Daily National Intelligencer

SALTON PEACH TREES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE AURORA.

Lower Dublin, 20th August.

The information derived from Mr. Bland and others, with respect to the growth of peach trees on the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, which are so highly impregnated with salt, that there is no water to be had there that is not brackish, and that near the surface of the soil, suggests the trial of sea salt, at and about the roots of our peach trees. It is worth trying, as nothing has yet been found to preserve them from the destructive insect of our climate. I have begun the experiment myself, and wish that a few others would do the same on some of their trees. I have mixed up salt with the earth near the trunks of two or three trees, and it is on this application that I shall rely, as it is there the insect in the grub state takes its shelter in the winter, and during that time and until the following July or August, commits its ravages. I could give a correct account of this insect, from the egg, but I write this merely to induce a few experiments with sea salt, in the manner I use it, to save the present generation of peach trees. The trouble is trifling, and the remedy at hand. Those who have written on those pampas, observe that no other tree than the peach, and a second kind, of which we forget the name, will grow there; and when we consider the nature of the soil, which abounds in salt and saline ponds or lakes, it affords a strong presumption that this mineral may be a specific against this fatal insect.

In haste, your obedient servant, J. D. C.