222 ^^^ VARIETIES OF THE PEACH. 



offspring will be obtained, of plants as of animals^ when 

 the male and female parent are not closely related to each 

 other*. 

 Expeilment. The varieties of the peach, from which I first propagated, 

 were the large French mignon, and the little red nutmeg, 

 using the stigmata of the former, and the pollen only of the 

 latter. The trees, of each variety had been removed early 

 in the spring of the preceding year (1801) from pots of mo- 

 derate size into others which were very large, and were 

 jfiUed with mould of the most favourable quality, that I 

 could compose; and in these pots the plants had grown 

 with excessive vigour. The aid of artificial heat was em- 

 ployed in the spring of 1802, to enable the wood and blos- 

 soms of each plant to acquire the most perfect state of ma- 

 tisrity in the succeeding autumn; and during winter the 

 pots were defended from severe frost, that the minute fibrous 

 roots of the plants might be wholly preserved ; and as the 

 spring approached the trees were kept in as low and equal a 

 temperature as possible, that the powers of life, in the plants, 

 might not be prematurely excited into action, or in any 

 degree uselessly expended. Nevertheless, owing to the 

 wood and buds having acquired matuiity early in the pre- 

 ceding autumn, and an accumulated excitability from long 

 rest and cold, the blossoms began to swell rapidly on the 

 first approach of spring ; and very early in March it became 

 necessary to place the trees in the forcing-honse, the 

 blossoms being so far advanced, as to be subject t© some 

 danger from frost. 



As soon as the blossoms had fallen, the fruit was ripened 

 under every advantage of heat and light, that I could com- 

 mand, the glass having been taken off every favourable 

 hour, during the last swelling of the fruit, to admit the solar 

 rays, without its intervention. Three French mignon 

 peaches only were suffered to remain on each tree, and six 

 of these, (which attained the greatest state af perfection), 

 The trees bore afforded me eight plants in the succeeding spring. The 

 *t t ree years, pj^j^^g ^q^q two years old when mentioned in a former 



♦ See Hortlcult, Trans, of 1&07, Part. I, p. SO, or Journ v«l. XVIII, 



communi- 



