Enclosed I send you an account of a curious union of the Peach and Nectarine, which was found on a farm but a few miles distant from this place, last summer. I did not have the pleasure of seeing it myself (being out of the way at the time,) but as a very singular specimen, it was forwarded to one of our most distinguished botanists in Charleston, by whom the accompanying description was furnished to one of the city papers. As the account will prove interesting to pomologists generally, I have thought it worthy of a more permanent record, especially as it would be seen by comparatively only a few, in the paper in which it appeared. I would have furnished you with a copy at the time, but that you were travelling in Europe, and when remembered after your return, I could not find the one I kept for some time. I send you all that was published and you can insert the whole or only such parts as you may think proper. I shall endeavor to ascertain whether any such arc produced this summer, and should there be, will try and forward a specimen to you. I remain, yours, etc.

J. D. Legare. Aiken, S. C, March 31, 1851.

We yesterday received from Aiken, for which we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. Dawson, a specimen of fruit of so singular a character and presenting a peculiarity which occurs at such rare and uncertain intervals, that we request a small space in your paper for a brief description.

We cannot characterise this fruit more accurately than as half a peach and half a nectarine, united by a seam running around and through the fruit, by which it is divided into nearly equal parts. The fruit was of moderate size, and was taken from a peach tree - it having been the only one that presented this peculiarity. All the rest were genuine peaches. It was what is usually called a cling-stone, viz: the pulp adhering to the stone. On one side of this fruit was, in all its peculiarities, a nectarine. It had a smooth skin of a rich dark red color, possessing the fragrance of that fruit, and it

The seam which separated the two halves of the fruit was very distinct - on one side the nectarine protruded, whilst on the opposite edge the peach swelled out and the nectarine receded, presenting the appearance of half a peach and half a nectarine, not regularly placed together, but slipped a little to one side, and then united by a subsequent growth. The stone was on the peach side deeply furrowed and corrugated, as is the case in the peach stone, and on the other less indented and more smooth, as in the nectarine. We had some expectation of finding a double kernel, but in this we were disappointed. It is a single kernel, well filled, and which we have planted, although, even should it produce a tree, we have little expectation of its bearing similar fruit.

An interesting inquiry still remains for the consideration of botanists. By what process in nature has this fruit been produced? We were infromed by our friend President Finley, who sent us a communication which accompanied the fruit, "that it grew on a tree of Mr. Zeag-ler's about ten or twelve miles from Aiken, and that there were no nectarine trees on the farm."

It has now been fully established by botanists, that the peach and nectarine are mere varieties of one species, (Amygdalus persica.) These varieties are only preserved with their separate peculiarities by budding, grafting on the roots, and other artificial modes. Bees and other winged insects, are known to carry the pollen of fertilizing dust to great distances, which is communicated to the pistil. Hence, in our apples, pears, peaches, plums,corn, etc, We cannot calculate with certainty on a product similar to the original fruit. We cannot account for the peculiarity in this nectarine-peach on any other principle than that of a double fertilization of the pistil by a bee or other insect, and that whilst the pollen of the peach communicates its peculiar properties to one side of the fruit, that of the nectarine was conveyed to the other. The occurrences, however, are as rare as that of a somewhat analogous phenomenon in the human subject. We recol-lect having read in the Horticultural Transactions, vol. 1st., of a single fruit having been produced with the coat of the peach on one side, and that of the nectarine on the other, but have no opportunity of referring more particularly to that work.

It was also, we think, stated that in one instance a tree was produced which on one side had the downy coat of the peach, and on the other the smooth bark of the nectarine. This is repeated in a recent English work - Description of Vegetable Substances, Fruits, etc, 297. B.