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XXX. On the Preservation of the early Foliage of Peach and 

 Nectarine Trees. By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq., F. R. S., 

 President. 



Read May 16, 1837. 



I stated, in a communication to this Society, two or three years 

 ago, that my gardener had, with the intention of destroying insects, 

 washed one whole Nectarine tree, and the half of another, with 

 water holding in suspension a small quantity of quick lime and of 

 flowers of sulphur ; and that the leaves of all my other trees of the 

 same species had become blistered and useless, owing to the 

 injurious effect of frost ; whilst all the leaves of the one tree, and 

 half of the other, which had been washed, totally escaped injury. 

 I also stated, that in the following spring, I had applied the same 

 wash to all my peach and nectarine trees, and that I had been 

 unable to find a single blistered leaf ; and my gardener has recently 

 informed me, that he has been unable to find one in the present 

 year. How this application can have operated in any way bene- 

 ficially I am wholly at a loss to conceive; but the facts appear 

 very strong, as, during the preceding twenty-five years, by far 

 the larger part of the early foliage of all my peach and nectarine 

 trees, and in several seasons the whole of it, had been rendered 

 wholly inefficient by the injurious operation of frost. 



One of my friends informed me, in the autumn of last year, that 

 a very intelligent and successful gardener, Mr. Pearson, who has 

 the management of the gardens of Mr. Child, of Kinlet, in Shrop- 

 shire, had adopted the same mode of treatment, with the same 

 results. I, in consequence, wrote to Mr. Pearson; and he, in 

 answer, informed me, that in the season following that in which he 



