306 CULTURE OF PEACHES AND NECTARINES ON THE OPEN WALL. 
gencies of the latter class, must be obtained out of doors ; and of all the out-door fruits, 
none give so apt an idea of tropical fruits and their peculiar flavour, as the Peach, 
Nectarine, and Apricot. 
I am not without hopes, however, of living to see the day, when Peach and Nectarine 
culture will be universally established on an economical, and safe foundation. Economical, 
for although it is not in the amount expended in the preparation of the soil in which 
success is based, yet many are deterred from the culture of these noble fruits from an idea 
that it is of a complicated, and, by consequence, expensive character ; as also in proportion 
necessarily uncertain. 
Now, the only realhj expensive part of the proceedure is the walls ; these are indeed 
somewhat costly, but as such generally exist, or are considered necessary as a principle of 
safety around most gardens of any importance, the expense of the walls as bearing on Peach 
culture falls to the ground. As to what has been termed border-making, I hope to show 
before I conclude the remarks I have to offer, that such as they have in the main been 
hitherto constructed — have been, to use a mild phrase, mere works of supererogation. 
They have, however, been something more ; they have been exhaustions of rich pasture 
lands all over the country, and I need scarcely add, by such means have dipped rather too 
deep into the pocket of the proprietor. It must not here be supposed that I am going to 
repudiate the benefits derived from the use of fine loamy soils, by no means ; I advocate its 
use in preference to all other composts, but at the same time, I protest against that 
expensive thing ycleped a border, in which there is ordinarily buried about ten times the 
amount of compost necessary for the wants of the tree ; and which becomes in many cases 
a most fertile source of failure, from the circumstance of producing a too powerful root- 
action, which is decidedly inimical to the ripening of the wood ; and which latter 
principle, is indeed the foundation stone of all trees acclimatising, on which the culture of 
the Peach and Nectarine ought assuredly to be based. 
The present summer has been, I believe, notorious for inferior crops of wall Peaches 
and Nectarines ; and I have no hesitation in asserting, that at least one half the failure 
has been occasioned by the immature state of the wood. 
I am of course perfectly aware that the shoots of 1848 were not unusually ill ripened; 
¥7hat I mean is, that badly matured wood, which may possibly set and produce inferior 
fruit in any genial spring, will quail before such April frosts as we experienced this spring ; 
when even thoroughly ripened shoots, with covering to boot, could scarcely withstand the 
severity of that period. 
It is of no use to suppose that coverings alone caused the difference in setting in 
different gardens : it will be found on examination, that some trees set their blossoms, 
better without covering, than others with it. Let it not, however, be imagined that I would 
object to coverings ; on the contrary, I would have them universally adopted, having long 
since proved their utility. What I here point to is, the degree of maturity in the wood, 
on which in the main the setting depends ; for as the most genial spring cannot insure 
a healthy " set " with immature wood, so not even the most ungenial one does even 
totally destroy the blossoms of that which is thoroughly ripened, providing some little 
attention be paid to protection matters, which we also freely allot to those of an immature 
character. 
I have a wall of Peaches of very considerable length, which have produced as fine a 
crop this summer, as in any previous year. These trees have astonished many gardeners, 
who have looked over them. The general exclamation has been : — What a fine peach 
wall ; a full crop too ! Why how have you managed to get a crop, you are the only one 
I know who has one out-doors? Such has been the gist of the remarks from several 
persons, and such led of course to some arguments, pro and con, on the subject of shallow 
borders, night covering, stopping, &c. &c. I have trees moreover which surprise as much 
by the regularity and evenness of their wood, or, in other words, the symmetry of the tree, 
and the equalisation of the crop : the latter effected in the main by summer stopping. 
Having now sufficiently praised the trees under my charge, and complained of the 
present position of Peach and Nectarine trees in general ; I may be expected to throw out 
