\ 



Aedf 



&> 



$& 



Chap. X. 



PEACH AND NECTARINE. 



341 



Mr. Salisbury in 1808 43 records six other cases of peach-trees producing 

 nectarines. Three of the varieties are named; viz., the Alberge, Belle 

 Chevreuse, and Eoyal George. This latter tree seldom failed to produce 

 both kinds of fruit. He gives another case of a half-and-half fruit. 



At Eadford in Devonshire u a clingstone peach, purchased as the Chan- 

 cellor, was planted in 1815, and in 1821, after having previously produced 

 peaches alone, bore on one branch twelve nectarines; in 1825 the same 

 branch yielded twenty-six nectarines, and in 1826 thirty-six nectarines 

 together with eighteen peaches. One of the peaches was almost as smooth 

 on one side as a nectarine. The nectarines were as dark as, but smaller 

 than, the Elruge. 



At Beccles a Eoyal George peach 45 produced a fruit, " three parts of it 

 being peach and one part nectarine, quite distinct in appearance as well as 

 in flavour." The lines of division were longitudinal, as represented in the 

 engraving. A nectarine-tree grew five yards from this tree. 



Professor Chapman states 45 that he has often seen in Virginia very old 

 peach-trees bearing nectarines. 



A writer in the ' Gardener's Chronicle ' says that a peach-tree planted 

 fifteen years previously 47 produced this year a nectarine between two 

 peaches ; a nectarine-tree grew close by. 



In 1844 48 a Vanguard peach-tree produced, in the midst of its ordinary 

 fruit, a single red Eoman nectarine. 



Mr. Calver is stated 49 to have raised in the United States a seedling- 

 peach which produced a mixed crop of both peaches and nectarines. 



Near Dorking 50 a branch of the Teton de Venus peach, which repro- 

 duces itself truly by seed, 51 bore its own fruit "so remarkable for its 

 prominent point, and a nectarine rather smaller but well formed and quite 

 round." 



The previous cases all refer to peaches suddenly producing nectarines, 

 but at Carclew 52 the unique case occurred, of a nectarine-tree, raised twenty 

 years before from seed and never grafted, producing a fruit half peach and 

 half nectarine ; subsequently it bore a perfect peach. 



To sum up the foregoing facts : we have excellent evidence of peach- 

 stones producing nectarine-trees, and of nectarine-stones producing peach- 

 trees, — of the same tree bearing peaches and nectarines, — of peach-trees 

 suddenly producing by bud-variation nectarines (such nectarines repro- 

 ducing nectarines by seed), as well as fruit in part nectarine and in part 

 peach, — and lastly of one nectarine-tree first bearing half-and-half fruit, 

 and subsequently true peaches. As the peach came into existence before 

 the nectarine, it might have been expected from the law of reversion that 



43 ' Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. i. p. 

 103. 



44 Loudon's ' Gardener's Mag.,' 1826, 

 vol. i. p. 471. 



45 Ibid., 1828, p. 53. 

 45 Ibid., 1830, p. 597. 



4 ? ' Gardener's Chronicle,' 1841, p. 

 617. 



48 'Gardener's Chronicle,' 1844, p. 

 589. 



49 'Phytologist,' vol. iv. p. 299. 



50 ' Gardener's Chron.,' 1856, p. 531. 



51 Godron, ' De l'Espece,' torn. ii. 

 p. 97. 



52 ' Gardener's Chron.,' 1856, p. 531. 



