I am the owner of a small assortment of fruit trees, some peach trees among the rest, and I wish to relate how disappointed I have been with such early sorts as Alexander, for instance. 1 have a tree of this sort which is and has been a model of good health and of a shapely tree, and of which I had expected great things in the way of fruit. The first year of flowering it set about a dozen fruit, and of this number ripened about the half, the rest were stung, and dropped off at different times before ripening. The second year was a repetition of the first, only on a larger scale, a lesser proportion remaining on to ripen than before. I had later ripening sorts that were doing better than this, and making up my mind that the earliest peaches were not the ones for me, I budded my Alexander with four good later sorts, viz., Stump the World, Mountain Rose, Oldmixon and Smock Late. However, I did not utterly condemn it, but left the centre limb untouched, thinking if it did well this season it should remain. But again the results are to be as before. The fruit set well, but at this writing, June 26th, nearly all the fruit have dropped from the stings of insects. I shall cut out the last limb of the early kind and let the four named as budded on it take the lead next year.

I shall do this because my later sorts, such as Crawford's Early and Susquehanna do not suffer to near the extent the Alexander does.