FRUITS VARIETIES AND CULTURE. 535 



ous grower, with broad foliage. The fruit is large, black 

 and of excellent quality. The tree remains in fruit about 

 two months. 



NECTARINE. — (Persica vulgaris, var. laais.) 



The Nectarine is merely a peach with a smooth skin. It 

 is impossible to distinguish the tree from the peach by its 

 leaf and flowers. 



Nectarines usually produce nectarines from the seed; 

 but the B-oston Nectarine originated from a peach-stone. 



The tree is cultivated and pruned like the peach, and is 

 propagated by grafting or budding on peach stocks. The 

 great difficulty in raising Nectarines (and the same is true 

 of the apricot and plum), is the curculio. The smooth skin 

 of these fruits offers an inviting place for this insect to 

 deposit its eggs. The injured fruit may be known by be- 

 ing marked with a small, semi-circular scar, as if cut by 

 a baby's nail. 



It is useless to plant either the Nectarine, Apricot, or 

 Plum, especially in sandy soils, unless the trees are daily 

 jarred, and the insects collected on sheets as they fall, 

 and immediately destroyed. A limb may be sawed off a 

 tree, and the stump hit a few smart blows with a mallet; 

 if gently shaken, the insect will not let go its hold. Or 

 another plan is to plant the trees by themselves, and 

 admit poultry and hogs to eat the fallen fruit, which will, 

 if other fruit gardens are not near, protect the crop. 

 Spraying the tree as soon as the blossoms fall will be 

 more. effective; but not certain. For formula see chapter 

 devoted to spraying. In using the spraying material great 

 care must be exercised so that the leaves and tender twigs 

 will not be injured with too strong arsenical compounds. 

 The borer infests the Nectarine as well as the Peach. 

 Aside from the curculio. the nectarine is as hardy and 

 easily raised as the peach, though scarcely equal to the 



