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 The life of a peach is short. Compare: an olive tree lives two thousand years, an apple tree lives two hundred, and a peach only fifteen! Gardeners use his gifts even less.
True, in highland Dagestan, these terms are increased, but only doubled. And it grows in height there not by four meters, but by eight, but this is an exception.
And yet, despite such a flaw, the peach is loved and revered, it seems, by everyone. And especially the workers in the canning industry. After pineapples, he is in second place in the world! A good peach fruit is a work of art. It is not without reason that the artist V. Serov portrayed him in his painting "Girl with Peaches". Pale pink, the color of dawn, with a dark red tan. True, not in all countries the climate allows you to get the perfect blush. In Japan, the fruit is pale. Japanese gardeners have always been upset by this. The products did not meet international standards. So they came up with the following. A few days before the harvest, sheets of aluminum, as wide as sheets, are brought into the garden. They are laid out in the aisles. They, like mirrors, reflect the light on the trees. And the fruits immediately pick up the missing color density.
 This operation turned out to be beneficial from another point of view. Aluminum sheets keep birds and even ... aphids away! To prevent the fruits from cracking and spoiling them by pests, in the old days the Japanese put each ovary in a paper bag soaked in paraffin. They took off the bag just before cleaning. This is no longer required. Aluminum helped.
The four-legged are also delighted with the peach. The fox especially loves him. The juicy pulp does not particularly seduce her, but the bone ... The cunning Patrikeevna knows well that the seed contains a seed, as fat as that of apricot... And with the same incomparable apricot scent. Of course, the cheat does not pick fruits from the trees, but in the spring, when people start sowing seeds in the nursery, she comes at night and digs everything up clean. Gardeners of the Ararat Valley in other years simply groan from fox invasions. Patrikeevna unmistakably determines the places where the seeds are sown, as if she planted them herself.
The birds also immediately appreciated the peach. Academician P. Zhukovsky more than once saw how jays dragged pink-cheeked fruits from gardens.
And now, having praised the peach, let's talk about its weaknesses. No matter how tasty the divine fruit is, no matter how it melts in the mouth, biochemists are not at all happy with it. Sugars are not the same! Whether it is grapes - there is almost pure glucose. And a peach is like a beet. It contains one sucrose. There is almost no glucose and fructose.
The second drawback is related to the bone.
Either it lags behind the pulp, then no. How to determine? They say that you need to know the grade. Therefore, going on vacation to Feodosia, to the Black Sea, my wife and I stocked up on a guide.
They found a very good variety Alexander in it and went to the market. Of course, we immediately recognized Alexander by his noble matte shine.
For insurance they specified: Alexander?
- Quite right, - the seller nodded.
 We bought a whole string bag. They brought it home. Cut up one. The bone does not come off. She seemed to be soldered to the pulp.
We thought it was one of a different kind. They cut the second, third, tenth ... Alas, everyone turned out to be in the same manner.
I collected the scraps and returned to the market.
- And I did not promise that the stone is lagging behind, - answered the owner of peaches without blinking. - My fruits have such a property.
“So this is a different sort,” I said, opening the identifier again. “Look, it says here that it lags behind!
He took the book, but immediately returned it.
- That's right. But you see, my soil is not quite right. Alexander loves lime, then the bone is separated. I don't have it in the soil.
In fairness, we must admit that we handle peach pits very lightly and carelessly spit them out and throw them away. No one will bother to break and use the nucleoli enclosed in them. Or squeeze oil out of them. We are afraid of the already familiar amygdalin. And he is definitely there. You dare to eat - and suddenly you accidentally get your share of hydrocyanic acid. And who knows how the whole thing will end? But before they ate, and in some countries even culinary recipes have been preserved on how to flavor the desired dish with peach seeds.
Fear appeared at the very beginning of our century, when traces of amygdalin were found in the nucleolus and even in the pulp. True, later checks, very thorough, did not confirm the results about the pulp, but they continue to check, which means there is no complete certainty.
