It is impossible to over-estimate the value of forced Peaches as a dessert fruit; but what a difference there is in the appearance and quality of fruits grown under different systems of cultivation!

It is a well known fact that soil, climate, and the capacity of houses have a good deal to do with the success of many eminent cultivators of the Peach; and it is equally well known that there are cultivators who have to do battle with the worst elements that are emitted from the numerous factories and chemical works which abound in the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and yet they are equally successful. Let us take, for example, the fine samples of Peach culture exhibited by Mr Jamieson, gardener to the Earl of Crawford, Haigh Hall, Wigan, at the summer show of the Royal Horticultural Society, at Preston last year, which, if I remember rightly, gained first honours. These fruits were grown in a soil and climate which is not famed for its beneficial effects upon vegetation. What, then, was the cause of such excellent results? Superior cultivation we should suppose, and nothing else. Well, setting aside isolated instances of first-rate cultivation, and coming to what is seasonable work just now, we may be able to point out how good results may be obtained by attending to a few standard rules, which are better known than they are acted upon.

In the first place, the favourable season of last year left the wood of Peach-trees in the pink of condition, where it was properly thinned out and where the roots were liberally supplied with water during the autumn.

The winter, it is true, has been about the worst on record for early forcing; and yet early Peaches, set as thick as Peas, without any artificial impregnation beyond shaking the trees, upon occasions when the weather admitted, of giving a little air, and keeping an atmosphere drier than usual.

Disbudding, and thinning of shoots and fruits, will have been the order of the day for some time past.

Trees - it matters not how healthy they are - that are overladen in the early part of the season with superfluous shoots and fruit are doing unnecessary work, which destroys the prospect of fine fruit as effectually as if they had been cut through with a knife. It has been a necessity with us for some years past to have to resort to a good deal of scheming, on account of having to grow Peaches on narrow trellises, which necessitated a course that is not usual under other circumstances. The difficulty in such cases is, that the vigour of the tree being directed upwards to the extremity of the trellis, the very best wood is formed where it has to be cut away, causing a loss of sap which, if it were possible to direct and retain in the lower portions of the tree, would exercise an invigorating influence productive of the best results. Disbudding has, therefore, to be performed by careful stages, to encourage a regular growth, but not to interfere with the natural motion of the sap by removing too many shoots at one time.

The fruits were thinned out at once, leaving those of a bronzy tinge (an appearance indicative of good health) at the base of the shoot, which was intended to have its full run of growth - a few spurs being also formed to fill up vacancies which may have occurred by accident, or through any defect in training. After the crop is regulated, the trees should be gone over, and each shoot of the preceding year should be examined as to the number of shoots of the current year that was left upon it when it was disbudded: these should be thinned out, or cut back, according to their respective positions in the tree, to a healthy young shoot which promises to travel a good length, with a fruit at its base, on the upper part of the trellis, where it would receive all the advantages of warmth and sunshine, which is so beneficial to the development of fine fruit. Now, suppose a shoot of any given length is disbudded to, say three or four young shoots, in order to secure a heavy crop and plenty of growth, and that there is a fruit at the base of each young shoot; as soon as it is seen which is the most promising fruit nearest to the base of the shoot, the branch might be shortened back with a sharp knife to that shoot, leaving the space for one fine growth where two or three would have been crowded before.

No danger need be apprehended from this practice, as the Peach, like other stone-fruits, is never subject to canker or gumming when it is cut in a growing state, provided the operation be judiciously and carefully performed; and the flow of sap that was going to support two or three shoots before would be concentrated in one, which would also be the case with the fruit. And thus an improved condition of things would be brought about, both for the present and following year.

The same principle might also be applied to large trees which are showing symptoms of exhaustion through overcropping, or, what is quite as great a source of evil, overcrowding of shoots, which not only drains the tree of its power and resources to feed, but also misapplies and misdirects what little power is left, as well as prevents the wood from being exposed, as it should be, to sun and air.

Next to thinning of fruit, disbudding, and the shortening back and thinning of shoots, is a steady supply of liquid manure to the border, and the maintenance of an atmosphere which is calculated to produce fruit of first-rate quality. I think in a former article on the subject of supplying fruit-trees with liquid manure, it was recommended that liberal supplies should be given in the autumn before the fall of the leaf. Where this has been attended to, and the border is already enriched, there will be the less necessity for giving much at the present season; but a good deal depends upon the condition of the trees and their root-capacity for absorbing food. A steady night-temperature of 65°, and a day-temperature of 75° to 80°, with a moist surface, will be sufficient till the leaves have taken their last swelling, when increased moisture and a high day-temperature should be kept up.

It appears to me, from close observation, that there are some excellent attempts at Peach cultivation frustrated for want of due reflection upon the conditions under which the Peach swells its fruit most freely in its last stages, and the reason why some fruits are so much superior in appearance to others, except in size. Look at a score of dishes arranged for dishibition, and examine the "finish" of each dish carefully, and see if the fact is not clearly established, that those which present that handsome appearance, which is conspicuous by the skin being distended to the utmost degree of tension, and which is the most transparent to the sight, are not those which have been grown in a high moist atmosphere of from 90° to 100° for a few hours each day, and which have received no check by lowering the temperature abruptly before the swelling process was fully completed? Large, coarse-looking fruits may be clearly traced to the system of cultivation above referred to, whilst small fruits of inferior quality are as clearly traceable to starvation and an inferior system of cultivation generally.

W. Hinds.