Star.
London, England, 1820-04-29 00:00:00

1.17 ER AT ÜBE, 4.r.
•

TO THE PRIMROSE.

By murm'ring Ni:h, my r.atlve stream,
I've haild thee with the morning beam,
Woo'd thee among the Falls of Clyde—
On Leven's hanks—on Kelvin-side:
And r.ow, on ilanwell's flow'ry plain,
I welcome thy return 2gaia—
At Hanwell, where romantia viows,
And sylvan scenes, invite the Muse ;
And where, lest erring Mna 'holed stray,
Treth's blameless Teacher leads the way

Lorn tenant of the peaceful glide, .
Emblem cf Virtue iu the shade,
Rearing thy head to brave the storm
'fiat wou'd thine innocence deform !
Of all the ilaw'rs that g:::et the Spring-
-01 all the flow'rs the A.asons bk ing,
To me, while dittu'd to linger her;
The lowly Primrose shall be dear !

Sprung, like a Primrose, in the wild, •
Short, like the Primrose, 111.amost mad ;
The Spring that gave her blossoms birth,
Tore them fur tver front the earth ;
Nor left, alt me! one bud behind
To tranquillize a Parent's mind,
Save that sweet bud which strews the way,
Blest Hope, to an eternal May !
Lawn tenant of the peaceful glade,
Emblt-m of Virtue in the :shade !
Pure as the blossoms on you thorn,
Spotless as her for whom we mourn !
Of all the flows that greet the Spring—
Of all the fl4w'rs the seasons bring,
To me, while doom'd to linger here,
The lowly Primrose shall be dear!

J. NlAnis.

AN ACCOUNT OF A PEACH TREP,

Produced from the Seed of the Almond Tree : with some Ob-
s:rvations on iluz Origin of the Peach Tree. By THOMAS
A:4lRm Kstcur, F.L.S. &c. President.—Frocn

the Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London.
I beg leave to send to the Society a couple of
reaches, of a new variety ; not, however, on account
of any met its which I suppose the variety to possess,
but solely on account of the singularity of its origin,
• 4 being the offspring of a sweet almond and of the
pollen only of a peach. The tree produced six
peaches besides those I have seat you; three of which
cleft open, like almonds, when nearly ripe, whilst the
others retained the form and. character of peaches,
and the flesh of ail was perfcczly soft and melting.
One of these was considerably larger than the largest
you receive, having measured eight inches in circum-
ference ; and as tlie tree grew in a pot, which did not
contain a square foot of mould, and the first fruit of
every seedling tree has proved, in alj my exp.:deuce,
to be of much less size than its subsequent produce,
I iinagine that the future fruit of this variety will a
good deal exceed the bulk indicated by the present
&fro plc.
The general character and quality of the fruit I
send, and the diminished size of its stone, compara-
tively with that of the almond, will, I fear, induce
the Society to apprehend some error in the experi-
ment ; but I beg to assure them that none can pos-
sibly have occurred ; and that the result was as un-
expected by me as it would have been by them ; for
I'did not entertain the slightest hope that a tree ca-
pable of producing a melting peach would have
been, by any means, obtained immediately from an
almond. I had, however, long before entertained an
opinion, that the common almond and the peach tree
constituted only a single species, and that the almond
Might, by proper culture, through many successive
generations, be ultimately converted into a peach
or nectarine.
Many circumstances in the ancient history of the
peach conjoined to lead me to this conclusion. It
does not appear to have been known in Europe till
about the reign of the Emperor Claudius : and it is,
I believe, first mentioned by Columella. Pliny has
given the first accurate description of it ; and he
states it to have come throitgli Egypt and Rhodes into
I aly from Persia, which is universally understood to
have been its native country. Yet it could not have
existed in Persia a few centuries previous to the pe-
riod of its appearance in Europe, or the Greeks realist
necessarily have known it, as much intercourse con-
stantly took place between the Asiatic Greeks and
the Persians, and the kings of Persia usually enter-
t,:ined Greek physicians, mho were botanists, in their
Cain. The tuberes:ofPlilly also appears to 'have
been sornetlikg intermediate between the almond
aid the peach; for he states the trees which produced
this fruit to i:ave been propagated by being grafted
upon plum stocks, and to have blossomed later than
the apricot; and that the fruit itself vas covered
thickly with down, like the quince.
The tuberes must, therefore, I conceive, have been
swollen almonds, or imper?ect peaches (for their me-
rit, as fruit, appears to have been very inconsiderable) ;
and Du Hamel has given an account of a fruit, which
accurately corresponds with this description, being
sometimes produced by a variety of almond tree ;
and which, he says, is bitter, and not eatable in its
crude state.
The bitterness in this case, I conclude, can only
arise from the presence of the prussic acid ; and as
this acid, without being extracted by distillation, ope-
rates very injuriously upon ma.ny constitutions, some
t—.plauation appeals to be given of the cause why the
peach was reported to possess deleterious qualities,
when it first came from Persia into the Roman em-
pire. The fact, if ever so decisively established, of
the specific identity of the peach and almond, is pro-
bably of little importance to the gardener, further,
*than that it points out to hint the extensive changes
that culture is capable of producing, in the forms
and qualities of fruits: and I made the experiments,
which are the subject of this communication, with
scarcely any other view, than that of simply ascer-
taining the specific identity, or diversity, of the
piich and almond, and with a good deal of indiffer-
ence relative to the result. Nevertheless, as the wood
of the almond tree ripens muolt earlier, and mote
perfectly, than that of the peach :ree, in our climate,
and as its blossoms are more hardy, I am not with-
oitt hopes, front observations which I have made
upon the habits of ray seedling plants, that some va-
luable varietitto of the peach will be obtained, in a
second or third generation, from the almond. I have,
at present, seen the fruit of one setdliat plant only,