easily blemished when ripe. The crop should be looked over every day, placing the fingers gently behind those fruits that appear the ripest, and if with a gentle pressure from the branch the fruit does not. easily separate from its stalk, leave it for another day. Each fruit should be carefully laid upon its base in a basket, the bottom of which is lined with wadding covered with tissue-paper, the fruit being regulated so that one does not touch another. It is well to gather peaches and nectarines for dessert six hours before they are sent to table, and leave them in the fruit-room to cool. Nets are sometimes fixed, and the fruit allowed to drop into them, but peaches should never be allowed to drop if it can be prevented. It is, however, best to use such a precaution, to prevent any that may drop from injury.

Peaches keep a good many days after they are ripe in a cool place. In 1865 I kept such tender-fleshed varieties as Noblesse and Bellegarde for twelve days, in close tin boxes placed in an ice-house, after they were quite fit for table, and then exhibited them in Edinburgh. Nectarines keep fully longer in this way.

PACKING PEACHES TO BE SENT TO A DISTANCE.

When peaches have to be sent by railway and other conveyances, great care is necessary in packing them. The safest way is to have tin boxes divided into compartments 3 inches square and 4 inches deep. In the bottom of each division put a little fine paper-shavings pressed down. Wrap each fruit carefully in a piece of tissue-paper, then set it on its base on a square of cotton wadding, which fold up over the fruit, taking each corner between the fingers and thumb, and drop

ping it carefully into its place. There should be sufficient wadding round each to prevent oscillation. Over the whole surface of the box spread some fine papershavings, so that when the lid of the wooden box, into which the tin case should fit tightly, is screwed down, the shavings may press sufficiently on the wadding to keep all steady without bruising the fruit. In this way they can be sent long distances without the slightest damage. Peaches and nectarines to be sent in this way should, however, never be over-ripe. Indeed they should be gathered a day earlier than when they are sent direct to table from the garden.

INSECTS.

Red-Spider.-I have never found much difficulty in preventing red-spider from gaining much of a footing on peaches. Cleanliness in connection with the woodwork, glass, and everything else, the dressing recommended for the trees after they are pruned, and the syringing recommended throughout the forcing season, are the best preventives. When spider does make its appearance, attack it vigorously with clean tepid water from the syringe or engine. After the fruit are gathered, a handful of flower of sulphur may be mixed with the water. Peach-foliage seems to thrive under the influence of sulphur applied in this way. This insect is easily driven off the smooth surface of the peach - leaf, and vigorous syringings I have always found sufficient to master it when it did appear.

Green-Fly.-Green-fly is very easily destroyed by fumigating with tobacco, and its very first appearance, in however small numbers, should be the signal for exterminating it. I have known it destroy a crop

very much when it got a footing when the fruit were setting. The trees should be dry the evening of fumigation, and the tobacco should never be allowed to burst into flame. The fumigation should not take place when the trees are in bloom.

Brown-Scale.-I never had to deal with this insect on peach-trees but once. The trees were syringed, after they dropped their leaves, with water at 145°; and though the wood was coated with the insect, I never saw more of it after the syringing.

Thrips. This is a troublesome enemy to peaches when it attacks them. It cannot be said that the peach is subject to thrips; but when plants infested with them are placed in peach-houses-which never should be, but often is, done-they spread rapidly on the peach-foliage. Fumigation with tobacco, on which some Cayenne pepper has been dusted, for a few successive nights, destroys it. Engine the trees freely after the fumigations to wash the insects and the smell away. When the fruit are gathered, thrips can be conquered by syringing two or three times with tobacco-liquor, made by boiling at the rate of 3 oz. of tobacco to a gallon of water. This should be applied late in the evening, and the house kept close for the night, so that the liquor may hang longer about the foliage.

DISEASES.

The peach and nectarine are singularly free from disease under glass in a good border, unless it be mildew at times on some varieties. They are rarely attacked with those diseases, such as curl and canker, which are so troublesome on the open walls. Gumming occasionally causes the death of a branch, and

is often the result of a bruise, or a tie that has been too tight and cut into the branch. When it appears

to any extent, the best plan is to remove the affected branch at once. Mildew is the effect of over-dryness, and also of too much wet. Whenever it appears, dust the affected parts with sulphur, and if the border is dry, water it sufficiently to moisten the soil. If the cause is traceable to bad drainage, it should be rectified.

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THE FIG.

"THE fig of our gardens is the Ficus Carica of botanists, The name Ficus, applied to this very anciently known fruit, is most probably derived from Feg, its Hebrew name; that of Carica is from Caria, in Asia Minor, where fine varieties of it have long existed. According to various authors, it is a native of Western Africa, Northern Africa, and the south of Europe, including Greece and Italy. It is certainly indigenous to Asia Minor, but it may have been then introduced and naturalised in the islands of the Mediterranean and the countries near its shores, both in Europe and Africa.

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Figs have been used in the East as an article of food from time immemorial. They were amongst the fruits brought back from Canaan by the Israelites sent by Moses to report on the productions of the land. We read of a present having been made to David of 200 cakes of figs. They were probably used chiefly in the dried state. The drying is easily effected in a warm climate by exposure to the sun's rays, in the same way as those grapes are dried which are called from that circumstance raisins of the sun. Like the