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48 FRUITS IN THEIR SEASON.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
, . , —' Xi. The Peach. Its Itaxy *' Hom...
all parts the peach is more easily propagated than any other fruittreethe stones buried in heaps in the autumn being taken up in
_springs , cracked , and the kernels set in rows in prepared soil , wherever they are intended to grow . In the course of the same
spring they vegetate , soon grow three or four feet high , and may be budded the following September . In two years from that time , if
left undisturbed , they will usually bear a small crop , and by the next season an abundant one . In the older States , however ,
within the last thirty or forty years two great evils have appeared to obstruct the former smooth course of the fruit-grower , in the
shape of two diseases of different degrees of injuriousness , but the combined influence of which has vastly diminished the natural term of
the peach-tree ' s life and the value of peach-orchards . One of these is caused by the peach-borer , a moth which , during the period from
June to October , deposits its eggs in the soft'bark at the base of the trunkfrom the egg soon emerges a small white grubwhich spends
; , its life , while attaining the . mature size of three-quarters of an inch / in length , in devouring the whole circle of bark just below the
surface of . the ground . The only farther service a tree thus fatally " ringed" can afford to any living creature , is to serve as a
shelter to its destroyer , who , after passing the " winter within it , again from the chrysalis in June to repeat the same round
of emerges mischief on other trees , unless the simple but efficacious remedy , or rather preservativehave been adoptedof keeping lime round
every plant in the orchard , . This seems , to act simply as a protective coveringfor ashes are found equally effectual ; but lime is
mostly used as being , also the best fertilizer of the tree . Far more fatal because less understood _, is the ' . " Yellows , " a
malady which affects the peach-tree exclusively , and seems also to be peculiar to America ; which makes its first attacks upon the
best varieties ; propagates itself both by the seed and by grafting ; and is also contagiousspreading gradually but certainly , from tree
, to tree , and from orchard to orchard , through whole districts . The contagious characteristic is much doubted in theory , since
there is nothing analogous to it in the whole range of the vegetable kingdom , but being proved practically true , has to be
taken for granted so far as acting _xipon it is concerned , for only where every vestige of the infected trees has been utterly destroyed
has the plague been stayed and the health of the remainder been preserved . Perfectly unknown for at least a century after the
introduction of the fruit , it was about the year 1800 that it first appearedin the neighborhood of Philadelphiathe symptoms
consisting first , in the growth of slender shoots , bearing diminutive yellow or colorless leavesand then in the premature ripening of
, the fruit before it had attained more than half or a quarter of its natural sizethe skintoobeing marked with dark unsightly spots .
Slowly extending , its , ravages , it did not become general until after
the close of the late war—a trying * period , since , in that time of
48 Fruits In Their Season.
48 FRUITS IN THEIR SEASON .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1861, page 48, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091861/page/48/
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