THE SOUTHS UN PLANTER. 2A1 



small pieces of roots feeing used, and the tree 

 looks very well while young, but when transplant- 

 ed they £o not strike root freely, and they soon 

 become ^worthless. A thrifty) good apple or pear 

 tree can only be had when grafted or budded upon 

 an entire plant whose tap root has been shortened ; 

 it then will send out lateral roots and make a good 

 tree. There are also nurseries at the North where 

 there is honest dealing and good trees. When I 

 commenced planting apple trees in March, 1845, 

 not knowing of any nurseries in the State, I had to 

 send to Newark, N. J., for what I could not obtain 

 in Washington. I continued for the next two years 

 to plant from the nurseries at that place, and 

 better bearers or more thrifty trees I have never 

 seen here or elsewhere. I was awarded at the 

 first Annual Fair of the State Agricultural 

 Society, the premium for the largest and best 

 variety of apples, and if I attend this year, he 

 who takes the premium over me will deserve it. 

 I am collecting the finer varieties of Virginia 

 apples, and there are a great many fine ones, 

 mostly natural seedlings, which have a local 

 popularity, and I wish to bring them together and 

 compare them with my Northern varieties. I 

 should be happy to receive information of the best 

 local varieties, and will exchange grafts with any 

 orchardist or nurseryman in the State, I raise my 

 stocks from the seeds of the Denizen apple, which I 

 am told is a native of this county, and is only a good 

 cider apple, but the trees are remarkable for their 

 vigorous growth and longevity. I have nearly 

 one hundred varieties, Northern and Southern, 

 under experiment, and in the course of ten years 

 I hope to be able to decide which are the best 

 varieties for general cultivation. 



Your correspondent S., whose acquaintance I 

 doubtless made at Richmond in 1843, publishes a 

 recipe which he recommends as a remedy for the 

 peach worm. I think, however, if he applies this 

 remedy extensively, he will find that it will not 

 interfere much with the worm ; but as his prescrip- 

 tion imparts aitric acid and potash, chlorine and 

 soda to the soil, the vigor of his trees will be pro- 

 moted, and the effects of the worm overcome. 

 The simplest and best remedy that I have used to 

 destroy the worm is scalding water. For this 

 purpose, I have a small furnace, which I take by 

 hand through the orchard ■ w T hen I find where the 

 worms have colonized, I heat a tea kettle of water 

 over a charcoal fire, make a basin like cavity with 

 earth around the collar of the tree, and pour in 

 the boiling water. A little salt and tobacco may 

 be added. The application should never be made 

 in freezing weather, but in the spring or summer; 

 it does not in the least injure the tree ; in fact it 

 will restore its health and luxuriant growth. 



I have never seen a single case of the "yellows" 

 in this State, and what is termed so with us will, 

 without doubt, prove to be starvation. A neglect- 

 ed tree on exhausted soil 'will linger for a year or 

 two, inviting, as all diseased trees do. insects and 

 other enemies, and finally die, but?tiot of the 

 yellows; that is a very different disease, often 

 attacking a whole orchard under good culture. To 

 keep this dreadful malady from extending within 

 our borders, should be a leading consideration with 

 every fruit culturist. With care it can be done. 

 Let nurserymen never raise two crops of trees in 

 succession on the same ground. They should 

 plant no kernels except from hardy, healthy young 

 seedling trees, and never from a yellow variety. 



The yellow peaches are more liable to over-bear- 

 ing and to disease than the pale-fleshed sorts, and 

 indeed it would be to the interest of the peach 

 grower to discontinue planting yellow peaches as 

 much as possible. If it be desirable to keep a 

 few for the sake of number and variety, the 

 following are the best, having regard to the excel- 

 lence of the fruit and habit of the trees. Free- 

 stones : Crawford's Early, Crawford's Late, Yellow 

 Rareripe, Smock. Clingstones ; Kennedy's Caro- 

 lina, or Lemon Cling-stones, Tippecanoe, and 

 Algiers, or Yellow Preserving. To these, for a 

 good collection, may be added : Palc-fieshed— 

 Freestones : Walter's Early, Coles Early, Chan- 

 cellor, Oldmixon-free, Large Early York, Grosse 

 Mignonne, or Royal Kensington, La Grange, Presi- 

 dent. Clingstones: Old Newington, Oldmixon, 

 Rodman's Red, Heath. 



The Columbia, sometimes called the Georgia 

 peach, and in that State the Indian peach, is a 

 slow growing, long lived variety, and deserves a 

 place in everj collection. There are other 

 peaches of merit, such as the Early Tillotson, 

 Druid Hill, Morris Red Rareripe, Haines' Early 

 and George IV, (if true,) which may be cultivated 

 as market peaches. Out of upwards of fifty varie- 

 ties by name in my orchards, the above are all 

 that I think really worthy of general cultivation. 

 Those that I omit to mention, though good, ripen 

 with the above and have no special quality to 

 recommend them. In Our genial soil and climate 

 the peach is so easily raised, and all are so flue that 

 it is a hard task to say what should be excluded 

 from an orchard. I can name but three which I 

 w r ould condemn to banishment, .viz : Red Cheek 

 Melocoton, Morris' White, and Kenrick's Heath ; 

 and yet these are popular market fruits. There 

 are many accidental seedlings, having a local popu- 

 larity and fanciful names, to be found on some 

 catalogues, but I cannot say that it would be 

 desirable to extend their cultivation. I have 

 raised several myself, slightly varying from the 

 parent tree, but while we keep the originals free 

 from deterioration there seems to be very little 

 propriety in bringing forward a brood of seedlings. 

 The peach obeys the same general law that 

 influence all other vegetables. If fertilized by 

 the pollen of another variety we may expect a 

 cross breed, yet in a majority of cases there will 

 be a decline in the merits of the fruits. Winds 

 and insects scatter the pollen of the peach, as is 

 done with different varieties of corn, melons and 

 other annual plants growing in close proximity, 

 causing them to mix. It can be artificially per- 

 formed, as was done by Mr. Knight, President of 

 the London Horticultural Society, to whose skill 

 in cross budding we are indebted for some of our 

 best fruits. There are some varieties of peaches, 

 the Columbia, Oldmixon Cling and the Heath, in 

 particular, whose individual character is so 

 strongly impressed upon them that they appear to 

 refuse a union with others, and hence they will in a 

 majority of cases reproduce themselves from their 

 own kernels. The Heath has been in my father's 

 family for more than sixty years, grown all the 

 time from the seed. In Georgia, Tennessee and 

 Arkansas, where he cultivated it, it is called the 

 "English peach." from the circumstance that Col. 

 Hamilton, who is mentioned in Lee's memoirs as 

 an officer in the revolutionary war, and afterwards 

 Consul at Norfolk, having brought stones of this 

 peach from Scotland, distributed them among his 



