THE CULTIVATION OF FEACH AND NECTARINE TREES. 
123 
with great care, and only the very best to be used, mixing that intimately with gritty sand, potsherds, 
and charcoal broken small. 
Most of the Chorozemas delight in a gentle moist heat during the growing season ; and as they are 
subject to the attacks of the red spider, and a peculiar species of thrip, great care must be taken that 
they do not suffer. The best preventive is perfect cleanliness; the best remedy syringing so as to 
wet every part of the plant, and then dusting the foliage both over and under with sulphur, which 
may remain on for a few days, and then must be washed off again with clean water. With plants that 
are subject to red spider or thrips, or even to mildew, it is a good plan to syringe them with water 
impregnated with sulphur about once in ten days, or a fortnight, during the growing season. Through 
the winter, also, Chorozemas should be kept rather warmer than ordinary greenhouse plants ; indeed 
these, with Boronias , Polygalas, Dillwynias, Leschenaultias, Roellias, Pimeleas, and some similar 
plants, should occupy the warmest end of the greenhouse, and not be exposed to cold draughts. The 
whole of the free-growing Chorozemas, to keep them neat and bushy, require to be cut in boldly every 
season directly they have done blooming, and if they grow very luxuriantly, the young shoots may also 
be stopped a time or two to make them branch. Several of the kinds will continue to grow through 
the depth of winter; indeed they progress better at that season, as to actual growth, than at any 
other. A little clear manure water is beneficial to them occasionally, especially when the pots are full 
of roots, and frequent syringing and perfect cleanliness must not be neglected.—A. 
♦ 
THE CULTIVATION OE PEACH AND NECTARINE TREES. 
M AYING cultivated the Peach and Nectarine for more than twenty years, in various soils and situa¬ 
tions, with a success bordering upon perfection, I enter on the subject with no small degree of 
confidence. I commence with the border, one of the most essential points, and one too often mis¬ 
managed. Too frequently all that is thought necessary is to trench the borders to a good depth. The 
borders which I have prepared, and which have produced some of the most beautiful of fruit trees, 
were made in the following manner :—The width was fourteeen feet; less, I consider, will not do. In 
the bottom, through its whole width and length, was laid fifteen inches of drainage, sloping consider¬ 
ably from the wall to the front, where ran a main drain to carry off superfluous moisture. The bottom 
under the drainage was perfectly smooth, in order to give the latter more effect. Where one end of the 
border is higher than the other, a cross drain must run from between each tree to the main drain in 
front, for effectual drainage is the greatest point; without it, it is impossible to grow fruit trees well. 
The soil I have used is good friable loam, free from manure, not too light; indeed, a stiffish loam 
will be found to suit the fruit trees admirably, and in it they will flourish on the warm and comfortable 
bed of drainage. The extreme depth of the soil for the border should not exceed twenty inches, and 
it should be allowed to settle thoroughly before the trees are planted. This is a point of no little im¬ 
portance, for if the trees are planted too soon, the settling of the border will cause them to be buried 
too deep. 
I recommmend early planting; for I have always found it best. When trees are had from the 
nursery in the autumn, and laid in until spring, as is sometimes the case, on then* removal for their 
final planting they will be found to have made a mass of fibres, which, of course, must be injured and 
broken, and against this loss the tree has to struggle for the first summer; if, indeed, it survives it. I 
prefer half-standard trees, from three and a-half to four feet high in the stem ; and so strongly do I 
recommend this height, that I should rejoice to see dwarf Peaches, Nectarines, &c., banished altogether 
from gardens. It is a well known fact that the finest fruit is produced towards the ground. This 
being the case, the principal object must be to well furnish the bottom of the wall with bearing wood of 
good quality, and keep it so at all times. Seeing that half-standard trees, trained star-form {Fig 3), 
afford the greatest facilities for this object, their decided superiority to the dwarf fan-trained trees 