As for the bone, everyone has amygdalin in it. You can smell it too. However, before they ate the nucleoli! And no one was sick. How much can you eat without harm? There are exact numbers. One kilogram of nucleoli contains 450 milligrams of amygdalin. The minimum dose for a fatal outcome was 10 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Anyone who weighs 50 kilograms must swallow about a pound of nucleoli to feel unwell. In reality, of course, no one eats such a lot.
 For comparison, you can recall the famous Siberian pies with bird cherry... Tastier is hard to find. But the flour for the filling is ground from dried bird cherry, together with seeds and nucleoli. And the almond smell from pies is several times stronger than from peach kernels. Ninety-year-olds are not afraid to eat pies either. And not one piece at a time! Each piece has a finger-thick filling. And there is no trouble.
Observing the truth, I note that the poisonous properties of amygdadin are reduced when baking pies.
But back to the disadvantages of the peach. The third in a row is chilliness. Even in warm regions, in Armenia, frosts happen - and the trunk cracks. The short life of the peach is further reduced.
Armenian gardeners have come up with an original way of protection. They spray the trunks with a polymer material - perlite. After a day, perlite hardens with a porous crust. It turns out like the second layer of the bark. It allows air to pass through, reflects excess sunlight. Protects from frost.
The fourth disadvantage of our client concerns fruit. Outside, the rosy-cheeked fruit is covered with fluffy felt. Like a tennis ball. Finely trimmed with soft flannel. Not everyone likes pubescence. There are people with perfectly strong nerves, in whom one kind of peach shudders. They do not dare to bite through the fluffy peel for anything, they are even afraid to touch. One of these fearful ones quite seriously suggested that gardening scientists eliminate the hairy cover of peaches. But not a single gardener dared to take such a steep measure. “Since nature has created pubescence, does it mean that it is needed for something? - they reflected. - Most likely, for protection from enemies.
Actually, there is a naked, not fluffy peach. This is nectarine. Nature created it thousands of years ago. However, with the usual, fluffy, it cannot be compared. Gardeners jokingly call it a peach that has lost its flavor. There are, however, nectarines of good taste, but they are so sour that you cannot eat them raw. Nature calculated correctly. Since there is no pubescence, you must defend yourself with something else. At least with acid.
The fifth disadvantage of a fluffy fruit is the problem of returning. Its essence is as follows. When the peach orchard ages, the trees are replaced with young ones. But the second generation is growing slowly. Trees die off quickly. Life, short as a moment, is shortened even more.
There is no need to talk about the third generation. And what is most surprising - this breed behaves the same in various parts of the world, however, in some gardens, both the second and third generation succeed without hassle. What's the matter? It is suspected that amygdalin plays some role here, but what? The question is still open.
Despite all the disadvantages, the peach is the most revered stone fruit in the world.In terms of harvests, he firmly holds the first place. And it is no coincidence.
In terms of nutritional value, doctors consider it to be equivalent liver... This is not enough. Fruits contain up to one and a half percent of pectin and remove radioactive substances from the body. Peaches maintain the balance of acids and alkalis in the body. Restore blood hemoglobin. It is not without reason that the best peach connoisseur in our country, Professor I. Ryabov from Yalta, said: "Whoever uses at least one peach and apricot fruit a day lengthens his life!"
But, even knowing all the benefits of a glorious tree, you need to remember about one more property that distinguishes the peach from all the fruit brethren. The larger, the tastier. You may not even try, but only measure the diameter with a ruler. If the peach has reached seventy millimeters, that's good. 80 is even tastier. And 90 is already a complete guarantee of unmatched taste. The French even developed a special scale. They don't have three varieties, as usual, but ten. And everything is in size.
True, experts warn that something also depends on ... dew. The big difference is whether the fluffy fruits are picked in the morning, with dew, or in the midday heat, or in the evening, before the dew begins to fall. These latter are especially good!
A. Smirnov. Tops and roots
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