PEACHES AND NECTARINES 203 



gestive way. Some of my hybrid peaches have a 

 kernel that is almost as sweet and edible as the 

 kernel of the almond. As yet I have not secured 

 a peach having really superior quality of flesh 

 combined with the edible seed. But that this 

 combination might be effected, if one were to 

 select for it, admits of no question. 



And a peach retaining its recognized qualities 

 of flesh and having at its center an edible nut like 

 the almond with thin shell would obviously be a 

 desirable acquisition. 



Such a combination of fruit and nut would be 

 doubly desirable if the stone that surrounds the 

 kernel can be eliminated as it has been eliminated 

 in the stoneless plums. 



As yet very little has been accomplished in this 

 direction. There is, to be sure, a Bolivian peach 

 which is remarkable in that it has a globular 

 stone very little larger than a good-sized pea. 

 The fruit itself is of intermediate size and poor 

 quality; moreover, it is produced sparsely, and the 

 tree is peculiarly subject to the peach maladies. 

 The fruit has been thought hardly worth crossing 

 with our ordinary peaches on account of its in- 

 ferior qualities, yet the diminutive stone suggests 

 that it would be possible by such crossing to pro- 

 duce a superior peach having an exceedingly 

 small stone. 



