176 IDE PEACH AND NECTAEINE. 



Varieties. 



The varieties of the peaoh are necessarily numerous, inasmuch as the 

 common mode of cultivating peaches in congenial climes is to sow the 

 stones merely, and allow them to bring forth fruit in due season. But 

 these wilding peaches can hardly be considered as within the pale of 

 British cultivation. Peach space here is too valuable; in fact, garden 

 space is too limited and dear everywhere to be furnished by seedlings, 

 for the peach does not reproduce itself true from seeds. Hence when 

 good varieties have been obtained they have been perpetuated by the 

 usual means, budding or grafting, and so little truth is there in the 

 theory of the wearing out of species or varieties for that matter, that 

 it seems probable that some of the peaches cultivated by the Italians 

 when Borne was mistress of the world may still survive among us. 

 Be that as it may, it is certain that within the horticultural historic 

 periods of our own country we have not lost n. good variety of peach 

 or nectarine. Until within the present generation we went on growing 

 the old peaches and nectarines of our forefathers, and were perfectly 

 satisfied with them. More marvellous still, most of these old sorts 

 still hold their own as among the finest varieties. 



From the fact that both Columella and Fliny caution their readers 

 against the deleterious quality of the peach, it may have been that 

 those early peaches were probably only enlarged or swollen almonds. 

 These are the first European writers who name the peach. Coming to 

 our own country, we find Turner mentioning peaches, red and white, 

 in 1673 ; perhaps the Noblesse and the Eoyal George. Coming down 

 half a century later, Parkinson enumerates twenty-one varieties of 

 peach, among which are the great and small white, the yellow, the 

 red russet and carnation, the black, cherry almond, and nutmeg. 

 Clearly we have made little advance in colour since then; he also 

 names the Newington and Boman. 



Bay, sixty years later, enumerates sixteen sorts, among which are 

 the red and white nutmeg, the two Newingtons, early and old; the 

 scarlet (royal, and parent to the Royal George) Bloody Monsieur. 

 Miller, over a century since, in 1750, enumerates thirty-one, the whole 

 of which probably exist at the present day. It is almost like reading 

 a modem nursery catalogue to go through Miller's descriptions of the 

 two nutmegs, red and white, both ripening early in July, proving 

 at once that July peaches are not the novelties that many suppose, 

 and that our much-abused climate is not deteriorating so fast and 

 far as has been too hastily assumed. The early Mignon (we adopt 



