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VIII. On the means employed in raising a tree of the Imperatrice 

 Nectarine. In a Letter to the Secretary. By T. A. Knight, 

 Esq. F.R.S. President. 



Read February 3, 1835. 



Dear Sir, 



^Tou informed me in the last spring that our garden did not 

 contain a tree of the Imperatrice Nectarine, and that you wished to 

 obtain one. I, in consequence, promised that I would raise, and 

 send you one as soon as I could ; and I believe that the means 

 which I employed in raising a tree of that variety, will prove that 

 I have not lost time in proceeding to perform my promise. 



The tree which I send is composed of an almond stock, which 

 sprang from seed early in the last spring, into which two buds 

 were inserted on opposite sides in the end of April ; and as soon 

 as those had properly united themselves to the stock, that was 

 removed from the forcing house, and placed under a north wall. 

 After a few days it was headed down, and brought again into the 

 forcing house, when the two inserted buds vegetated, and each 

 produced a lateral branch, which has acquired the length of about 

 two feet six inches, and has formed a few blossom buds. I had 

 previously, early in the spring, grafted an almond stock, which 

 was a year old, with the Imperatrice Nectarine, with the intention 

 of obtaining a tree to send to you ; but it acquired, early in the 

 summer, too large a size ; and it was consequently planted out to 

 fill up a vacancy upon my south wall, where it has produced two 

 branches, each of which is more than six feet long ; and it has 

 covered fifty square feet of the wall with much excellent bearing 

 wood. I have never witnessed such rapidity, and excellence of 

 growth, in a peach, or nectarine tree, planted at the usual periods. 



