177 



PEACH. (Amygdalus Persica.) 



The peach tree is a tree below the middle size, with 

 spreading branches, of rapid growth ; the leaves smooth, 

 lanceolate, serrated; the flowers are sessile, their calyces 

 reddish, corollas pale or dark red^ the fruit a drupe of a 

 roundish form, sometimes pointed, with a longitudinal 

 -suture or groove ; the skin is downy in the peach, but 

 smooth in the nectarine, its color varying from white or 

 yellow to red and violet ; the pulp thick, fleshy, or succu- 

 lent, white or yellowish, sometimes red ; juice sweet, or 

 subacid, and abundant, of a grateful and delicious flavor; 

 stone hard, ovate, pointed, compressed, irregularly fur- 

 rowed ; the kernel bitter. The tree blossoms in April ; the 

 fruit ripens from July to late in autumn. The tree is 

 not of long duration. Persia is ^considered the original 

 country of the peach, although it is said to have been 

 cultivated from time immemorial in most parts of Asia. 

 Sickler asserts, according to Loudon, that " in Media, it 

 is deemed unwholesome; but when planted in Egypt, it 

 becomes pulpy, delicious, and salubrious." The peach, 

 according to Columella, when brought from Persia into 

 the Roman empire, possessed deleterious qualities; which 

 Mr. Knight concluded to have arisen from those peaches 

 being only swollen almonds, {tuberes,) or imperfect peaches ; 

 and which are known to abound in the prussic acid. 

 The best peaches in Europe are at present grown in Italy 

 on standards. 



The best peaches of France, according to Phillips, are 

 those produced at Montreuii, a village near Paris, where 

 the whole population are exclusively employed in their 

 cultivation, and by this have been maintained for several 

 ages. They are cultivated here on lirae-whited walls of 

 great extent Their climate requires it. 



In the United States, they flourish as in their native 

 land, producing fruit of an excellent quality, wherever the 

 maize or Indian corn will ripen to maturity. In New 

 Jersey, there are those who cultivate this fruit exclusively; 

 and at Shrewsbury, on a single plantation, 10,000 bushels 

 are annually produced for the New York market. Another, 



