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The soil for a nursery should be rich, well dug, dressed with well-decayed manure, free from weeds, and protected from cold winds. Fruit-seeds should be planted in the autumn, an inch and a half or two inches deep, in ridges four or five feet apart, pressing the earth firmly over the seeds. While growing, they should be thinned out, leaving the best ones a foot and a half apart.
A light sandy soil, if enriched abundantly with well-decayed vegetable and barnyard manures, gives wider scope in choice of kinds; while on the ideal well-drained sandy loam that we have described, any outdoor grape can be planted hopefully if the garden is sufficiently removed from the seaboard.
In the autumn, rake the mulch away and top-dress the soil on both sides for the space of two or three feet outward from the stems with well-decayed manure. This protects the roots and ensures a vigorous growth the coming season. Allow no weeds or even grass to encroach on the young hedge until it is strong and established.
Throughout its entire growth and fruiting life the peach-tree needs good cultivation, and also a good but not overstimulated soil. Well-decayed compost from the cow-stable is probably the best barnyard fertilizer. Wood-ashes are peculiarly agreeable to the constitution of this tree, and tend to maintain it in health and bearing long after others not so treated are dead.
If the old bed is just where you wish, and has been prepared in the thorough manner described, it can be renewed in the following manner: When the old plants begin to decline in vigor say the third or fourth spring a line of well-decayed compost and manure from the cow-stable a foot wide may be spread thickly down between the rows, dug under deeply, and young plants set out just over the fertilizer.
Well-decayed manure should be spread at the rate of not less than a bushel nor more than double that quantity to the square yard, and as soon as the soil is dry enough to crumble readily it should be dug or plowed as deeply as possible without bringing up the subsoil. This operation of turning over the soil should be thoroughly performed, the earth being pulverized as much as possible.
To prepare Soil for Pot-plants, take one fourth part of common soil, one fourth part of well-decayed manure, and one half of vegetable mould, from the woods or from a chip-yard. When the common soil which is used is adhesive, and indeed in most other cases, it is necessary to add sand, the proportion of which must depend on the nature of the soil.
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