THE PEACH AND NECTARINE. 577 



Mignonne, Royal George, Barrington, Early Rivers, Early York, Early 

 Albert. 



Nectarines for Forcing. Elruge, Hardwicke Seedling, Pitmaston 

 Orange, Rivers' Orange, Rivers' Pine-apple, Lord Napier, Albert Victor, 

 Prince of Wales. 



Propagation and Nursery Culture. Budding on plum stocks is the 

 general practice ; but some of the more delicate kinds are budded on 

 the almond, strong-growing seedling peaches, or on the apricot. On 

 the peach stock they grow very vigorously at first, but do not long 

 continue to thrive. For general purposes the plum stock is by far the 

 best, as from its abundance of roots it transplants readily ; while the 

 roots of the almond and peach, being few and very remote, they 

 transplant with difficulty. The French gardeners used the almond 

 stock for light chalky or sandy soils, and the plum stock for clayey or 

 loamy soils. When the plants are not removed the first year to where 

 they are finally to remain, they are cut down in the nursery to three 

 or four eyes, and the shoots produced trained in the fan manner 

 already described at length. This may either be done in the open 

 garden against a row of stakes, or the plants may be removed to a wall, 

 which is the best mode for ripening the wood. To ensure this result 

 the plants should in no case be placed in very rich moist soil. In 

 the training of maiden plants, the point of the shoot produced by the 

 bud is pinched off after it has grown six inches or eight inches in 

 length, and only five buds are allowed to push ; the five shoots produced 

 by these buds are shortened with the finger and thumb to five inches 

 or six inches in length, and these being disbudded, so as to admit of 

 only two shoots from each, a complete fkn-shaped tree is produced in 

 one season. The quickest mode of proving the quality of peaches, 

 or of the fruit of other trees raised from seed, is to take a bud from 

 them, and insert it near the extremity of a lateral branch of a tree of 

 the same species. Budded on the Moor-park apricot, the flavour 

 of the peach is said to be greatly improved ; on the Mirabelle or 

 Myrobalan plum, the tree is somewhat dwarfed. 



Soil, Situation, &c. A fresh loamy soil on a dry bottom answers best, 

 and care should be taken not to enrich the soil so much by manure us 

 to occasion the production of longer shoots than can be properly 

 rippned. In few situations should the peach border be more than 

 eighteen inches or two feet in depth, and it need not be more than ten 

 feet or twelve feet in width, even when the walls are fifteen feet in 

 height. The peach in Britain is almost always planted against a south 

 wall, but in some sheltered situations it will succeed on a south-east, 

 south-west, or west aspect. Against a south-west wall the blossoms are 

 more liable to be injured by the heavy rains from that quarter, and 

 the shoots are apt to grow stronger, in which case they ought to be 

 laid in more horizontally than in the case of a wall facing the south. 

 Mr. Glendinning recommends all peach walls to be covered with horizontal 

 copper wires, extended longitudinally at six inches or seven inches dis- 

 tance, and fastened to cast-iron eyes driven into the wall. The advantage 

 is, that a man can tie two trees to the wires with bast ligaments, in the 



p P 



