first stage in a distinct house, so as the temperature of that in which they are brought to finish fruiting be 
suited to their progress. The pots or tubs should be such as not to contain less than a cubic foot of earth, 
the soil should be lighter and richer than that recommended for the borders, and liquid manure should be 
plentifully supplied to make up in some degree for the confinement of the roots. They are best forced in a 
peach-house, but succeed in a vinery or succession stove ; best of all, however, in a pit or Dutch frame, 
where the temperature can be regulated at pleasure, and where they are near the glass. Great care must 
be taken to supply them regularly with water, for which purpose some place saucers under the pots, others 
cover their surface with moss, or what is better, fresh cow or rotten horse dung. Casing the pots with 
ropes made of moss is also a very good method, as it not only preserves an uniform degree of moisture, but 
also of temperature. Of course the moss must be kept watered. Peach trees in pots are sometimes trained 
to small fan-trellises attached to the pot, but in general they are pruned as dwarf standards, in which form 
they bear rather better than when trained. When the fruit is nearly ripe, the pots should be removed from 
the hot-house, or vine-house, to a cooler and more airy situation, or if in the pits the sashes may be taken 
off a part of every fine day. In other respects the treatment of peach trees in pots is similar to that of the 
trees in the borders .’ 5 
Whether or not the blushing peach 
Was Eden’s once forbidden fare, 
I cannot tell — 
says an agreeable correspondent ; but we certainly think it has fairer claims to such an eminence than 
the huge cousin of the orange family, which takes the title of forbidden fruit in our shops. 
There is great beauty, says Leigh Hunt, as well as other agreeableness, in a well-disposed fruiterer’s 
window. Here are the round piled-up oranges, deepening almost into red, and heavy with juice ; the apple 
with its brown red cheek, as if it had slept in the sun ; the pear, swelling downwards, and provocative of a 
huge bite in the side ; thronging grapes, like so many tight little bags of wine ; the peach, whose handsome 
leathern coat strips off so finely ; the pearly or ruby-like currants, heaped in light long baskets ; the red little 
mouthfuls of strawberries, ditto ; the larger purple ones of plums : cherries, whose old comparison with lips is 
better than any thing new ; mulberries, dark and rich with juice, fit to grow over what Homer calls the deep 
black-watered fountains ; the swelling pomp of melons ; the rough inexorable-looking cocoa-nut, milky at 
heart ; the elaborate elegance of walnuts ; the quaint cashoo-nut ; almonds, figs, raisins, tamarinds, green 
leaves, — in short, 
Whatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields 
In India East or West, or middle shore 
In Pontus or the Punick coast, or where 
Alcinous reigned, fruit of all kinds, in coat 
Rough, or smooth rind, or bearded husk, 'or shell. 
Milton. 
There is something of more refined service in waiting upon a lady in a fruit-shop, than in a pastry- 
cook’s. The eating of tarts, as Sir Walter Scott handsomely saith in his Life of Dryden (who used to enjoy 
them, it seems, in company with “ Madam Reeves ”) is “ no inelegant pleasure but there is something 
still more graceful and suitable in the choosing of the natural fruit, with its rosy lips and red cheeks. A 
white hand looks better on a basket of plums, than in the doubtful touching of syrupy and sophisticated 
pastry. There is less of the kitchen about the fair visitor. She is more Pomona-like, native, and to the 
purpose. We help her, as we would a local deity. 
Here be grapes whose lusty blood 
Is the learned poet’s good ; 
Sweeter yet did never crown 
The head of Bacchus; — Nuts more brown 
Than the squirrels teeth that crack them ; 
Deign, O fairest fair, to take them. 
For these black ey’d Driope 
Hath often times commanded me, 
With my clasped knee to clime ; 
See how well the lusty time 
Hath deckt their rising cheeks in red, 
Such as on your lips is spread. 
Here be berries for a Queen, 
Some be red, some be green, 
These are of that luscious meat, 
The great God Pan himself doth eat. 
All these, and what the woods can yield, 
The hanging mountain or the field, 
I freely offer, and ere long 
Will bring you more, more sweet and strong, 
Till when humbly leave I take, 
Lest the great Pan do awake, 
That sleeping lies in a deep glade, 
Under a broad beech’s shade. 
Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. 
How the poets double every delight for us, with their imagination and their music ! 
The peach blossom signifies, lam your captive! 
