No. 244.] 139 



peror Claudius to Rome, and thence to Britain in the year 1680. 

 Still the finest peaches in the known world are only to be obtained at 

 Pekin, China, where, I am told, they grow as large as our finest ap- 

 ples. They were once supposed to be poisonous. Pliny mentions 

 that the king of Persia sent them into Egypt to poison the people of 

 that country, he being engaged in war with them at the time. The 

 pits do contain a deadly poison, prussic acid. There are traditions 

 which have come down from father to son, in China, of a peach tree 

 which only bore fruit once in a thousand years, but conferred immor- 

 tality on those who had an opportunity of eating it ; and another tree 

 which was protected by fifty or a hundred demons, the fruit of 

 which caused immediate death to those who ate of it. Our country 

 yields at this time probably more peaches than half the world beside. 

 There are cultivators in Delaware who have orchards containing 

 100,000 trees ; and in Jersey 20,000 and 30,000 is quite common. 

 The tree is propagated with great facility, and will bear fruit in 

 three years from the stone, or if inoculated two years from the 

 time the operation is performed. It has been supposed that a peach 

 tree needs no pruning ; so far from such being the fact, there is scarce- 

 ly a tree growing that needs it more, or requires better judgment to 

 do it properly. 



The yellows is a recent disease, and is probably caused by worms 

 in the root and bad cultivation; care and attention will prevent dis- 

 ease, worms and death. 



Nectarines, (Amygdalus Nectarina,) was introduced into England 

 from Persia in the year 1562, and belongs to the twelfth class of Lin- 

 naeus. It only differs from the peach in the smoothness of its rind, 

 and firmness of its flesh. The trees are precisely alike, in appearance 

 it is an exquisite fruit, and without doubt a variety of the peach 

 formed by some unaccountable accident. Both fruits have been 

 known to grow at the same time upon the same branch. Hunts 

 Tanny,and the early Newington, are fine varieties. They are mana- 

 ged precisely like peaches, and are sometimes infested by the red 

 spider, which may be destroyed with lime water. Wood lice and 

 wasps sometimes attack them. Sulphur water syringed upon the tree 

 will keep them off. 



\- Cherries (Prunus Cerasus,) came originally from Cerasus, a city of 

 Pontus, they were brought by Lucullus after, the Mithridatic war into 



