210 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
such situations, if free from frosts in the blooming, 
and setting of the fruit season, with sufficient 
warmth of atmosphere, and a suitable soil, they 
may be raised, either for family supply or market. 
In such positions, they require extraordinary 
culture, pruning and training, which must all be 
taken into account for profitable production, and 
these determined, they can be produced at plea¬ 
sure. 
SOIL AND POSITION. 
A naturally warm, quick, dry soil, with a po¬ 
rous, well-drained bottom, to take away all falling 
water, is indispensably necessary for the peach. 
It will not bear standing water, or a damp soil, 
and, therefore, land requiring under-drains is 
scarcely favorable to its growth, unless the drains 
be quite close together, as it often takes too 
much time for the falling rains and melting snows 
to escape, for the health and benefit of the tree. 
It does not matter so much what the composition 
of the soil may be, whether a stiff clay, or a 
light loam, or leechy gravel, if it possess the 
proper food of the plant. We have seen equally 
good peaches on all these soils, where the drain¬ 
age was complete. Very rich land is not impor¬ 
tant. A secondary, or middling quality, sufficient¬ 
ly good for ordinary crops, is rich enough, and 
many soils, much too poor lor these, frequently 
produce the peach in high peifection, like the 
hungry lands of New Jersey, scarce fit for any¬ 
thing else, where, although short-lived, it yields a 
profitable crup. 
PLANTING. 
The land should be prepared by a thorough, 
and deep plowing, to perfect mellowness ; the 
holes dug sufficiently large, the roots well planted, 
and the young wood cut back, as directed in the 
books. If the intermediate land, not occupied by 
the trees, be required for root crops, or beans the 
first year, it may be so cultivated, but afterwards 
no crop of any kind should interfere with them. 
The trees may be in rows, from fifteen to twenty 
feet apart, each way, and plowed between the rows 
two or three times during the Summer, and kept 
free of weeds, particularly near the trees. A 
bush, or shrub shape should be given to the trees, 
by letting them branch near the ground, both for 
convenience in picking the fruit, and pruning the 
wood, as is best dene by annually shortening in 
the terminal branches to half the length of the 
previous year’s growth. They are thus protected 
from injury by high winds, and severe exposure 
to sun and cold, operating on their otherwise long 
and naked branches. Manures may be added, or 
not, as the nature or the conditim of the soil may 
demand, and those manures may consist of ashes, 
lime, marl, compost, barn, or street manure, or ar¬ 
tificial compounds, as may be most available. In 
thin, old, and worn soils the trees may last five 
to ten years, while in new or fertile grounds they 
will remain double, or treble those periods. We 
now know trees thirty years old, in constant bear¬ 
ing, and promising many years of vigorous life to 
come. The peach is a gross feeder, and rapidly 
exhausts the soil on which it stands ; and when it 
finally fails, a few years of renovating culture 
with other crops should be adopted before the 
land be again devoted to their occupation 
DISPOSITION OF THE FRUIT. 
Where peaches will net half a dollar a bushel, 
or more, at the tree, or on the farm, an immediate 
sale of the crop is by far the most profitable; 
and at that price, where readily grown, they afford 
a large profit. If a market be not at hand, cutting 
and drying them as soon as they begin to ripen, 
is men oest purpose. This is best done by cut¬ 
ting them into quarters, throwing out the stone, 
spreading them on wire screens, and placing them 
in drying houses, or ovens, warmed by fire heat, 
so as to cure them in twenty-four hours. A long 
flue, inclosed in a brick wall, and arch, with 
a door to enter it, and the screens laid on 
iron racks within, in tiers, is the best. When tho¬ 
roughly dried, they may be either put into sacks 
or barrels, when they are ready for market. The 
price of choice dried peaches is always high, and 
the market can scarcely be overstocked with 
them. It is hardly necessary to say, that for 
drying, as well as for fresh eating, none but the 
choice kinds should be cultivated, as they are 
enough better, both in quality and price, to pay 
the small extra expense in their purchase, or the 
trouble of budding them. The common, late, 
sour, frost peaches are not worth cultivation. 
For swine feeding, or distilling, perhaps, the 
peach can hardly be recommended as a paying 
crop, yet the surplus of very productive orchards 
are frequently devoted to these secondary purpos¬ 
es, so that none need be wasted. With the pres¬ 
ent facilities of railroads, and steamboat com¬ 
munication, together with the increasing disposi¬ 
tion and ability of our population throughout the 
country to consume them, the peach culture, 
wherever they thrive successfully, may be almost 
indefinitely and advantageously extended. 
VARIETIES. 
