ever the cold wind strikes the tree, while this only affects
a few leaves occasionally, and those surrounded by healthy leaves. The
remedy is to syringe them with offensive mixtures, as tobacco-juice, or
sprinkle them when wet with fine, air-slaked lime.

_Varieties._--Their name is legion, and they are rapidly increasing, and
their synonyms multiplying. A singular fact, in most of our fruit-books,
is a minute description of useless kinds, and such descriptions of those
that they call good, as not one in ten thousand cultivators will ever
try to master--they are worse than useless, except to an occasional
amateur cultivator.

Elliott, in his fruit-book, divides peaches into three classes: the
first is for general cultivation; under this class he describes
thirty-one varieties, with ninety-eight synonyms. His second class is
for amateur cultivators, and includes sixty-nine varieties, with
eighty-four synonyms. His third class, which he says are unworthy of
further cultivation, describes fifty-four varieties, with seventy-seven
synonyms. Cole gives sixty-five varieties, minutely described, and many
of them pronounced worthless. In Hooker's Western Fruit-Book, we have
some eighty varieties, only a few of which are regarded worthy of
cultivation. Downing gives us one hundred and thirty-three varieties,
with about four hundred synonyms. In all these works the descriptions
are minute. The varieties of serrated leaves, the glandless, and some
having globose glands on the leaves, and others with reniform glands.
Then we have the color of the fruit in the shade and in the sun, which
will, of course, vary with every degree of sun or shade. We submit the
opinion that those books would have possessed much more value, had they
only described the best mode of cultivating peaches, without having
mentioned a single variety, thus leaving each cultivator to select the
best he could find. Had they given a plain description of ten, or
certainly of not more than fifteen varieties, those books would have
been far more valuable _for the people_. We give a small list, including
all we think it best to cultivate. Perhaps confining our selection to
half a dozen varieties would be a further improvement:--

1. The first of all peaches is _Crawford's Early_. This is an early,
sure, and great bearer, of the most beautiful, large fruit;--a
good-flavored, juicy peach, though not the very richest. It is, on the
whole, the very best peach in all parts