Almond

“ Beneath a milk-white almond tree, Fatima and Mehmed be. The black earth is their bridal bed; The thick-starred sky clear-spread Is their coverlet all the night, As they lie in each other's arms so white. The grass is full of honey-dew; The crescent moon, that glimmers through The unrippled leaves, is faint and new: And the milk-white almond blossoms All night long fall on their bosoms. ”

“ But in honour perhaps of the guest who was the donor, the long branches of almond blossom had been ingeniously wreathed among the sconces of the candelabra. They spread their still fresh and living blossoms over the ancient mirrors, and multiplied reflections in the green pallor seemed to create the semblance of a far-off watery springtime. ”

“ It is not spring, but the hesitancy that holds before the season changes; yet each day there are new flowers—not our delicate wood flowers, but larger and coarser of fibre, and it adds a charm to them that I do not know their names. The trees are budding, and here and there, like a wave breaking into foam on a windless sea, an almond has burst into blossom, white and solitary on the gray slopes, and over all the orchards there is the faint suggestion of pale pink, felt more than seen, so vague is it—but it is there. ”

“ It is not the oak, the ash, or the elm, or any of the robust trees of the forest which we consider as beautiful; they are awful and majestic, they inspire a sort of reverence. It is the delicate myrtle, it is the orange, it is the almond, it is the jasmine, it is the vine which we look on as vegetable beauties. ”

“ There were orchards of almond-trees that seemed from a distance to be bearing a crop of snowflakes, till one came nearer and could distinguish the delicate pinks and mauves of their blossom; there were bushy algobras with rich green foliage; oranges, bearing the last of that juicy crop which, when fresh gathered, melts in the mouth like ice; olive-trees, with dry gray leaves and trunks so grotesquely gnarled as to suggest arboreal pain. The hot sun above, dappling the young corn and filling the stone water-conduits with soft tree-shadows; the tinkling twitter of unseen birds ”

“ In this latitude late frosts cut off the hope of fruit too often for the wild almond to multiply greatly, but the spiny, tap-rooted shrubs are resistant to most plant evils.
It is not easy always to be attentive to the maturing of wild fruit. Plants are so unobtrusive in their material processes, and always at the significant moment some other bloom has reached its perfect hour. One can never fix the precise moment when the rosy tint the field has from the wild almond passes into the inspiring blue of lupines. ”

“ For a few days, all too few, the almond trees are smothered with their delicate pale pink blooms, but one night’s rain or a few hours’ rough wind will scatter all their blossoms, and nothing will remain of their rosy loveliness but a carpet of bruised and fallen petals. ”

“ Yet almond blossoms bloom sweetly in scant little gardens or beside the bleak walls of town houses, and spring begins to bud even in the lands where spring’s struggle is the longest, and as I watch her oncoming and rejoice in her tender-toned early flowers, I must needs remember the home where her life is the fairest and merriest, and her sunlight the stronger to play and be played with. ”

“ Under the sun of the tropics, the peach, the almond, the orange, the vine, and the olive, before unknown there, flourished in the gardens of the tableland, at an elevation twice as great as that at which the clouds are suspended in summer above our heads. ”

“ Wherever its prolific waters annually irrigate and subside, there spring up in exuberant abundance the grains and herbs of the field, the flowers and fruits of the garden, the almond and pomegranate, the fruitful palm, the fragrant orange and lemon, the cotton-plant and the sugar-cane, and, more frequent than all, the widespread shade of the sycomore. ”

“ This little lump (a b, Fig. 37) is a young plant, and the two halves of the almond are the seed leaves which hold the plantlet, and feed it till it can feed itself. The rounded end of the plantlet (b) sticking out of the almond, is the beginning of the root, while the other end (a) will in time become the stem. If you look carefully, you will see two little points at this end, which are the tips of future leaves. Only think how minute this plantlet must be in a primrose, where the whole seed is scarcely larger than a grain of sand! ”

