AV BRITISH GARDENS. 



481 



Fig. 350. 



needed to clear off thrips and aphides, should they get a strong hold of 

 the trees. 



Peaches are now extensively grown in pots, either in orchard-houses, 

 vineries, peach-houses, or even plant-stoves, and, with care in the 

 flowering and stoning periods, good results are obtained from very 

 small space. It may be well to observe that the peach to be grown in 

 pots, or to be transplanted when of two or more years' growth, must be 

 worked on plum-stocks, on account of the much greater number of 

 fibrous roots which these stocks produce than almonds ; the latter are 

 generally employed as stocks to the peach in France and Italy, being 

 found to answer well in these countries, where the peach is seldom 

 transplanted, and where the soil and 

 climate are much drier and warmer 

 than in Britain. Mr. Rivers has 

 carried this mode of cultivating the 

 peach and other stone-fruits to great 

 perfection, and pyramidal trees, 

 dwarf bushes, and standards may 

 be had in a fruiting state from all 

 the leading nurseries. Plants in 

 pots require the same general treat- 

 ment as those out of them, with 

 more care in feeding them with 

 water and manure, and great caution 

 in not giving them severe checks 

 from an excess or a paucity of either, 

 or by sudden changes of tempera- 

 ture. But with these increased risks 

 there are several advantages, the 

 chief being that the confinement of 

 the roots favours fertility. It is no 

 uncommon thing to see peach or 

 nectarine trees in pots carry from 

 four to eight dozen of fruit to 

 perfect maturity. Peaches and nec- 

 tarines in pots are generally trained 

 in such a contorted and scrubby 

 fashion, that we give an illustration 

 to show they may be trained as gracefully and correctly as many plants 

 supposed to be much more tractable. This is from a photograph taken 

 in the Hoyal Horticultural Gardens at Chiswick, and is a shape very easily 

 attainable. The tree was presented to the society, with others, by Mr. 

 Pearson, of Chilwell, in whose magnificent orchard-houses at Chilwell, 

 near Nottingham, are many specimens trained in like manner. Where 

 trees are grown in pots, and these pots have to be stored in houses, 

 everything that tends to allow of the plants enjoying the greatest amount 

 of light, while not wasting space, is a decided gain to the cultivator ; and 

 it need scarcely be said that while two sets of trees, the different out- 

 lines of which may be roughly suggested by the following, AAA VW? 



I i 



Pyramidal Peach-tree in pot. 



