470 Transactions of the London Horticultural Society/. 



and maturity during the summer and autumn than plants of inferior age ; and 

 they consequently aiford more abundant and more early crops, and fruit of 

 larger size, than is produced by younger plants, 



" When I have possessed more of such plants than I have wanted for 

 forcing, I have, early in the summer, planted them closely in contact with 

 the base of my south walls, under the branches of my peach and nectarine 

 trees, where the soil usually remains unemployed ; and I have by these 

 means obtained a very early and a very abundant crop of fruit of first-rate 

 quality, which has ripened at least nine days earlier than the fruit of the 

 same varieties in other parts of my garden. The plants of Keen's seed- 

 ling may with advantage be placed at 3 in. distance from each other, and 

 those of the Grove End, the only other varieties, at 2 only apart. 



" If such plants be suffered to remain a second year, the fruit which they 

 will afford will be of smaller size generally, and will not ripen nearly as early ; 

 and therefore, as soon as the fruit has been gathered, and the runners, which 

 under such circumstances are produced very early, having taken root, the 

 old plants must be destroyed and the young, which the runners afford, made 

 to occupy their places. The soil will, of course, require to be annually 

 manured ; and if the manure to be applied be previously incorporated with 

 some fresh loam, the plants will be eventually benefited. If the weather be 

 dry after planting, water should be regularly and abundantly given, as it is 

 very important that the plants become firmly estabhshed in the soil during 

 the early part of the summer." 



29. Note upon Cattleya guttata. By John Lindley, Ph. D., F.R.S., &c. 



Read April 18. 1837. 



^ This splendid epiphyte may be grown to great perfection in a compost of 

 peat earth and broken potsherds in equal quantities. 



30. On the Preservation of the early Foliage of Peach and Nectarine Trees. 



By T. A. Knight, Esq., F.R.S., Pres. Read May 16. 1837. 



" I stated, in a communication to this Society, two or three years ago, that 

 my gardener had, with the intention of destroying insects, washed one whole 

 nectarine tree, and the half of another, with water holding in suspension a 

 small quantity of quicklime and of flowers of sulphur ; and that the leaves of 

 all my other trees of the same species had become blistered and useless, owing 

 to the injurious effect of frost ; whilst all the leaves of the one tree, and half 

 of the other, which had been washed, totally escaped injury. I also stated, 

 that in the following spring I had applied the same wash to all my peach and 

 nectarine trees, and that I had been unable to find a single blistered leaf; and 

 my gardener has recently informed me, that he has been unable to find one in 

 the present year. How this application can have operated in any way bene- 

 ficially I am wholly at a loss to conceive ; but the facts appear very strong, 

 as, during the preceding twenty-five years, by far the larger part of the early 

 foliage of all my peach and nectarine trees, and in several seasons the 

 whole of it, had been rendered Vi'holly inefficient by the injurious operation 

 of frost. 



" One of my friends informed me, in the autumn of last year, that a very 

 intelligent and successful gardener, Mr. Pearson, who has the management of 

 the gardens of Mr. Child, of Kinlet, in Shropshire, had adopted the same 

 mode of treatment, with the same results. I, in consequence, wrote to Mr. 

 Pearson ; and he, in answer, informed me, that in the season following that 

 in which he had first seen my trees at Downton, he had applied the wash to 

 all his peach and nectarine trees, except two, and that those two only produced 

 blistered leaves, and that he had subsequently washed all his trees, and that 

 no blistered leaves had appeared since in his garden. 



" The blossoms of my peach and nectarine trees have set exceedingly well 



