82 Fruits and Fruit-Trees. 



prefer to grow against walls ; it is that the exigencies of 

 our climate enforce resort to them. The peach never 

 acquires any great bulk or stature, nor does it live to be 

 very old. In these respects it corresponds with the 

 queen of flowering-plants, the rose. The blossom, very 

 abundant, appears in early spring, before the leaves, 

 seated closely upon the branches, the petals usually deep 

 carmine, occasionally white. The leaves, when mature, 

 are lanceolate, three or four inches in length, acute and 

 glabrous; the peculiarities of the fruit are its almost 

 globular form, a groove down one side, and composition 

 so exquisitely sub-liquid, that while enjoying a peach we 

 hardly know whether we are eating or drinking. The 

 stone inside is curiously wrinkled and furrowed, and 

 contains a very large kernel. The skin is either downy, 

 and then soft as velvet, as in peaches emphatically so 

 called, or it is destitute of velvet, but still soft, and then 

 we have the variety called the Nectarine. The specific 

 identity of the two fruits is well established. Darwin, in 

 the "Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestica- 

 tion," adduces plenty of proof, including that supplied by 

 peaches and nectarines growing side by side upon the 

 same tree. The nectarine is not found even apparently 

 wild. There can be no doubt that it is a variety of 

 purely garden origin, and that it differs from the peach 

 only in the way that the smooth-skinned gooseberry 

 differs from the hairy one. When the stone lies quite 

 loose, except at the point of basal attachment, in either 

 case the fruit is called a " free-stone " or Pavie. When 



