THE PEACH AND NECTARINE. 



501 



young wood is laid in, the more it will be ex- 

 posed to light and air, and it is on these that its 

 ripening to full maturity depends. 



As soon as the crop is ripe and gathered, the 

 leaves will begin to assume their autumn hue, 

 at which time such shoots as may have been 

 preserved merely until the fruit upon them has 

 been ripened, and are no longer required, should 

 be cut out, to admit light and air to those re- 

 tained for future bearing. As the leaves begin 

 to drop of their own accord, their removal 

 should be assisted by drawing the hand upwards 

 along the shoots, or by using a small hand- 

 broom, drawing it upwards in like manner 

 always in the direction of the buds, and never 

 the reverse ; the ripened leaves will by this 

 means be gently brushed off, and light and air 

 admitted to the young wood : all superfluous 

 and watery shoots should be removed at the 

 same time. When the fruit is ripe it should be 

 examined daily, and all that is fit gathered care- 

 fully by the hand, and carried in shallow baskets 

 to the fruit-room, taking care never to place two 

 fruits on top of each other. Various fruit- 

 gatherers have been invented ; none are equal 

 to the experienced hand. However carefully 

 the fruit is gone over, some will fall from the 

 trees ; and therefore, to prevent such from 

 injury, it is well to suspend long strips of hexa- 

 gon netting, so that the fruit may fall into 

 it. Contrivances under the denomination of 

 " fruit-protectors " have been also invented, but, 

 like the fruit-gatherers, they are held in small 

 estimation by good cultivators. Those of Halli- 

 man are ingenious enough ; they are of little 

 importance as accelerators of the ripening of the 

 fruit, but are found of some advantage in pre- 

 venting it from falling when ripe, and also 

 improving the flavour somewhat if allowed to 

 remain a day or so after it has parted from the 

 tree. These advantages, however, bear no pro- 

 portion to their expense. 



Peaches on heated walls should not be stimu- 

 lated in spring : the later vegetation commences, 

 the greater the chance of escaping the spring 

 frosts ; and, indeed, so much importance do 

 some attach to this, that they unloose their 

 trees early in February, and withdraw the 

 branches some inches from the wall, to retard 

 vegetation till a later and more congenial season. 

 The use of heated walls, as has been shown in 

 vol. i., is not to force forward the trees in 

 spring, but to assist them during the end of sum- 

 mer in ripening their fruit, and in early autumn 

 in ripening the wood and buds. The beginning of 

 July and through August and September is the 

 time that heated walls should be brought into 

 action ; and the intention is to place the trees in 

 a somewhat similar condition, as regards tempe- 

 rature, to what they naturally experience in the 

 middle or peach-growing States of America, the 

 warmer parts of France, &c, where, although 

 the heat of summer and autumn is much greater 

 than with us, their winters are much colder. 

 Many good cultivators cover their peach trees 

 early in spring with thick canvass, and thus, by 

 excluding the air, retard their vegetation con- 

 siderably. The absence, however, of light in 

 this case is very injurious to the trees. 

 VOL. II. 



§ 2. — FORCING THE PEACH AND 

 NECTARINE. 



By the beginning of November, the wood in 

 even the latest peach-houses will have ripened. 

 The operation of pruning and preparing for 

 forcing will, from that period to the beginning 

 of January, demand attention. Ventilate all 

 the houses freely day and night, unless the frost 

 sets in severely, when it will be expedient to 

 shut them up during the night, and to admit 

 less air during the day. The borders should be 

 carefully but slightly forked over (not duy with a 

 spade) within and also without the house, in all 

 cases where the roots extend beyond the walls. 

 In the latter case the borders should be covered 

 so as to exclude excess of wet, and also frost. If 

 not concreted on the surface, they should have 

 a foot or 15 inches of dry leaves laid over them, 

 and this thatched with long littering straw, 

 or otherwise secured against displacement by 

 wind. The object is not to throw heat into the 

 soil, but to retain the natural heat already in it, 

 as well as to exclude cold and damp. Indeed, 

 where very early forcing is carried on, it were 

 better to have the roots entirely confined within 

 the house, and this the more so in wet locali- 

 ties. The interior borders will be dry if the 

 roof be in a proper state of repair, and will 

 therefore require two or three rather copious 

 waterings ; and if these be done with weak liquid- 

 manure, so much the better. The trees will 

 require a supply of food to carry them through 

 the season ; and this is more effectually done 

 by using it in a liquid state. The old and bar- 

 barous system of digging in rich manure in a 

 solid state cannot be too much condemned. 

 The surface-soil of the borders within, to the 

 depth of 2 inches at least, should be carefully 

 scraped off before forking commences, and re- 

 moved ; and this may be done to a somewhat 

 greater depth, provided the roots are not inter- 

 fered with. This portion of the soil, from re- 

 peated waterings and other causes, becomes 

 annually exhausted of its organic parts, and 

 becomes in time entirely useless as regards 

 affording food to the trees. The surface should 

 then be filled up again with a compound of turfy 

 loam, chopped up, but not reduced too fine, and 

 enriched with sheep or deer dung, the essence 

 of which will be progressively carried down 

 to the roots in the process of watering. All 

 water applied to the roots from the time the 

 house is shut up, till the natural heat of the 

 summer renders the precaution unnecessary, 

 should be at a temperature of from 80° to 90°. 

 When the house is heated by smoke-flues, these 

 should be completely cleaned of soot, repointed, 

 and whitewashed with hot lime-water, for the 

 purpose of preventing the escape of smoke and 

 sulphureous gases through the joints of the mor- 

 tar. It is necessary for appearance sake also. 

 The back wall or other parts that may be of 

 brickwork should have a similar colouring, and 

 the woodwork, if possible, should also be paint- 

 ed at least every second year. If hot water is 

 used, the boiler and pipes should be emptied, 

 cleaned inside, and then refilled with soft rain- 

 water. 



3 s 



