“ The treatment in horticulture of the peach and nectarine is the same in every respect. To perpetuate and multiply the choicer varieties, peaches and nectarines are budded upon plum or almond stocks. For dry situations almond stocks are preferable, but they are not long-lived, while for damp or clayey loams it is better to use certain kinds of plums. Double-working is sometimes beneficial, thus an almond budded on a plum stock may be rebudded with a tender peach, greatly to the advantage of the latter. ”

“ Wooden and glass copings are also very useful in warding off frosts. Care must be taken that the roots always have a sufficient supply of moisture and that the soil is moist wherever the roots run.
Forcing.—The pruning and training of the trees in the peach house do not differ materially from the methods practised out of doors. It may also be stated here that when occasion arises peach trees well furnished with buds may be transplanted and forced immediately without risking the crop of fruit, a matter of some importance when, as sometimes happens, a tree may accidentally fail. ”

“ The best-placed healthy young shoot produced from the wood buds at the base of the bearing branch is to be carefully preserved and in due time nailed to the wall In the following winter this will take the place of the branch which has just borne, and which is to be cut out. If there be no young shoot below, and the bearing branch is short, the shoot at the point of the latter may sometimes be preserved as a fruit bearer, though if the bearing branch be long it is better to cut it back for young wood. ”

“ For cold and late situations, Thomas Andrew Knight recommended the encouragement of spurs on the young wood, as such spurs, when close to the wall, generate the best organized and most vigorous blossoms, and generally ensure a crop of fruit. They may be produced, by taking care, during the summer pruning or disbudding. to preserve a number of the little shoots emitted by the yearly wood, only pinching off the minute succulent points. On the spurs thus formed blossom buds will be developed early in the following season. This practice is well adapted to cold situations. ”

“ The point of this leading shoot is subsequently pinched off, that it may not draw away too much of the sap. If the fruit sets too abundantly, it must be thinned, first when as large as peas, reducing the clusters, and then when as large as nuts to distribute the crop equally; the extent of the thinning must depend on the vigour of the tree, but one or two fruits ultimately left to each square foot of wall is a full average crop. ”

“ The branches may be depressed or elevated, so as to check or encourage them, as occasion may arise, and it is highly advantageous to keep them thin, without their becoming in any part deficient of young shoots. Sometimes a more rapid mode of formation is now adopted, the main shoots being from the first laid in nearly at full length, instead of being shortened The pruning for fruit consists in shortening back the laterals which had been nailed in at the disbudding, or summer pruning, their length depending on their individual vigour and the luxuriance of the tree. ”

“ Peach-trees require protection, especially at the period of blossoming, particularly in the north of England and in Scotland. Canvas or bunting screens are most effectual. By applying these early in the season, great benefit may be derived from retarding the blossom till the frosty nights of spring have passed. ”

“ The trees must be got to start growth very gradually, and at first the house should be merely kept closed at a temperature of about 45°, but the heat should gradually increase to 0° at night by the time the trees are in flower, and to 60° when the fruit is set, after which the house should be kept moist by sprinkling the walls and paths, or by lacing water troughs on the return pipes, and the temperature should range from 65° by day to 70° or more with sun heat. ”

“ Several times during summer the trees ought to be regularly examined, and the young shoots respectively topped or thinned out; those that remain are to be nailed to the wall, or braced in with pieces of slender twigs, and the trees ought occasionally to be washed with the garden engine or thoroughly syringed, especially during very hot summers. ”

“ Once established, its cultivation would readily extend westward, or, on the other hand, by Cabul to north-western India, where its cultivation is not ancient While the peach has been cultivated in China for thousands of years, the almond does not grow wild in that country and its introduction is supposed not to go back farther than the Christian era. ”

“ Aitchison also mentions the almond as wild in some parts of Afghanistan, where it is known to the natives as “bēdām,” the same word that they apply to the cultivated almond. The branches of the tree are carried by the priests in religious ceremonies. ”