339 



LXXVIL ON THE MEANS EMPLOYED IN RAISING A TREE OF THE 

 IMPERATRICE NECTARINE. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, February 3rd, 1835.] 



I WAS informed in the last spring that the Society's garden did not 

 contain a tree of the Imperatrice nectarine, and that it was wished to 

 obtain one. I in consequence promised that I would raise and send one 

 as soon as I could ; and I believe that the means which I employed in 

 raising a tree of that variety will prove that I have not lost time in 

 proceeding to perform my promise. 



The tree which I send is composed of an almond- stock which sprang 

 from seed early in the last spring, into which two buds were inserted on 

 opposite sides in the end of April ; and as soon as those had properly 

 united themselves to the stock, that was removed from the forcing-house, 

 and placed under a north wall. After a few days it was headed dow r n, 

 and brought again into the forcing-house, when the two inserted buds 

 vegetated, and each produced a lateral branch, which has acquired the 

 length of about two feet six inches, and has formed a few blossom-buds. 

 I had previously, early in the spring, grafted an almond-stock which was 

 a year old with the Imperatrice nectarine, with the intention of obtaining 

 a tree to send to you ; but it acquired, early in the summer, too large a 

 size ; and it was consequently planted out to fill up a vacancy upon my 

 south wall, where it has produced two branches, each of which is more 

 than six feet long ; and it has covered fifty square feet of the wall with 

 much excellent bearing-wood. I have never witnessed such rapidity 

 and excellence of growth in a peach or nectarine tree, planted at the 

 usual periods. 



The almond as a stock for the peach and nectarine possesses, I think, 

 every good quality, except that of bearing transplantation very well, and 

 in that respect alone it is inferior to the plum-stock. I have, on this 

 account, sent the little plant above mentioned in the pot in which the 

 almond was first planted. 



In the soil and climate of this place the Imperatrice nectarine is, in 

 my estimation and in that of a great many other persons who have tasted 

 it, the best fruit of its family. It presents, I think, a greater concen- 

 tration of taste and flavour than is found in any other variety which I 

 have cultivated. It is inferior in size to the Dovvnton nectarine : but 

 that, in favourable seasons, is here very large ; one measured in circum- 

 ference nine inches, and several of them exceeded eight inches and seven 



