The Peach Tree.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1695, 17 June 1885, Page 3

The Peach Tree.

A correspondent of LUo Wanganui Herald, supplies the following, which wall intern t Wairarupa settlers The peach tree is generally considered to be more especially a n itivc of Persia. lie that as it may, most of us know that it is a native of a warm climate, and thrives best in a warm situation. Bin the peach tree is not indigenous solely to Persia, as a great many have been led to believe ; for it has been found in a wild state in many parts of Asis, and, to come nearer home, I have found it myself in different parts of Australia. Away in the far north ci Queensland, on the banks of the Fitzroy river, and scattered over a thousand miles of country, as far as the Murray and Darling livers in the south, where it may be found on the great sandy desert to the south-east of the Murray river in Victoria. The peach has lakeu well in America, and also in New Zealand. In what are called the good old days, some twenty years ago, the peach gtew wonderfully well with us--in fact, the fruit was so plentiful that it often had to be given to the pigs. But now this delicious fruit is almost a thing of the past, and the failure of the peach tree, to my mind, is a very great loss to New Zealand. The home of the peach seems to bo between the latitude of TO and TOdegs., and it withstands our winters unhurt, if they are not unusually severe. But all who have lived in New Zealand for the last twenty years must admit that the last three or four years have been most unusually severe, and nothing, I think, tells this so clearly as the failure of the peach tree all over New Zealand : and it seems to me that when the average temperature of a country falls below that which a particular tree requires for its nourishment ,tbat particular kind of tree ceases to exist. It has been the practice heretofore to bud or graft peaches on peach stocks, but if we go away from New Zealand, away far over the sea, to the sunny slopes of Italy, and the warm gardens in the south of Trance, we shall see how the wise old folk got over something of the same sort when their peach trees were suffering much in the came way as ours are. I have read all I comd get hold of on the subject, and thought a great deal more, and have come to the conclusion that by a careful selection l, f the soil and situation, and great care in regard to the selection of slocks on which to graft, much might be done to restore 10 our gardens that most delicious fruit. In the south of Trance, and amongst the Cnmese, the plan adopted seems to bo to bud and graft ou the hardiest stocks —such as various kinds or plums. Plums, as a rule, do not send down their roots into the sub-si il a? the peach does, which all growers 01 stone fruit kirow to bo most objeetiona -le, but .-plead curt their mots much nearer' tne sini_.ee, thereby coming more under the iiiilu. t:ta of the solar heat. The peach, when budded or grafted on a peach stock, Mill dour:.-,a for a year or two, or as long as the roots have not penetrated too deep. Yet they afterwards become sickly, and the foliage becomes narx.w, and acquires a yellow colour, and the tree ultimately perishes. Peaches may lie budded or grafted on the almond, plum, and white pear plum. The latter is esteemed the best. The French l it fer tiro ,St Jtilien plum stock, which an-wtis exceedingly well, and in some parts of the south of Franco tiro white aslr is n.-ed. as being more hardy, and more able to withstand the change of climate.