AMYGDALUS PERSICA. THE PEACH. 
Class XII. ICOSANDRIA.— Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, AMYGDALEJE. THE ALMOND TRIBE. 
The peach tree in its natural state is under the middle-size, with spreading branches, lanceolate, glabrous, 
serrated leaves. The flowers are sessile, with reddish calyxes, and pale or dark-red corollas : the fruit roundish, 
generally pointed, with a longitudinal grove; the pulp or sarcocarp large, fleshy, and succulent, white or yellowish, 
sometimes reddish, abounding in a grateful sweet acid juice ; the stone hard, and irregularly furrowed ; and 
the kernel bitter. The tree of quick growth, and not of long duration, blossoms in April, and ripens its fruit 
in August and September. Dr. Sickler considers Persia as the original country of the peach, which in Media 
is deemed unwholesome, but when planted in Egypt becomes pulpy, delicious, and salubrious. The peach 
also, according to Columella, when first brought from Persia into the Roman empire possessed deleterious 
qualities, which T. A. Knight concludes to have arisen from these peaches being only swollen almonds (the 
tuberes of Pliny,) or imperfect peaches, and which are known to contain the prussic acid, which operates 
unfavourably on many constitutions. The tree has been cultivated time immemorial in most parts of Asia ; 
when it was introduced into Greece is uncertain ; the Romans seem to have brought it direct from Persia 
during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. It is first mentioned by Columella, and afterwards described by 
Pliny. The best peaches in Europe are at present grown in Italy on standards, and next may be cited those 
of Montreuii near Paris, trained on lime-white walls. (Mozard sur l’Education du Pecher, &c. 1014.) In 
England there are but few sorts of peaches that come to tolerable perfection in the open air in ordinary 
seasons. The best adapted for this purpose are the freestones, but all the sorts ripen well by the aid of 
hot-walls or glass, and may be forced so as to ripen in May and June. The tree is generally an abundant 
bearer ; one of the noblesse kind is at Yokefield in Suffolk, which covers about 600 square feet of trellis under 
a glass case without flues, and ripens annually from 60 to 70 dozen of peaches. (Hort. trans. 3. p. 17.) 
Use. The peach is a dessert fruit of the first order, and makes a delicious preserve. In Maryland and 
Virginia a brandy is made from the fruit. The manufacture of this liquor, and the feeding of pigs, being 
(as Braddick observes, Hort. trans. 2. p. 205,) the principal uses to which the peach is applied in those 
countries. 55 The leaves steeped in gin or whisky communicate a flavor resembling that of noyeau. 
Criterion of a good peach. A good peach, Miller observes, possesses these qualities ; the flesh is firm, 
the skin is thin, of a deep or bright-red colour next the sun, and yellowish green next the wall ; the pulp is 
of a yellowish colour, full of high flavoured juice, the fleshy part thick, and the stone small. 
Varieties. Linnaeus divides his Amygdalus Persica into two varieties ; that with downy fruit, or the 
peach, and that with smooth fruit, or the nectarine, but in the present work the peach and nectarine have 
been established into a genus called Persica, and the peach and nectarine made distinct species. There are, 
however, various instances on record (Hort. trans. l.p. 103,) of both fruits growing on the same tree, and even 
on the same branch ; and one case has occurred of a single fruit partaking of the nature of both. The French 
consider them as one fruit, arranging them in four divisions, thepdehes or free stone peaches, the flesh of whose 
fruit separates readily from the stone and the skin ; the peches lisses or free-stone nectarines ; th epavies or cling- 
stone peaches, whose flesh is firm, and adheres both to the stone and the skin ; and the Brugnons or cling-'stone 
nectarines. Knight (Hort. trans. 3. p. 1.), Robertson (Hort. trans. 3. p. 382.), and many other horticul- 
turists, consider the peach and almond as one species. We have, however, in this work followed the estab- 
lished nomenclature, and treated them as distinct fruits. There are many fine varieties of the peach. 
Tusser, in 1573, mentions peaches white and red; Parkinson, in 1629, enumerates 21 sorts; and Miller, in 
1750, 31 varieties. In the garden of Luxembourg at Paris are 70 varieties, and above double that number 
of names are to be found in the catalogues of our nurseries. Several attempts have been made to class the 
•varieties of peaches and nectarines by the leaf and flower, as well as the fruit ; the first is by M. Poiteau in 
the Bon Jardinier ; the next by Count Lelieur in his Pomone Franyaise ; the next by John Robertson, 
Nurseryman of Kilkenny, whose arrangement is founded on the glands of the leaves ; and the fourth by 
George Lindley (Hort. trans. vol. 5.), also founded on the glands of the leaves ; but none of these arrange- 
ments have been found sufficiently perfect for the purpose of this work. 
All the varieties of peaches and nectarines, Abercrombie remarks, “ are extremely well suited for forcing 
in large pots. Small plants intended to come in before or after those in the borders may be excited in the 
