The Peach. 85 



When first made an object of culture in western 

 Europe is unknown, though very certainly it was in France 

 that this fruit, at a very early period, found not only a 

 congenial climate, but admiration such as led to France 

 becoming the most famous scene of high-class peach- 

 growing in the world. North America may claim the 

 ascendancy perhaps, in regard to the quantity produced, 

 but France is still unrivalled in respect of quality. The 

 special scene of French peach-culture is Montreuil, near 

 Paris, which place annually supplies about twelve millions 

 of the fruit, the earliest and latest selling at two and three 

 francs apiece. It is to this celebrated locality that almost 

 everything of importance connected with peach-culture is 

 ultimately referred, and from this it would seem that the 

 best of modern varieties have been received. 



In England peach-growing is believed to have begun, 

 under French example, as early as the eleventh century ; 

 but no great move was made till the period so noted 

 in connection with several other fruits the time of 

 Henry VIII. It was then, also, that the nectarine was 

 taken into English favour. Numerous varieties of both 

 descriptions of fruit are named in the catalogues issued 

 by the nurserymen; and as new ones always appear when 

 peaches are raised from the kernel, though many of the 

 sorts thus procured are worthless, there would seem to be 

 in this fruit, as in the apple, an indefinite latent capacity 

 for change. Where outdoor ripening cannot be looked for, 

 the climate being unfavourable, no department of indoor 

 fruit-culture is more interesting as well as profitable than 



