PEACHES.
First among the members of the stone fruits, by reason of size, lusciousness and flavor, stands the peach, native of China, probably, but long in cultivation in Europe and all countries that touch the old highway through Persia to the Mediter ranean. The Chinese cultivated it at a remote period, and it was carried into Europe three cen turies before the birth of Christ. The early colonists brought it to America; here it thrives in all sections that have a mild winter climate.
A peculiarity of the peach is that the pit is very rough, while the pits of plums, apricots, and cher ries are smooth. Another is that some varieties are clingstones, others freestones. The fuzzy skin of a peach is thick or thin, according to the variety, red or yellow, the flesh yellow or white. Occasionally smooth peaches occur with furry ones on the same tree. A tree that has borne peaches may produce a crop of fruits that are all smooth. Or half of the limbs may bear one sort, and the rest the other. Indeed, a single fruit may be half furry and half smooth.
A smooth peach is called a nectarine. The seed of a nectarine will almost always produce a nec tarine tree. Yet the peach is counted the par
ent and the nectarine a changeling child, a "sport," illustrating the fact that in plants and animals there is no law so stable as the law that produces constant variations from the type. The offspring most unlike the parent is often the one most able to survive.
The English gardener raises delicious peaches under glass, and trained on south walls where they can get all the sun possible. The sunnier lands to the South grow the fruit to greatest perfection. America has large orchards of varieties that are solid enough to stand packing and shipping, as the dessert qualities could not do. The canneries take care of the surplus, so we get from market, fresh and canned, plenty of this wholesome fruit. But in order to know what excellence the peach can attain to, one must raise a few trees of the best French varieties in a greenhouse, and let the tree carry the fruit until it is soft under a gentle pressure of the ball of the thumb.