172 THE PEACH AND NECTAEINE. 



it has been tnown to cultivators at about the same half way hoase, 

 between almond-hood and peach-hood. 



All this may prove useful as well as interesting to those readers — daily 

 increasing in number, we trust — who may be disposed to plant the peach 

 and nectarine in their shrubberies and pleasure grounds as omrtnental 

 trees. For ornamental purposes they may be held to be almost as h^rdy 

 and as nsefnl as the almond (Arm/gdalm comimmAs), and its several 

 varieties, among which the double flowering and common dwarf almond 

 are the most useful for planting in groups or single specimens in 

 shrubberies, lawns, home plantations, &c. In warm situations such 

 almonds as the common sweet, soft shelled, sweet pistachio, and others 

 often ripen capital crops of almonds. In such cases the planter has the 

 enjoyment of one of the most charming of all the trees of the spring, and 

 grows his own almonds into the bargain. In specially warm and sheltered 

 places some of the hardier peaches and nectarines may also yield a crop 

 of fruit. But though this may be rare and can occur only in special 

 localities and under specially favourable circumstances, yet the peach — 

 and especially its double and larger flowering varieties — is well worth 

 planting for its flowers alone. 



Such early flowering and beautiful trees were not likely to escape the 

 notice of ancient writers. Hence we find the almond^tree named by 

 Moses, and its precocity in flowering seemed to be accepted as a sign of 

 -the future devotion of the tribe of Levi for the priesthood. Virgil also 

 accepts the free flowering of the almond as at once proof and omen of a 

 fruitful season. The merry month of May must have been more genial in 

 his day than in these degenerate times, when May makes a ravenous cold 

 snap or collation of myriads of peach and almond blossoms. All before 

 the merry month is cheerful, fair, and beautiful — all behind a blighted, 

 blackened wilderness of barrenness and sterility. Still, it must be said 

 for Virgil that he wrote of standard almond trees, which did not rush 

 into bloom so early as our peaches and nectarines forced back against hot 

 'alls, there to be half roasted with the fiery heats of spring sunshine, 

 and frozen through immediately afterwards with the cold darts of May 

 night frosts, without a veil of cloud to tone down the energy of intense 

 radiation. 



However, it is hardly fair to merry May to credit her with all our fruit 

 failures, and with blighting the beauty of our standard or dwarf almond 

 and peach trees, for these flower through February and March in warm 

 localities, and also in April. It is this earliness and profusion of blooming 

 -that have endeared these plants to man in aU ages, and some types 

 :and forms of peaches and almonds have probably been cultivated- by him 

 :for his pleasure and use since the dawn of civilisation. It is, however. 



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