“ Soil Handling.—The almond is one of the most exacting of fruits as regards its cultivation. The assumption is very often made by growers that because the tree will live through periods of prolonged drouth, it will also thrive under careless or poor methods of cultivation. That this is entirely erroneous may be inferred from the fact previously referred to that the almond draws more heavily upon the plant food of the soil for the ripening of its crop than any of the common orchard fruits. ”

“ But peepers as well as listeners sometimes learn unpleasant truths about themselves.
“Aren’t we picking too many of these blossoms?” asked the lady of the house. “I’m afraid we are wasting our almond crop.”
[Pg 9]
“Almond trees will never bear in this climate,” said the Master of the Garden. “Better make the most of the blossoms while they last. The frost will catch them in a week or two.” ”

“ It is also said that the almond becomes sweet, instead of bitter, if one digs round the stem and, having bored a hole about a palms-breadth, allows the gum which exudes from all sides [23] to flow down into it and collect. ”

“ Today we eat the luscious peaches with their thick, soft, richly-flavored juicy flesh—they are one product of man's patient ingenuity. Or we take the soft shelled almond with its sweet kernel; it is the old pit improved and changed by man: in the almond, as it is raised at present, we care nothing for the pulp and it has almost vanished. ”

“ The almond is monoecious and has perfect blossoms, therefore, there is no such thing as male and female trees in the case of the almond, but most of the best soft-shelled almonds are self-sterile and need cross-pollination from another variety. ”

“ Considered as a fruit tree, the Almond, in all its varieties, deserves a place in almost every garden, to encrease the variety of eatable fruits, especially as standard and half standard trees, in which they will also adorn the premises very conspicuously in spring, during their general bloom, and supply us with annual crops of fruit without trouble ”

“ ND through the almond tree the Lord gave the trembling young prophet the strength of assurance. The almond tree is the first to awake from its wintry sleep. When all other trees are held in frozen slumber the almond blossoms are looking out on the barren world. ”

“ Almond Root.—The greatest proportion of almonds in this state are on almond roots. Where the most desirable soil, moisture and drainage conditions exist it is best to select the almond root. It will live in comparatively dry soils, but cannot be expected to make a tree of large size or bear crops of nuts if the dry conditions continue. Where irrigation is not available, and the soil is deep and of proper texture, sufficient moisture may be retained in most years by cultivation to enable the tree to grow and bear fruit. ”

“ The land is fertile, and corn and wine and oil and rosy flowering almonds grow almost as of themselves. They come—tens and tens of miles away, from out the deep shadows of primeval chestnut-woods, clothing the flanks of rugged Apennines with emerald draperies. ”

“ And cloudless suns mature the fertile field.” The Hebrew word Shakad, from which the Almond derives its name, means to make haste, or to awake early, given to the tree on account of its hasty growth and early maturity. Aaron’s rod, which budded and brought forth fruit in the Tabernacle during one day, was of an Almond-tree: “It budded and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded Almonds.” (Numbers xvii., 8) . Among the Hebrews, the Almond-tree was regarded as the symbol of haste and vigilance, because of the suddenness of its blossoming, which announced the Spring. ”

“ O’er the flowers it brought from its native home;
Think thou again of the woody glade,
Of the sound by the rustling ivy made;
Think of the tree at thy father’s door,
And the kindly spell shall have power once more.
Mrs. Hemans.
{22} Almond Blossom. ... Indiscretion.
The Almond tree is the first of the trees to put forth its blossoms, when spring breathes the breath of life through nature. It has been made the emblem of indiscretion, from flowering so early that frosts too often give a death-chill to the precocious germs of its fruit. ”

“ ALMOND.
"An Almond for a parrot" seems to have been a proverb for the greatest temptation that could be put before a man. The Almond tree is a native of Asia and North Africa, but it was very early introduced into England, probably by the Romans. It occurs in the Anglo-Saxon lists of plants, and in the "Durham Glossary" (11th century) it has the name of the "Easterne nutte-beam." ”

