86 Fruits and Fruit-Trees. 



that which covers the peach and the nectarine, especially 

 as no two varieties attain maturity at the same time ; nor 

 is any spectacle, except that of ripe grapes, more ravishing 

 than the well-managed peach, when the house is charged 

 with its delightful perfume. All the resources of art are 

 well devoted to it, and aid is sometimes sought from the 

 little wizards of the honeycomb. Cultivators whose 

 temperament is of the anxious type are accustomed to 

 place a hive of bees in the peach-house, with a view to 

 their assisting the fertilization of the flowers. That bees 

 thus introduced render some service is likely enough. 

 But the confining of them within limits so narrow seems 

 to involve an amount of cruelty which the humane would 

 be unwilling to inflict, When bees are brought into the 

 peach-house, their well-known habit of soaring upwards 

 in a spiral manner, as soon as they find themselves in 

 new quarters, to take their bearings before flying away 

 in quest of honey and pollen, results in the death of 

 many through exhaustion. They beat against the glass, 

 fall, and die. Fertilization is quite as successfully pro- 

 moted by sweeping over the flowers a plume of pampas- 

 grass, or a bunch of soft, downy feathers tied to a rod ; 

 and even this seems called for only in the case of certain 

 shy-setting varieties, such as Noblesse and Crawford's 

 Early. The varieties generally held in highest esteem 

 are Bellegarde, Grosse Mignonne, Hale's Early (the 

 finest early peach), Late Admirable, Princess of Wales, 

 Royal George, Walburton Admirable, Alexander, Stirling 

 Castle (very hardy), Galande, Early Beatrice, and Sea 