Of these we have little to say, other than that 
those which are best adapted to the soil, climate, 
and market should be chosen. The peach is es¬ 
pecially a warm weather fruit, and, therefore, the 
earliest are usually the most remunerative in 
price, according to quantity ; while hardihood, 
steadiness in bearing, quantity and quality, all 
are to be considered in the bulk of the crop at 
large. The red, white and yellow rare-ripes, ear¬ 
ly York, and Crawford's early and late Melocoton, 
are, although scarce equal in flavor to some oth¬ 
ers, perhaps the most popular and profitable of 
all in the Northern markets. Those who pro¬ 
pose going into peach culture, will soon get “ the 
hang ” of this branch of their pursuit; and with 
a well devised plan, and thorough attention to all 
the details, they can scarce fail in their object. 
Every man who has a garden where tbe peach 
will grow, should cultivate them for his own fa¬ 
mily use ; for, as a tea-table luxury, a dish of 
pared, cut, and sugared peaches has no rival 
among the fruits. 
Summer Fruits. 
We are now getting into Midsummer, and its 
varieties of the smaller fruits, as currants, cher¬ 
ries, raspberries, blackberries, huckleberries, to 
say nothing of green apples and other tarts. Straw¬ 
berries have already passed by, with their attend¬ 
ant luxuries of cream and sugar, leaving, as the 
only sorrowful memorial of their season, that it 
would not last forever! Since rhubarb has be¬ 
come so common and cheap in our gardens and 
markets, green currants, as the material for tarts, 
has been mostly superceded ; and well that it is 
so, as rhubarb is much the better and more 
convenient article. Yet the currant, in full ripe¬ 
ness, as a tea-table dessert, for pies and puddings, 
is a valuable contribution to the table. In drinks, 
its expressed juice makes a delicious shrub, with 
the addition of sugar. The white is the most 
delicate for tea-table uses, or, mixed with the red, 
which adds piquancy to the flavor ; both are de¬ 
licious. To make them perfect in this disposition 
of them, they should be picked in the morning 
soon after breakfast, stemmed, washed clean, and 
drained. Then put them into the table dish, and 
sprinkle white powdered sugar freely over them, 
cover closely, and Ft them stand till the table ia 
set. By that time the sugar will have dissolved, 
and percolated through them into a delicious trea¬ 
cle, and no Havana sweetmeat is comparable 
to this simple dish of sugared currants. 
Currants will, in a good season, hang on the 
bush in perfection for a month or six weeks. 
They should be largely cultivated by every coun¬ 
try family, as no fruit of the season is more con¬ 
venient, economical, or healthy as an every-day 
table luxury. But, to be eaten with impunity, 
they should be fully ripe, which is readily indicated 
by their transparancy, and full, plump appearance. 
The other Summer fruits we have named are 
used in pretty much the same way as currants. 
Cherries are ripe about the same time, and are 
equally nutricious and wholesome, either raw or 
cooked. Some people swallow the stone with 
the pulp. This is a bad practice. It passes the 
stomach undigested, obstructs the digestive 
glands, and we have known serious bowel dis¬ 
eases as the consequence. When cooked in pie 
or pudding they should always be stoned in ad¬ 
vance, as well as for drying. 
Raspberries are good—any way. The pulp is 
so soft that they need no preparation for the table 
other than sugar—sometimes not that. For tarts, 
pies and puddings they are delicious, and for a 
shrub in warm weather drinks, nothing can be 
more grateful to the palate, or to quench the 
thirst. 
Blackberries are the only astringent Summer 
fruits of the berries, and, when well ripe, may be 
eaten with much advantage by both children and 
adults addicted to bowel complaints. They are 
simple, and nourishing to the system, grateful to 
the stomach, and sweet to the taste—well ripened, 
of course. For all edible uses they go with the 
raspberries, and where not abounding wild should 
be liberally cultivated. 
The huckleberry, wherever grown, is so general 
a favorite that a recommendation of its virtues is 
scarcely needed. It is, perhaps, in its many va¬ 
rieties, the sweetest and best of all our berries. 
With bread and milk, what luxury so grateful to 
children, and what better for adults 1 Even while 
writing of them our memory gloats over our boy¬ 
hood days of the huckleberry season ! Every, 
any, all ways, the huckleberry is an unadulterated, 
unalloyed luxury. 
Parents, indulge yourselves and your children 
all that you can in the ripe, choice, Summer 
fruits. 
Mandrake or May Apple—Cultivation. 
On page 154, May number, it was asked whether 
any one had tried cultivating the common Man¬ 
drake (podophyllum pellatum) to ascertain whether 
it would be thus improved in the size and quality 
of the fruit. W. Day, of Morristown, N. J., 
writes: “ Some years ago I removed a few plants 
from the woods to my garden, where they grew 
and did well. They have had good garden culture 
ever since, but I cannot perceive that the cultiva¬ 
tion is of any benefit to them. My father, an 
aged man of 84 years, was pleased with them, and 
they have been nourished on his account. The 
only advantage I could ever perceive was, that 
the fruit could be allowed to get ripe, while in the 
woods the boys could take them off green." 
--•-*-- 
A bankrupt friend of ours was condoled with 
the other day for his embarrasment. “ Oh, I am 
not embarrassed, at all,” said he : “ It is my cre¬ 
ditors that are embarrassed.” 