“ As we approach human habitations again, traces of cultivation once more appear; small terraces are levelled on the mountain side and planted with almond-trees, from which our men snatch handfuls of young milky nuts in passing—a universal habit that has given rise to the sarcastic proverb, “The laden almond-tree by the wayside is sure to be bitter.” ”

“ It is true that shade may be found even in the hottest hours of perpendicular noon; and when the sun has fairly beaten you, as he will in less than five minutes, from the field, you may take refuge, if you choose, under the broad-leaved, glistening, umbrella-like almond-trees, so called from a superficial resemblance between the kernels of their fruit and those of the almond, but neither in foliage nor growth having the most distant likeness to the European tree of that name, which Dutch forethought has kindly planted all along the river quay. ”

“ Earth and rock are hidden by a thick undergrowth of grass and creepers that defies the sun, and draws from the nearby mountain snow a perennial supply of water. Olive and plane, almond and walnut, orange and lemon, cedar and cork, palm and umbrella-pine, grape-vine and flower-bush have not the monopoly of green. ”

“ BITTER ALMONDS are in no respect different from sweet almonds, either as to the appearance of the kernels themselves, or the trees which produce them, except somewhat in the size of the flowers and fruit. Like sweet almonds, they yield a large portion of oil. ”

“ In summarizing the soil requirements for almond culture, it may be stated that the ideal almond soil is a medium loam, uniform in texture, or nearly so, to a depth of at least twelve feet, well drained and yet retentive of moisture for the use of the tree during the summer. Fortunately some of the best almond soils are situated along stream banks where the land is relatively high, and is, therefore, less subject to frost. These streams flowing from the mountains and foothills have built up their own beds by the detritus brought from the hills. ”

“ Almond trees are generally grafted on plum stocks; and they should be grown in a dry soil and a sheltered situation, as the branches are [Pg 263] brittle and apt to be broken off by high winds. When almond seeds are sown, the sharp end should be pressed downwards; and the young plants should not be transplanted except when absolutely necessary, as they have very long tap-roots. When the almond is planted for ornament it should have a back-ground of evergreens, as its flowers appear before its leaves. ”

“ PRUNING
The almond trees normally set a larger number of fruit buds than they are capable of maturing. The number of blossoms set on a healthy tree to produce a full crop will be generally not more than 20 per cent of the total number which opened in the spring, and oftentimes much less. It has frequently been noted that trees which are somewhat lacking in vigor are inclined to set a larger number of fruit buds than those that are strong and vigorous. The normal set of blossoms on a young, vigorous tree is shown in figure 2. ”

“ After differentiation of fruit buds commences in the summer, the almond leaves should remain on the tree until late into the fall in order to strengthen and develop the fruit buds and store up the elaborated food material for the use of the buds in their normal development through the winter. ”

“ III. THE FRUIT TREES The fruit trees are cultivated for the sake of their fruit. They bear either kernel fruit, when their seed kernels are enclosed in cores of parchment-like formation; or stone fruit, when the seed kernel is enclosed in a hard shell, which is in its turn enclosed in some succulent pulp; or shell fruit, when the fleshy interior is enclosed in a hard shell.
Almond, a small tree belonging to the rose family, native to northwest Africa. ”

“ As an ornamental tree the Almond should be in every shrubbery, and, as in Gerard's time, it may still be planted in town gardens with advantage. There are several varieties of the common Almond, differing slightly in the colour and size of the flowers; and there is one little shrub (Amygdalus nana) of the family that is very pretty in the front row of a shrubbery. All the species are deciduous. ”

“ The fruit of the almond tree.
μ The different kinds, as bitter, sweet, thinÐshelled, thickÐshelled almonds, and Jordan almonds, are the products of different varieties of the one species, Amygdalus communis, a native of the Mediterranean region and western Asia.
2. The tree bears the fruit; almond tree.
3. Anything shaped like an almond. Specifically: (Anat.) One of the tonsils.
Almond oil, fixed oil expressed from sweet or bitter almonds. Ð Oil of bitter almonds, a poisonous volatile oil obtained from bitter almonds by maceration and distillation; benzoic aldehyde. ”