Page:The family kitchen gardener - containing plain and accurate descriptions of all the different species and varieties of culinary vegetables (IA familykitchengar56buis).pdf/204

 about one-third the price of full-grown, well-ripened fruit. It is twenty years since we pruned Peach trees, in the same manner as we have described for Currant bushes, keeping the young wood thin, and shortening every growth in the Fall or Winter pruning. The trees are thereby made more compact, not so liable to be broken, and produce finer fruit; the beauty of the tree is improved, and its age lengthened.

The Borer, or Peach-worm, is very destructive to this tree. The insect, according to Say, is a dark-blue, four-winged, slender moth, depositing its egg during the Summer months around the tree, close to the surface of the ground. Ashes have been long used as a protective against this destroyer, with very good effect; and recently half a peck of air-slacked lime, heaped round the tree during the month of May, is considered as a perfect antidote, effectually securing the tree against its enemy. The lime is spread over the ground after the fall of the leaf, and a fresh supply given every year at the above period.

There is a disease called “The Yellows,” very prevalent in some orchards, which is attributed to a variety of causes. The main one, we presume, will generally be found in ungenial soil, and overcropping of the trees. We say, thin out the crop—do not allow one fruit to be within two inches of its neighbor. Shorten the young growths of the tree by Winter pruning, and cut out others where they are too thick, thereby giving plenty of air to all parts of the tree. Manure every other year and crop light. With such a routine of culture the Yellows will be a stranger. Trees that produce a crop of fruit which is yearly carried off the ground, must have some return, by enriching the soil, either by manure from the stable-yard, or rich composts of lime, marl, plaster, &c.