188 



THE GARDENER'S ASSISTANT. 



flavour of the fruit. Bran, sawdust, hay, straw, 

 chaff, and all similar substances, are not suit- 

 able for packing fruits of this character. 



Propagation. 



The Peach and Nectarine are propagated from 

 seeds, by budding, and sometimes by grafting. 



Propagation from seeds is the mode employed 

 for new varieties, for continuing some of the 

 old ones, occasionally with little variation, and 

 for stocks. The method of raising plants from 

 the stones has already been adverted to in the 

 chapter on propagation. The plants will fre- 

 quently be fit for budding in the same season, 

 much depending on circumstances of soil and 

 climate, whether natural or artificial, with 

 which they may be favoured. Downing states 

 that, in America, a stone planted in autumn 

 will vegetate in the ensuing spring, and grow 

 3 or 4 feet high, and may be budded in August 

 or September. The stones may also be placed 

 in pots, vegetated and forwarded in gentle heat 

 during the spring, and encouraged by shifting, 

 till the weather becomes warm enough to admit 

 of the plants being turned out in the open air. 

 It is occasionally very convenient to have some 

 young plants of seedling Peaches for the purpose 

 of budding with any scarce variety that might 

 fail on the Almond or Plum stock. 



The Peach stock is of course the most natural, 

 but experience has proved that, in the soil of 

 countries much farther to the north than that 

 of its native country, the tree does not long 

 succeed on its own roots. "At all events, the 

 leaves, after several years, acquire partial tinges 

 of yellow; and this goes on every year increas- 

 ing, whilst the leaves are annually produced 

 narrower and narrower, till at last the tree 

 becomes useless. Peach-trees received by the 

 Royal Horticultural Society from America were 

 generally on the Peach stock, and all those 

 that were so invariably became affected in the 

 same way. George the Fourth Peach was one 

 of the best of them. In a series of seasons it 

 extended 35 feet along the wall, but being on 

 the Peach stock, its foliage became so narrow 

 and yellow that it was found necessary to re- 

 move the tree. The same variety has a healthy 

 green foliage on the Plum stock." 



Except in parts of the world where the soil 

 is never too cold, the Peach stock ought not 

 to be used. 



The stock next in order, as regards natural 

 adaptation for the Peach, is the Almond, which 

 is very nearly allied to it. Of this, as a stock, 



the French have had long experience, and the 

 sort they prefer is the hard -shelled sweet 

 Almond (Amandier doux a coque dure). All the 

 varieties of the Peach take readily on the 

 Almond; they also succeed well upon it in 

 soils that are not cold and wet. Some varie- 

 ties that do not take well on the kinds of Plum 

 stock usually employed, had better be worked 

 on the Almond for cultivation in the southern 

 parts of the kingdom, whenever proper fruit- 

 tree borders have been formed. 



Plum stocks are generally employed in this 

 country for Peaches and Nectarines. Hardy 

 and almost wild varieties, called the Mussel, 

 from the form of the fruit, and the Brompton 

 Plum, are those most used for this purpose in 

 the nurseries. It is found that all varieties 

 do not succeed equally well on both these stocks. 

 The Mussel is the stronger grower, and is the 

 best for those kinds that take well on it. The 

 Brompton Plum is employed for those which 

 nurserymen term French Peaches, but this is 

 a distinction not very definite. Although many 

 of the finer kinds of Peaches take more readily 

 on this stock than on any other, yet it has 

 afterwards the disadvantage of not increasing 

 in thickness in a corresponding degree with the 

 Peach worked upon it. We have seen the 

 Peach stem twice the thickness of the stock 

 of this sort on which it was growing. The 

 obstruction to the flow of sap which this dis- 

 parity occasions tends to throw the tree into 

 j a bearing state, but weakness soon ensues, and 

 | the trees die off sooner than on stocks which 

 afford a freer circulation of the sap. The 

 j French employ the varieties called the Saint- 

 Julien, the Damas Noir, and Myrobolan. M. 

 Lepere of Montreuil states, that the preference 

 is to be given to the Damas Noir or Black 

 Damask, which the cultivators near Paris get 

 from Fontenay-aux-Roses ; that they are cut 

 down nearly to the level of the ground on plant- 

 ing, which is best done in November, and that 

 they are budded when they have made fresh 

 shoots fit for being worked at the proper season. 

 We have seen trees worked upon the Saint- 

 Julien growing so perfectly in accordance with 

 the stock, that, even after a number of years, 

 scarcely any inequality could be detected at 

 their junction. It is stated that Peaches and 

 Nectarines succeed well when budded on the 

 White Magnum Bonum Plum. 



The Peach and Nectarine may also be grafted, 

 if care is taken to select for scions shoots with 

 firm short-jointed wood, and with about 1 inch 

 of two-year-old wood at the lower end. Such 



