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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ August 7, 1866. 



Peaches, to be judged by flavour only, size and colour being 

 disregarded. The prize to be open only to fruit grown in one 

 or other of the two following ways : — 1st, In pots in a glass 

 structure, without ever having been exposed to the direct rays 

 of the sun in the open air. 2ndly, Grown on a wall without a 

 glass screen at any period of their growth. — G. S. 



ON RAISING PEACHES, NECTARINES, AND 

 OTHER FRUITS FROM SEED. 



[The following paper was one of those presented by Mr. 

 Rivers to the Botanical Congress, and will doubtless be read 

 with much interest by horticulturists generally, and especially 

 by those who are making experiments in the amelioration of 

 races by seed.] 



It is now some forty odd years since I entertained a peculiar 

 theory that my old varieties of fruit had formed themselves 

 into species, and would reproduce themselves from seed. I 

 was well aware of the then existiug practice of T. A. Knight 

 in cross-breeding, and also the theory of Van lions. I suppose 

 I wished to be original, and to make myself famous, and so I 

 commenced operations by taking the Golden Pippin, and, ig- 

 noring tho works of the bees and the winds, in conveying 

 foreign pollen to the blossoms of fruit trees, unless carefully 

 protected by fine gauze or some other light material, I gathered 

 gome fine fruit from a Golden Pippin tree of great age, and 

 sowed their pips. In the course of a few years the young 

 trees raised from them bore fruit. Alas ! for my theory : they 

 gave me Apples, but not Golden Pippins — no, not one. Some, 

 it is true, were Apples of a yellowish tinge, but very unlike in 

 size, shape, and flavour, to what I hoped. Some pips of the 

 Ribston Pippin, sown the same year as the above, in due time 

 produced trees, and the trees fruit ; but in this instance the 

 children were still further removed from the likeness of the 

 parent, for they were Apples of all shapes and sizes, and not 

 one bearing any resemblance to our favourite Apple, the Rib- 

 ston Pippin. In carrying out my idea, I soon after this sowed 

 pips taken from the Autumn Bergamot Pear, the fruit gathered 

 from a very old tree, its age estimated at 300 years ; now, as 

 this sort is supposed to have been in cultivation in England 

 ever since the time of the Roman occupation, I looked forward 

 with some hope as to what kind of Pears my seedlings would 

 produce. I was to a certain extent gratified, for my seedling 

 Autumn Bergamot Pears were all Bergamots — i.e., they had 

 the peculiar flattened shape in whicli we recognise that variety. 

 One, in particular, was most remarkable : it was a monstrous 

 Bergamot, with the true shape and russet coat of its parent; 

 its flavour, however, was not up to the mark, and although 

 gratified to find an adherence to race according with my theory, 

 I did not gain that which I hoped for — a hardy, free-bearing, 

 improved variety. I may, however, except one raised from the 

 same source a few years afterwards. This at first was dry and 

 poor in flavour, but has annually improved in quality, so that 

 from its hardiness and fertility it may be considered worthy of 

 cultivation. Although disappointed with my experiments with 

 Apples, I was a little comforted by the adherence to race in my 

 Bergamot Pears, and I continued my experiments by sowing 

 Green Gage Plums, the opportunity happening in this wise : — 

 Before our country was gridironed with railways, there used to 

 be occasionally what is called a glut in the markets of perish- 

 able fruits, such as Plums, which could not be sent to long 

 distances on account of their ripeness, and the supply being 

 too large for the London consumption, many hundreds of 

 bushels were often destroyed. Taking advantage of one of 

 these gluts I once bought in Covent Garden a great number of 

 bushels of Green Gage Plums, at Is. Qd. per bushel ; the stones 

 of these were sown, and produced many thousands of trees. I 

 watched these young trees for some years with much interest ; 

 the greater part of them had the habit of their parent, and 

 were to all appearance Green Gage Plum trees ; some of them 

 were, however, remarkable for their small leaves and spines, 

 being more like Sloes (Primus spinosa) than Plums. It seemed 

 to me as if the Green Gage had returned to its normal state, 

 that of a small green wild Plum. In process of time a great 

 number of these seedlings bore fruit ; all that did so gave 

 green fruit, but not one among them a superior sort worthy of 

 a name. This adherence to race gave me much satisfaction ; 

