ON PEACHES AND NECTARINES 
general appearance, would be declared by any 
competent observer to be a close relative of the 
peach, namely, the nectarine. 
So this bit of evidence from heredity—this 
freak of atavism—may be taken as furnishing 
substantial evidence that the ancestor of the nec- 
tarine was also the ancestor of the peach. Or, 
stated otherwise, that the peach is in reality a 
modified nectarine. It may be added that both 
are undoubtedly modified from a plum-peach- 
apricot-almond ancestor. 
That the nectarine, rather than the peach, rep- 
resents the ancestral form is witnessed by the fact 
that the nectarine is rarely observed—at least in 
my experience—to produce a fuzzy fruit, however 
closely it may otherwise simulate the peach. And, 
of course, this evidence is in keeping with the 
natural inference one would draw from the fact 
that pulp fruits in general have smooth skins, or 
skins with at most a delicate bloom quite lacking 
the texture of the peach’s almost woolly covering. 
THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS 
In any event, there can be no question that the 
peach and the nectarine are very closely related; 
in fact, they are generally classified as a single 
species, the trees differing very slightly in any re- 
spect, the only difference being in the fruit. 
It is probably but a short time, as compared 
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