We have taken it for granted that some grape-vines would be planted in the two borders extending through the centre of the garden, also that there would be spaces left which might be filled with peach and plum trees and small flowering shrubs.  If there is to be a good-sized poultry-yard upon the acre, we should advise that plums be planted in that; but we will speak of this fruit later, and now give our attention to that fruit which to the taste of many is unrivalled—­the peach.

With the exception of the strawberry, it is perhaps the only fruit for which I prefer spring planting.  At the same time, I should not hesitate to set out the trees in autumn.  The ground should be good, but not too highly fertilized.  I prefer young trees but one year old from the bud.  If set out in the fall, I should mound up the earth eighteen inches about them, to protect the roots and stem, and to keep the tree firmly in the soil.  With this precaution, I am not sure but that fall planting has the greater advantage, except when the climate is very severe and subject to great alternations.  Plant with the same care and on the same principles which have been already described.  If a careful system of pruning is to be adopted, the trees may be set out twelve feet apart; but if they are to be left to grow at will, which I regret to say is the usual practice, they should be planted fifteen feet from each other.

There are many good reasons why the common orchard culture of the peach should not be adopted in the garden.  There is no fruit more neglected and ill-treated than the beautiful and delicious peach.  The trees are very cheap, usually costing but a few cents each; they are bought by the thousand from careless dealers, planted with scarcely the attention given to a cabbage-plant, and too often allowed to bear themselves to death.  The land, trees, and cultivation cost so little that one good crop is expected to remunerate for all outlay.  If more crops are obtained, there is so much clear gain.  Under this slovenly treatment there is, of course, rapid deterioration in the stamina of the peach.  Pits and buds are taken from enfeebled trees for the purpose of propagation, and so tendencies to disease are perpetuated and enhanced.  Little wonder that, the fatal malady, the “yellows,” has blighted so many hopes!  I honestly believe that millions of trees have been sold in which this disease existed from the bud.  If fine peaches were bred and propagated with something of the same care that is bestowed on blooded stock, the results would soon be proportionate.  Gardeners abroad often give more care to one tree than hundreds receive here.  Because the peach has grown so easily in our climate, we have imposed on its good-nature beyond the limits of endurance, and consequently it is not easy to get sound, healthful trees that will bear year after year under the best of treatment, as they did with our fathers with no care at all.  I should look to men who had made a reputation for sending out sound, healthful stock grown under their own eyes from pits and wood which they know to be free from disease.  Do not try to save a few pennies on the first cost of trees, for the probabilities are that such economy will result in little more than the “yellows.”