Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1848-04-06
CULTURE OF THE PEACH TREE.
BY A PENNSYLVANIA,

n"r ''c"''u'e Oh more general interest than
the PRONUNCIATION of theories, venture to
send you some brief notes of my experience
in the cultivation of the peach tree.
In your most valuable standard work on
fruits, you have, think, proved very plain
ly that the disease Of the peach tree. called
the Fellows, is caused by bad cultivation,
in light or poor soil. ] am very we'll
convinced that other malades to which this
fruit tree is subject are the result Of the same
causes. 1t is the common and popular be-
lief that the peach tree should always be
planted in light sandy soil: nay, that a
thin sand y loan is the best for it, sup
pose this opinion has arisen from the cir
cumstance of the low price at which many
tracts of land in New Jersey, Delaware and
Maryland, can be turned into peach orchards,
and that, too, probably.
But it is well known that these peach
orchards are short lived. From three to
five years is their average duration, and
most planters do not expect to get more
than one or two crops of fruit from their
trees. They then give them up as diseased
or worn out, and plant new orchards.
1t is we'll known that such is the natural
duration of the peach tree that in the deep
soil of Ohio the trees bear and grow well
from ten to twenty years and the natural
existence of the peach tree in our climate
is at least dozen years of frui,fulness.
What gathered some years ago from this
reasoning is. that we made u mistake in this
part of the Union when we plant orchards
with The expectation of raising the finest
fruit, or healty long-lived trees on light thin
soil.
1t is my own belief, based on some little
observation and practice, that no soil will
grow the best peaches, j. e., the largest
and finet favored, excep. it is good wheat
land.
have some land in this county of the
character usually selected for peach orchards,
and | have grown limited orchard for ma
ny years past, with the usual success, viz ::
tolerable fruit and short lived trees About
eight years ago, after visiting neighbor in
The upper part of New Jersey, where the
soil is good strong wheat land, determined
10 change my plan of raising them alto
gether. considered that we mistook the
nature of this fruit tree; that it really re-
quires more generous culture.
Choosing tolerable good field on nv
farm, set about preparing i. for an orchard.
This was in October. 1t was on fair SAN
dy loan, rather light on subsoiI of gravel
ly loan.
My idea was to deepen and enrich the
soil OF this field before planting the trees
1t is not, believe, considered we'll to sub
soil where the underl.yer is gravel. But
! made the experiment, nevertheless, as it
was, thought, my only chance for decided
success.
The trees in this orchard were to be plant
ed sixteen feet apart. As labor and manure
we've both of consequence TO me, deter
mined to make my first experiment by sub
soiling only half the area to be Sc. out with
trees.
This I did by blowing and thoroughly
subsoilng straight strips across the whole
field, eight feet wide. The subsoil pillow fol-
lowed after the common plow, and had two
yoke of cattle to draw it. By this means
Ioosened and stirred up the gravely substra
tum to The depth of sixteen inches; it became
also, considerably mingled with the top soil
The land was in tolerable good order, but
had it dressed with strong lime compos
(lime and peaD just before the subsoiIine
was begun.
The remaining strips Of the field were sim
rln in tbo IL.
whole narrowed together.
then planted the rows Of trees, as near.
ly as could, in lines running through the
middle of the snbsoiled strips. This gave
them a prepared surface four feet wide or
each side, and sixteen feet in the row from
tree TO tree.
The trees grow more vigorously the first
season after transplanling than ! ever saw
any DO before. Here and there as saw a
sickly looking one, during this and the mex,
TWO years. Immediately took it out and
filled its place with another Of healthy
growth.
The result of my experiment has been
most satisfactory. The orchard is in excel
lent health and good bearing state, though
i, has been in bearing now to the sixth year.
The flavor of the peaches raised in it is
much finer than | have ever raised otherwise
in the same soil. And small orchard set
year since on an adjoining farm in soil
quite like my own, but planted in the ordi-
nary way, that is, on thin light soil unp,e-
papred, bore its two crops of fruit, then fail
ed, and had to be rooted ont.
There is no doubt tina. my success would
have been more complete if had SUBSIDIZED
the whole of the land. This | could not
afford to do at the time, but those having
capital would of course do so. remarked
during the first three years, when raised
root crops in my orchard, that the growth
of the crops was great deal finer, and the
yield nearly a third more on the strips that