THE PEACH AND NECTAEIKE. 



329 



oil. The dwai-f and double dwarf almonds, are 

 pretty ornamental shrubs. 



The Pjsaoh and Nectarine, (amygdalus Per- 

 ska.J The peach, when growing naturally, is 



The Pcadi. 



rather under the middle size of trees, with spread- 

 ing branches, of quick growth, and not long 

 lived. The blossoms come out before the leaves 

 are fully expanded ; they are of a gay delicate 

 colour, but with little odour. The fruit is round, 

 with a fun-ow on one side, and with a delicate 

 downy skin. Siokler considers Persia as the 

 original country of the peach, which in Media 

 is esteemed unwholesome; but when planted in 

 the alluvial soils of Egypt, becomes pulpy, de- 

 licious, and salubrious. The peach also, accord- 

 ing to Columella, when first brought from Per- 

 sia into the Roman empire, possessed deleterious 

 qualities, which Knight concludes to have been 

 from those peaches being only swollen almonds, 

 or imperfect peaches, and which are known to 

 contain the prussic acid, a poisonous substance. 

 The flesh of the almond is at this day considered 

 as poisonous on some parts of the continent. 

 The tree has been cultivated from time imme- 

 morial, in most parts of Asia. At what period 

 it was introduced into Greece is uncertain. The 

 Romans seem to have brought it direct from 

 Persia, during the reign of the Emperor Clau- 

 dius. It is first mentioned by Columella, and 

 afterwards described by Pliny. The peach was 

 introduced into England about the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, where it is always cultivated 

 against walls or under glass. The peach is more 

 grateful to the palate than perhaps any other 

 fruit raised in England, either naturally or by 

 art, with the exception of the luscious, mellow- 

 flavoured pine apple. It surpasses the grape in 

 richness, and is more delicate than the melon. 



Linnaeus divides the peach into two varieties, 

 that with downy fruit, or the peach, commonly 

 so called, and that with smooth fruit, as the nec- 

 tarine. There are various instances of both 

 fruits growing on the same tree. Thus, trees 

 raised from the stone or seed, have not only borne 

 fruit having on one part of the tree the downy 

 coat of the peach, and on another the smooth 

 coat of the nectarine, but they have exhibited 



varieties even closer than that, for single fruits 

 have been produced with the coat of the peach 

 on the one side, and that of the nectarine on the 

 other.* 



The French consider them as identical, and 

 aiTange the peach into four divisions. 1. The 

 free stone peaches, the flesh of whose fruit separ- 

 ates readily from the skin and the stone; 2. The 

 free stone nectarines, or smooth peaches; 3. The 

 cling-stone peaches, whose flesh is firm, and 

 adheres both to the skin and the stone; 4. The 

 cling stone smooth peaches. The double blos- 

 somed peach is one of the most ornamental of 

 spring flowering trees. It is about three weeks 

 later of blossoming than the common peach. 



In the warmer parts of Asia the peach is very 

 generally cultivated, and in many it grows abun- 

 dantly without culture. 



On some parts of the American continent 

 also, the peach grows readily, and in great plenty. 

 Captain Head, in his Rough Notes, mentions the 

 beauty and productiveness of the peach trees 

 which are scattered over the corn fields in the 

 neighbourhood of Mendoza, on the east side of 

 the Andes; and the same traveller notices dried 

 peaches as an article of food in the mountainous 

 parts, to which they must of coui-se be can-ied 

 from the plains. 



In many parts of the United States, peach 

 trees grow in extensive plantations. They con- 

 tinue without culture; and the fruit is of little 

 value, except in the distillation of peach brandy, 

 and the fattening of hogs. The following ac- 

 count of the peach orchards in the United States, 

 and of a variety of peach which the describer 

 obtained from that country, was communicated 

 to the Horticultural Society in 1815, by Mr John 

 Braddick, of Thames Ditton : — 



"Some years ago, when travelling through 

 Maryland, Virginia, and the neighbouring pro- 

 vinces of the United States of America, I had 

 an opportunity of observing the mode in which 

 the peach trees of those provinces were culti- 

 vated, which was invariably from the stone of 

 the peach, the plant being never budded, but 

 always remaining in a state of nature. In the 

 middle and. southern provinces of the United 

 States, it is no uncommon circumstance for a 

 planter to possess a sufficient number of peach 

 trees to produce him, after fermenting and dis- 

 tilling the pulp, from fifty to one hundred gal- 

 lons of peach brandy; the manufacturing of this 

 liquor, and the feeding of hogs, being the prin- 

 cipal uses to which the peach is applied in those 

 countries. A peach orchard usually contains a 

 thousand or more standard trees. The tree 

 being raised in the manner I have detailed, it is 

 easy to conceive that the fruit growing on them 

 must be an endless variety, scarcely two trees 



* Horticult. Transact. Tol. I. 

 2 T 



