58G 



THE PEACH. 



in the colder parts of the country, where it does not succeed well as a 

 standard. Everywhere in New England excellent crops may be pro- 

 duced in this way. Full directions for training the peach en espalier 

 and cordon, with illustrations, are given in pages 42 and 43. 



Cordon or low fan training is practised by some cultivators at the 

 North, and in sections where the crop of the peach is uncertain by reason 

 of extreme cold in winter or late spring frosts destroying the buds. 

 When the cordons or low fans are kept within one to two feet from the 

 ground the trees may be readily protected in winter by covering with 

 corn-stalks, straw, or brush of evergreens. 



Insects and Diseases. For a considerable time after the peach was 

 introduced into America, it was grown everywhere south of the 40° of 

 latitude, we may say literally, without cultivation. It was only necessary 

 to plant a stone in order to obtain in a few years, and for a long time, 

 an abundance of fruit. Very frequently these chance seedlings were of 

 excellent quality, and the finer grafted varieties were equally luxuriant. 

 Two maladies have appeared within the last twenty years, which, because 

 they are little understood, have rendered this fine fruit-tree compara- 

 tively short-lived and of little value. These are the Peach-borer and 

 the Yellows. 



The Peach-borer or Peach-worm (^Egeria exitiosa, Say) does great 

 mischief to this tree by girdling and devouring the whole circle of bark 

 just below the surface of the ground, when it soon languishes and 

 dies. 



The insect in its perfect state is a slender, dark-blue, four-winged 

 moth, somewhat like a wasp. It commences depositing its eggs in the 

 soft and tender bark at the base of the trunk, usually about the last of 

 June, but at different times from June to October. The egg hatches 

 and becomes a small white borer or grub, which eventually grows to three- 

 fourths of an inch long, penetrates and devours the bark and sap wood, 

 and, after passing the winter in the tree, it enfolds itself in a cocoon 

 under or upon the bark, and emerges again in a perfect or winged form 

 in June, and commences depositing its eggs for another generation. 



It is not difficult to rid our trees of this enemy. In fact, nothing is 

 easier to him who is willing to devote a few moments every season to 

 each tree. The eggs which produce the borer, it will be recollected, 

 are deposited in the soft portion of bark, just at the surface of the 

 earth. Experience has conclusively proved that if a quantity of leached 

 ashes, charcoal, or even common soil, be heaped to the height of one foot 

 around the trunk of each tree at the end of May, and suffered to remain 

 till October, the peach-borer will not attack it. It has been tried most 

 successfully in large orchards, where the protected trees have long re- 

 mained sound, while those unprotected have been speedily destroyed by 

 the borer. The remedy undoubtedly lies chiefly in covering the most 

 vulnerable portion of the tree from the attack of the insect. These 

 mounds or heaps of earth, ashes, etc., should be spread over the surface 

 every autumn on approach of winter, thus exposing the larvae of the in- 

 sect, if any have entered the tree, to cold and destruction. 



Another simple remedy is in spring to first draw away a little earth 

 from the crown of the tree, then wrap the body up, one foot from the 

 ground, with strong coarse paper, securing it with tying, and replace 

 the earth. 



Many careful and rigid cultivators prefer a regular examination of 



