9 I . The fan mode of training is considered as best suit ed to peach-trees, and is the plan gene ally adopted. These trees may, to a certain extent, be considered as constantly in a state of training. In pruning them, the great object is, to keep every part of the tree equally furnished with bear ing wood, that is, with a succession of new shoots, laid in to the wall every year. This is to be attended to in April, and especially in May : for the wood and young shoots laid in afterwards, seldom ripen sufficiently to stand the winter. Besides, at that early season, the superfluous shoots can be pinched or rubbed off, without the use of the knife. The blossom-buds, it may be remarked, rise immediately from° the eyes of the shoots ; they are round, short, and promi nent ; while the leaf and shoot buds are oblong, narrow and flattish. The winter pruning is performed any time from the end of October till the end of February ; but the early part of winter is generally thought best. Where the trees are well managed, there is not a great deal of winter prun ing required. In shortening branches, it is a rule to cut behind a wood-bud, which may become a leader, to attract nourishment towards the shoot ; for a shoot possessing flower-buds, but having no wood-bud to act as a leader, may blossom, but will produce no perfect fruit. Branches which are considered as too weak to ripen fruit, are com monly cut, as they must tend to rob the other parts of the tree. When the trees have completely filled the spaces allotted to them, the principal shoots are not shortened, un less with the view of filling vacancies, or when the extre mities of the shoots have remained unripe, and been check ed by the frost, Mr Knight has explained the nature of what are called luxuriant shoots, and also the right mode of managing them. Most gardeners have directed the shortening of these in summer, or the cutting of them out in the following spring: But Mr Knight has experienced great advantages from leaving them wholly unshortened, but trained with a con siderable inclination to the horizon ; for, in this way, they have uniformly produced the finest possible bearing wood for the succeeding year ; and so far is this practice from tending to render naked the lower or internal parts of the tree, whence these branches spring, that the strongest shoots they afford invariably issue from the buds near their bases. The laterals from luxuriant shoots, if stopped at the first leaf, often afford very strong blossoms, and fine fruit in the succeeding season.
92. In the milder parts of England, the blossom of the peach-tree scarcely requires protection : in less favoured places, it is protected by some of the means already speci fied. Dr Noehden, in the second volume of the London Horticultural Transactions, has mentioned rather a singu lar mode of preventing the bad effects of frost on the blos som or young fruit of the peach-tree. It is this : af'er a frostuight, the first business of the morning is to spr,nkle cold water over the trees by means of the garden ct,7ine, taking care that the blossom or young fruit receive. :heir share, and that the operation be performed some be fore the rays of the sun strike the trees. 1Vhether t. e wa ter is useful, merely by promoting a gradual thawing, has not been ascertained.
When the fruit has attained the size of large peas, or of small hazelnuts, it is thinned, to the distance of five or six -inches between each fruit. In this way it acquires a larger
size, and the tree is not exhausted. The picking off of Ica% cs which overshadow the fruit, as recommended by Ni col and others, is not a good practice ; at least it must not be pushed to any considerable extent ; for the flower-bud for the succeeding year, being lodged in the ax ilia of the leaf-stalk, must greatly depend on the leaf for its nourish ment.
In dry seasons, and especially in soils naturally dry, a hollow basin, about six feet in diameter, is sometimes form ed around the root of the tree ; this is covered with mulch (small dung moistened, mixed with a little loam, and work ed together like mortar,) and water is occasionally added, according to the state of the weather. This is practised only while the fruit is growing, and the intention is, to keep it always in a state of progress.
Mr Knight seems to think, that in the milder parts of England, plentiful crops of fruit might be procured from the hardier sorts of peach-trees, trained as espaliers : he suggests that they should be planted in rows in the direc tion a north and south ; that they should not exceed five feet in height ; and that while the blossom is exposed to danger from frost, mats should be thrown over them, so se cured as to descend on each side nearly in the angle of an ordinary roof of a house.
On account of the usual mode of training and pruning peach-trees in this country, they do not occupy much space on the wall. Some of the old horticultural writers speak of twelve or fourteen feet as enough : but the trees are now permitted to from fifteen to twenty feet he ing allotted to each tree. Near Paris, a single peach-tree may sometimes be seen covering sixty feet of wall. It is at Montreuil that peaches are cultivated in perfection, peach gardens being here established for the supply of the capital. Making due allowance for the difference of climate, advan tages might probably be derived from copying some of the practices of these French cultivators, whose whole atten tion is devoted to the management of peach-trees. In 1814, Mr John who was bred under the famous gardener, Pepin, and is himself one of the principal pro prietors of peach-gardens at Montreuil, published a little piece, entitled 44 Principes pratiqucs sur reducation, la cul ture, la taille, et rebourgeonnement des arbres, fruitiers, et principalement du pecher," which is well deserving the at tention of horticulturalists in this country.
Nectarine.
9S. The Nectarine, as already observed, is merely a va riety of the peach. The English name may be supposed to be derived from the nectareous flavour of the fruit. The skin is smooth, not downy as in the peach ; and the flesh is rather more plump than in that fruit. Nectarines, like peaches, are either free-stones or ding-stones ; the former are called by the French Fiches lisses, smooth peaches ; the latter, Brugnons. Miller enumerates ten varieties : Of these the following are in most esteem : The Elruge, a middle-sized fruit ; when ripe, of a dark red or purple next the sun, pale towards the wall ; ready in the middle of August : the tree grows freely, and is a sure bearer ; indeed it is perhaps the best nectarine for the open air, especially in the less favoured counties.