On the early Puberty of the Peach Tree. 71 



open air, and in a cold and late situation, produced fruit 

 when only three years old. 



I therefore thought it not improbable that, with the aid of 

 glass and artificial heat, I might succeed in obtaining fruit 

 from trees of two years old ; and not impossible that, by a 

 peculiar mode of pruning, I might obtain fruit from yearling 

 trees, though the want of sunshine in our climate did not 

 permit me to entertain very sanguine hopes of success. 



Some Peach stones, which were the produce of trees upon 

 which I had made experiments in the year 1811, with the 

 hope of obtaining early varieties of Nectarines, were intended 

 to have been placed in pots in a hot-house, in the beginning 

 of January 1812 ; and one of my friends (I do not myself 

 possess a hot-house) had offered me the use of his house to 

 accelerate the germination and growth of tbe seedling plants. 

 I, however, found the hot-house of my friend so much in- 

 fested with insects of various kinds that I did not choose to 

 risk my plants in it ; and the seeds in consequence were 

 not subjected to the influence of artificial heat till the middle 

 of February, when I began to make fires in my vinery. 

 The plants appeared above the soil, early in March ; and 

 they were kept under glass during the whole summer and 

 autumn ; but without any artificial heat being applied after 

 the end of May. 



Conceiving that Nature, in placing the age of puberty, in 

 trees, so distant from the period in which they spring from 

 seed, has intended chiefly to afford the plant, in this interval, 

 the means of collecting a considerable store of organizable 

 matter, before the expenditure of its sap commences in the 

 production of blossoms and fruit, I adopted the mode of 



