88 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, May 12, 1857. 
THE PEACH TREE. 
(Continued from par/e 71.) 
PLANTING. 
For a new plantation we lay out a border 
at the foot of the wall five feet six inches to 
six feet six inches in breadth, according to 
our space. A good quantity of well-rotted 
dung is laid on; the ground,is trenched to 
the depth of eighteen inches or two feet, and 
the soil must be well broken and equally 
mixed with the dung throughout. Many 
are in the habit of digging the holes three 
weeks or a month before planting. I never 
practise this myself, and I advise no one else 
to do so. The season for planting is com¬ 
monly attended with sudden cold rains, which 
sometimes fill the holes, rendering the earth 
so wet and cold as to prove injurious to the 
roots; but such is not the case when the 
holes are made at the time of planting. 
Everything being prepared we plant in the 
course of November. The soil of the border 
having been newly worked it is sufficient in 
good light soils to make holes one foot square 
(better two feet square) and two feet deep; 
but when the soil is of a clayey or damp 
nature the holes must be two feet square 
and three feet deep, and the earth before 
being filled in must be rendered light by 
mixture with good garden mould. This 
method is to be preferred to that of planting 
in March, which has the great inconvenience 
of causing a loss of valuable time to the 
tree, which, when planted in November, is 
ready to vegetate the first fine weather in 
spring; but when planting is deferred till 
March the vegetation of the tree is often 
retarded by the drying winds so prevalent at 
that season. The plants called eighteen- 
months are preferred for planting. They are 
so called from having been eighteen months 
budded, or nearly so long. Trees which 
have been thirty months budded, and which 
have been cut back upon a lower eye, and of 
which the roots are much larger and less 
fibrous than the former, are not so good; 
still, in some particular cases, they are not 
to be rejected; for instance, they often take 
root better in new ground. 
Whilst the holes are being dug the roots 
are trimmed, that is, their bruised extremities 
are cut with a sharp pruning-knife, and so as 
that the cut surfaces may rest upon the 
earth when the tree is planted. At the same 
time its head is taken off at from eight to 
nine inches above the bud to allow of plant¬ 
ing it with a sufficient inclination, so that 
the stem may touch the wall; whilst the 
roots are so far from the foot of the latter 
as not to be cramped in growing by the 
foundations. See Fig. 6, which represents the tree before 
being planted. It is headed back at the point a. 
The tree is fixed in its place at six and a quarter inches 
from the wall, and not deeper in the earth than it was before. 
It is so placed that the eyes a and h of the bud may be at 
each side, and not before and behind, without heeding the 
position of the original bud. Tt is of little moment whether 
the latter be turned one way or the other, provided the eyes 
be properly placed. For the formation of a fine tree in a 
short tune this precaution is of greater importance than 
most people suppose. Gardeners usually plant their trees 
with the budded part in Iront, without paying the least 
attention to the position ot the eyes. The following sprin <r , 
■when the tree shoots, they are astonished to see the 
greater number of trees thus planted with eyes before and 
behind; whilst those planted as I have directed have their 
eyes well placed, one on each side. When the tree is 
in the proper position the roots are carefully spread out, 
and then covered, over to the height I have directed, or 
at least in such a way that the bud b may be kept out of 
the earth. 
A space of twenty-six feet is left between those Peach 
trees intended to be trained in the square form. When a 
Peach and a Pear are to be planted alternately there should 
then be a distance of thirty-nine feet between them. The 
intermediate spaces may be usefully employed by planting 
between each Peach and Pear tree a young tree, which can 
be brought up till three years old, and which may be em¬ 
ployed, to make a fresh plantation, producing a crop in a 
short time.— (Horticultural Society’s Journal.) 
