118 
NAT. ORDER. — AMADYLACE/E. 
may be excluded by nets, or enticed by honied bottles, and the latter 
caught by the beetle-trap, reeds or bean-stalks laid in behind the 
leaves, and examined every morning. 
Gathering. Gather one day or two before the fruit is to be 
used, and before it be quite ripe, laying it on clean paper, in a dry, 
airy part of the fruit-room. 
Use of hot walls. The ripening of the Peach may be accelle- 
rated in the open air, when planted against a hot wall, by the appli- 
cation of gentle fires in cold moist weather, in August and Septem- 
ber. This will ripen the fruit and wood ; but no attempt should 
ever be made to accelerate the blossom early in spring, as without 
the protection of glass they are almost certain of being cut off. 
Medical Properties and Uses. The fruit is known to be grateful 
and wholesome, seldom disagreeing with the stomach, unless this 
organ is not in a healthy condition, or the fruit has been eaten to ex- 
cess, when effects similar to those of the other dulco-acid summer- 
fruits may be produced. 
The flowers, including the calyx, as well as the corolla, are the 
parts of the Persica used for medicinal purposes ; these have an 
agreeable but weak smell, and a bitterish taste. Boulduc observes, 
" that when distilled without addition by the heat of a water-bath, 
they yield one-sixth their weight, or more, of a whitish liquor, which 
communicates to a considerable quantity of other liquids a flavor 
like that of the kernels of fruits." 
These flowers have a cathartic effect, and especially to children 
have been successfully given in the character of a vermifuge : for 
this purpose an infusion of a drachm of the flowers, dried, or half 
an ounce in their recent state, is the requisite dose. The leaves of 
the Persica are also found to possess an anthelmintic power, and 
from a great number of experiments appear to have been given with 
invariable success both to children and adults. However, as the 
leaves and flowers of the Persica manifest in some degree the quality 
of those of the laurocerasus, they ought to be used with caution. 
