PEACHES. Ill 



and Temple's ; it is juicy, excellent in flavour, very large, 

 and ripens the end of August or beginning of Sep- 

 tember. The fruit is large and roundish, hollow at the 

 base, compressed at the sides, and rather larger on one 

 side than the other. It is pale yellow, shading to orange, 

 and marbled, with brownish-red on the sunny side, 

 interspersed with dark specks. The flesh is orange- 

 coloured and firm. The stone is rugged. There is a 

 passage through the stone, which may be easily detected 

 by passing a needle through it in at a small hole in the 

 groove on one side, and the kernel is bitter. 



'No garden of choice fruit should be without the 

 Moor Park, but the Blenheim is a fine, large, profitable 

 tree to have, very hardy, and a certain bearer. The 

 Orange is a good bearer, very fine for preserving, with 

 a sweet kernel ; it ripens in August. The Peach 

 apricot is very much like the Moor Park. The Eoman 

 is most common in our gardens, popular from being 

 hardy and a plentiful bearer ; the fruit is best when not 

 fully ripe ; the kernel is bitter. The Turkey is another 

 good variety ; it has a sweet kernel. The Kaisha is a 

 Syrian kind, which is delicious; it also has a sweet 

 kernel; and the Musch-Musch is the sweetest of all 

 apricots. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



PEACHES. 



THE main requisites for peaches and nectarines are a 

 stiff, loamy soil, and plenty of warmth and sunshine. 

 In a season which is deficient in sunshine, our wall 

 fruit will never be fine, however great the pains bestowed 

 on their culture. Our late, chilly springs, too, are very 

 detrimental to good crops in cutting off the bloom with 

 frost, hail, or bitter biting wind, at the time the fruit 

 should set. 



These fruits, to do pretty well, must have a sound, 



