CHAPTER 2X, 
THE NECTARINE. 
The nectarine reaches perfection under California condi- 
tions, as does its close relative, the peach. The fruit is, in fact, 
as Downing says, only a variety of the peach with a smooth 
skin; only a distinct, accidental variety of the peach; and this is 
rendered quite certain, since there are several well-known ex- 
amples on record of both peaches and nectarines having been 
produced on the same branch. Nectarine pits usually produce 
nectarines again, but they occasionally produce peaches. Peach 
seeds occasionally produce nectarines; the Boston variety origi- 
nated from a peach stone.* All these facts which are recorded 
of the relation between the peach and nectarine have been ver- 
ified by California observation. 
The practise of growing nectarines is also exactly like that 
employed with the peach. It is propagated and pruned in the 
same ways, except that, as pointed cut by Mr. Culbertson, the 
nectarine has more of a tendency to form short interior growths, 
and fruit buds are formed on the larger new growths, thus en- 
abling the pruner to cut them back more closely, and yet have 
an abundance of fruit buds remain. The peach and nectarines 
are the same in natural adaptations and requirements, and in 
diseases, so that what has been given concerning the growth 
of the peach in this State has an apt application in the case of 
the nectarine. 
The success of the nectarine worked on almond stock, as 
has been demonstrated by the experience of many, has led to 
the grafting over a good many unprofitable almond trees to 
nectarine, though this has not been done to the extent to which 
the French prune and some other plums have been worked on 
old almond stocks. 
Comparative Production of Nectarine and Peach—It may be 
wondered, considering the similarity of the peach and the nec- 
tarine, why the former is our leading fruit and the latter is the 
least grown, but one, of all the temperate zone fruits, only the 
lowly quince being less in importance. The explanation is that 
* “ Downing’s Fruit and Fruit Trees,” p. 565. 
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