stiff mortar ; 

 beat and work it thoroughly with the spade, till it becomes 

 as smooth and tough as putty. It will then be fit for ap- 

 plying round the stem of your tree, and should be neatly 

 clapped on it by the hands." 



The same writer attributes the degeneracy of peach-trees, 

 so far as it is real, to th/e cultivation of old sorts, and ob- 

 serves, that " Budding or grafting from old trees, upon new 

 ^stocks, raised from seed, although it is the means of afford- 

 ing a fresh supply of vigorous nourishment to the scion of 

 the old sort, which is to form a new tree, is still only a new 

 mode of the continuation of the same individual and 

 ?idvises, in substance, either to bud or graft from new^ sorts, 

 on seedling stocks, or to raise young trees from seedlings, 

 produced from seeds of healthy, young, or middle-aged 

 trees, which are not of a worn-out variety. 



Mr. Wilson, moreover, observes, Great mischief is fre^ 

 quently done by cutting off the tops of peach-trees, when 

 they are first set out. If they are furnished with good 

 heads, as they always ought to be, before they are taken 

 from the nursery, no other pruning should be given them at 

 setting out, except the moderate retrenching of any very 

 irregular shoots, and this should be done at the time the 

 buds begin to expand ; and the chief pruning they require 

 afterwards is, to keep their heads moderately open by cutr 

 ting out such branches as crowd upon or interfere with 

 each other." 



Mode of bearing, — " All the varieties of the peach and 

 nectarine bear the fruit upon the young wood of a year old ; 

 fag blossom buds rising immediately from the eyes of the 



