IN BRITISH GARDENS. 477 



pick off the infected leaves, and cut away the distempered part of the 

 shoots. Further to check the mischief, if the weather be hot and dry, give 

 the trees a smart watering all over the branches. Garden-engines, such as 

 Read's (440), will perform the watering much more effectually than 

 common watering-pot. It should be applied two or three times a week, 

 or even once a day. The best time of the day is the afternoon, when the 

 power of the sun is declining. These waterings will clear the leaves, 

 branches, and fruit from any contracted foulness ; refresh and revive the 

 whole considerably ; and conduce greatly to exterminate the insects. The 

 green fly is the principal enemy ; and if it appears before the leaves are 

 curled up, or the ends of the shoots have become clammy, the remedy 

 should be applied, viz. : a slight syringing to damp the leaves, and then a 

 good sprinkling with tobacco-dust. 



3000. Peaches may be forced in pots in a peach- house, vinery, or even in 

 a pine-stove ; but the plants must be well established in the pots by three 

 years' culture previous to forcing (Ibid. 1841, p. 321). 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 dryer and 

 warmer than in Britain. 



SUBSECT. III. The details of a routine course of forcing the Peach for two years. 



The following article, by Mr. P. Flanagan, F.H.S., gardener to Sir 

 Thomas Hare, Bart., at Stow-hall, Norfolk, is one of the best that has yet 

 been published on the subject of which it treats. It appeared in the fifth 

 volume of the Horticultural Transactions. Mr. Flanagan first describes 

 the plan he follows in planting the trees, and then details his system of 

 management during the first season; after which he gives the mode of 

 treatment in the second season, which last is equally applicable to all 

 future years : 



1001. " The soil which I generally use for peaches and nectarines, whether 

 in houses or on open walls, is the top spit of a pasture of rich yellow loam, 

 if it can be procured, without adding to it any manure whatever ; but if the 

 soil be poor or sandy, it should have a little rotten dung mixed with it. If 

 convenient, this mould should be laid up in ridges five or six months before 

 it is wanted, and turned over twice or thrice during that time. 



1002. Border. u When the house is ready, the borders, both inside and 

 outside, should be cleared to the depth of three feet, and be well drained, as 

 well as paved at bottom with slate or flat tiles, to prevent the roots of the 

 trees entering the bad soil which may be at bottom. This being done, the 

 new earth must be wheeled into the cavity of the border, and every layer 

 of it that is put on should be well trodden down, until the whole is filled up, 

 allowing a few inches above the level for settling, which will be, however, 

 very trifling. 



1003. Planting. " The best season for planting is the latter part of 

 autumn or beginning of spring. And the most expeditious way of furnishing 

 a house is, to plant clean well-worked maiden plants, previously grown in 

 good stiff loam, and trained against a wall three years before they are taken 



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