PERSIC A, PEACH TREE. 47 



The origins of the Pomponne clingstone, the Andilly peach, the Belle de Vitry, the 

 Chanceliere, the Courson Madeleine, &c. don't go back much before our own time. And 

 it's pretty likely that the other fine kinds of peaches weren't sent to us from the Garden of 

 Eden. 



But those who are less given to hoping for new benefits and are content to enjoy 

 the ones that they already have will maintain & propagate the good types of peaches by 

 grafting. 



II. Peach trees are grafted on their own stock and on almond, plum, & apricot 

 trees. Although peach trees grafted onto peach trees raised from pits become beautiful & 

 strong, nurserymen graft very few on the same stock, either because it's hard to obtain 

 enough of the stock, or because they claim these trees are too vulnerable to gummosis. I 

 suppose that this concern is well founded, but I have some regrets about having accepted 

 it without further scrutiny. I hope that investigation can discover at least some kind of 

 peach tree that is suitable for producing stocks without this defect. It also seems to me 

 that too few of them are grafted on apricot trees raised from pits; I've seen them succeed 

 very well in ground where plum & almond trees fail. These latter two are the stocks most 

 used for grafting peach trees. The first is suitable for soil that isn't very deep provided 

 that it's not too dry. The almond tree forms a taproot & its roots go deep. It adapts better 

 to loose sandy soil as long as it's deep enough. All kinds of peach trees graft well on the 

 black damson plum tree, the Cerisette, or even better on the St. Julien. The almond tree 

 also works well for all of them. "Experience," says M. de Combes, "has convinced 

 everyone whose job it is to raise trees around Paris that the Violette & the Chevreuse 

 peaches only succeed well on the St. Julien- Jorre plum tree". In matters of this kind 