 still I must acknowledge that since I sowed the large quantity 

 of stones just mentioned, I have found a few only have pro- 

 duced a tree bearing purple Plums, thus showing that the ad- 



herence to race was not to be depended upon. Still clinging 

 to my original idea, that an improved variety of a favourite 

 kind of fruit, with all its good qualities but with a thorough 

 adaptation to our climate, might be raised, I took in hand 

 another very old kind of Plum, which has been cultivated in 

 the Touraiue for many ages, and probably rivals the Green 

 Gage as to the period of its production from seed. This is 

 still well known as the Precoce de Tours. The trees of this 

 variety, from the fruit of which I hoped to have raised an im- 

 proved race, were very large, having been planted by my grand- 

 father, and stood so isolated that I hoped to raise seedlings 

 from them, unstained by any other variety. They caught my 

 attention from the curious fact that they bore a fair crop only 

 about once in five years, their blossoms being delicate and 

 generally suffering much from our spring frosts. It is now 

 many, many years since I selected some fruit from these trees, 

 and sowed their stones. In the eourse of time the trees 

 raised from them bore fruit, and, to my great delight, they 

 were like their parent in colour and shape, varying only in 

 size. One among them realised the idea I had so long enter- 

 tained, that of reproducing the parent fruit with a constitution 

 adapted to our climate. This was named the Early Prolific 

 Plum, and is neither more nor less than the Precoce de Tours, 

 vigorous in habit and abundantly prolific. I felt, and still feel, 

 amply rewarded for my alfnost obstinate adherence to a some- 

 what speculative theory, and for many years of careful culture. 

 I must not leave this remarkable variety of Plum without 

 mentioning that I have lived to raise from my first seedlings 

 three generations, none of them departing from the original 

 parent in shape and colour, hut varying much in quality. One 

 among them, the exact form and size of its great-grand-parent, 

 bids fair to be of much value ; for, whereas the Early Prolific, 

 and other seedlings from the same source, ripened in 1865 

 about July 28th, this, although the tree stood on the north side 

 of a hedge, in a shady place, ripened its fruit on July 14th ; 

 so that by continuing to breed from one race, generation after 

 generation, I have raised the earliest Plum known. 



So attractive to me has this race of Plums been, owing to its 

 singular and rigid adherence to race, that it seems now, in my 

 old age, to have been the greater portion of a life's pleasant 

 study, still incomplete ; for young trees of the fourth and fifth 

 generation of the original trees of Precoce de Tours exist here, 

 and are likely, ere long, to bear fruit. At the earliest period 

 of my essays in raising seedlings from old varieties of fruit, I 

 sowed stones of the Noblesse Peach, and planted the young 

 trees they produced against a wall ; in the course of eight or 

 ten years they all bore fruit; all were so like their parent as 

 not to be distinguished from it. 



Soon after the introduction of orchard-houses my attention 

 was attracted by the facility with which young trees of Peaches 

 and Nectarines could be made to bear fruit in pots. I at once 

 determined to raise large numbers of trees from stones, and to 

 carefully record the origin of each tree. My old instinct again 

 came to the surface, and I fixed upon some of our most ancient 

 varieties, intending to breed from generation to generation. 

 Nearly, if not quite the first variety I took in baud was the 

 White Nectarine, for I considered it as belonging to one of the 

 oldest of all races of Nectarines, a white Nectarine being men- 

 tioned in the " Paradisus Terrestris" of Parkinson, upwards of 

 two hundred years since ; traditionally, it came from Asia, and 

 probably from Northern Syria, the habitat of another kind of 

 Nectarine equally distinct in character, the Stanwick. My first 

 family of seedlings from the White Nectarine seemed, when the 

 young trees blossomed, marvellously alike, and I began to look 

 forward to another generation before I should find much 

 change. I was now, however, agreeably disappointed, for 

 among my little family of quasi-White Nectarine trees, I ob- 

 served a large white Peach, which, although a Peach in appear- 

 ance, had the racy brisk flavour of its parent. This remark- 

 able production aroused my attention, and from the first fruit 

 it produced, the stones were taken and sown ; several of the 

 trees raised from them bore fruit when four years old ; the 

 greater number of them proved to be white Nectarines, thus 

 returning to tho nature of their grand-parent the White Nec- 

 tarine. Much, however, to my gratification, two of them pro- 

 duced Peaches ; one about the size of the Noblesse Peach, and 

 of the same colour, but ripening so early, that in 1864, when 

 its first fruit was presented to me on July 14th, quite ripe, 

 I could scarcely believe it to be true, as the Red Nutmeg Peaoh 

 was at that time quite hard ; in 1865, its fruit ripened July 

 18th, and I then felt satisfied it was the earliest large Peach 

 known. The other Peach which made its appearance among 



