HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



producing exactly alike; and although by far 

 the greater number of trees, in any of these 

 orchards, will always be found to produce fruit 

 below mediocrity in point of flavour, yet a judi- 

 cious observer will never fail, among so great a 

 number, to pick out a few trees, the race of which 

 may be considered worthy of preserving." 



The peach is said to have been first cultivated 

 in England about the middle of the sixteenth 

 century, Gerard describes several varieties of 

 peach as growing in his garden. Tusser men- 

 tions it among his list of fruits in 1557. 



In the neighbourhood of Paris much attention 

 IS paid to the culture of peach trees; and the 

 peaches there are of excellent quality. The 

 principal gardens for the supply of the French 

 capital are at Montreuil, a village near Paris; 

 and one tree there sometimes covers .sixty feet 

 of wall, from the one extremity to the other. 

 The Montreuil peaches are of the finest flavour; 

 and their excellence is properly attributed to the 

 exclusive attention of the people to their cul- 

 ture. The sub-division of labour and skill pro- 

 duces the same results in every art. 



The espalier peaches of the Due de Praslin, 

 near Melun, are stated to be the finest in Europe. 



All the peaches have in the kernel a flavour 

 resembling that of noyau, which depends on the 

 presence of prussic or hydrocyanic acid. The 

 leaves have the same flavour, which they impart 

 by infusion either in water or in spirits. 



The facility of raising the peach from the 

 stone has probably tended to its general diffusion 

 throughout the world. This fruit has steadily 

 followed the progress of civilization; and man, 

 "from China to Peru," has surrounded himself 

 with the luxury of this, and of the other stone 

 fruits, very soon after he has begun to taste the 

 blessings of a settled life. There are stiU spots 

 where ignorance prevents portions of the human 

 race from enjoying the blessings which Provi- 

 dence has everywhere ordained for industry; and 

 there are others where tyranny forbids the earth 

 to be cultivated and produce its fruits. The in- 

 habitants of the Hauran, who are constantly 

 wandering, to escape the dreadful exactions of 

 some petty tyrant, have neither orchards nor 

 fruit trees, nor gardens for the growth of vege- 

 tables. "Shall we sow for strangers?" was the 

 affecting answer of one of them to Burckhardt. 



The peach is raised from the stone, and this 

 mode is pursued in America, even for procuring 

 trees for common purposes. Knight produced 

 varieties in the following manner. He planted 

 dwarfs in large pots; these being brought into a 

 state of vigorous health, the pistils of the blos- 

 som of one sort were impregnated with the pol- 

 len of another, only tliree peaches were suffered 

 to remain on each tree; and from sowing the 

 stones of these, the Acton Soot, the spring grove, 

 and other varieties were produced. Knight also 



maintained "that the peach tree might, in succes- 

 sive generations, be so far hardened and naturalised 

 to the climate of England and Ireland, as to 

 succeed well as a standard in favourable situa- 

 tions. The peach does not, like many other 

 species of fi-uit trees, exercise the patience of 

 the gardener who raises it from the seed; for it 

 may always be made to bear when three years 

 old." Mr Knight even succeeded in producing 

 blossom buds the first year. 



The peach is generally budded on damson, 

 plum stocks, and some of the more delicate sorts; 

 on apricot stocks, or old apricot trees cut down, 

 or on seedling peaches, almonds, or nectarines. 

 The soil best suited for the peach is "three parts 

 mellow, unexhausted loam; and one part drift 

 sand, mixed with vegetable mould or manure." 

 Peaches require a lighter soil than pears or 

 plums. 



All the varieties bear the fruit upon young 

 wood of a year old, the blossom buds rising im- 

 mediately from the eyes of the shoots. The 

 same shoot seldom bears after the first year, ex- 

 cept on some casual small spurs on the two year's 

 wood. Hence the trees are to be pruned, as 

 bearing entirely on the shoots of the preceding 

 year, and a fuU supply of every year's shoots 

 must be trained in for successorial bearers the 

 following season. The following are short and 

 useful hints : "Use a strong loam for the border, 

 never crop it, add no manure, keep the trees 

 thin of wood by disbudding, and the early re- 

 moval of useless wood ; shorten each shoot ac- 

 cording to its strength at the spring pmning, ele- 

 vate the ends of the leading branches, so that they 

 may all form the same curvilinear direction up- 

 \:'ards, and keep the trees in a clean and healthy 

 state."* Various species of aphis, and the 

 acarus, or red spider, infest the leaves of the 

 peach. 



One of the greatest blessings, says a recent 

 writer,t that can be conferred upon any rude 

 people, (and it is a blessing which will bring 

 knowledge, and virtue, and peace, in its train) is 

 to teach them how to cultivate those vegetable 

 productions which constitute the best riches of 

 mankind. The traveller Burchel rendered such 

 a service to the Bachaplns, a tribe of the interior 

 of southern Africa. He gave to their chief a 

 bag of fr'esh peach stones, in quantity about a 

 quart; "nor did I fail," says the benevolent visitor 

 of these poor people, " to impress on his mind a 

 just idea of their value and nature, by telling 

 him that they would produce trees which would 

 continue every year to yield, without fiu'ther 

 trouble, abundance of large fruit of a more 

 agreeable flavour than any which grew in the 

 country of the Bachapins." This is an interest- 



* Callow, 

 f Library of Entertaining Knowledge. 



