PAYAN′IZING. The name given to Mr Payne’s process for preserving and mineralising wood. See Dry-rot.
PEACH. Syn. Persicum, L. The fruit of Amygdalus Persica. Two varieties are known in our gardens—CLINGSTONE PEACH and FREESTONE PEACH, terms which explain themselves. The fruit is wholesome; but the flowers and kernels contain prussic acid, and are poisonous.
The peach, the original habitats of which were Persia and the North of India, is now very generally grown in the South of Europe, in many parts of the East, and very largely in the more temperate portions of North and South America; more particularly in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland, where there are extensive orchards of peach trees. This fruit is also extensively cultivated by the Mormon community at Utah. The fruit of the Nectarine, which is a variety of the peach, differs from that of the latter in having a smooth skin. When stewed, the fruit of the peach is said to be useful in habitual constipation.
Dr Fresenius has analysed this fruit, and found its composition to be:—
Soluble matter—
| Large Dutch. | |
| Sugar | 1·580 |
| Free acid (reduced to equivalent in malic acid) | 0·612 |
| Albuminous substances | 0·463 |
| Pectous substances | 6·313 |
| Ash | 0·422 |
Insoluble matter—
| Seeds | 4·629 |
| Skins Pectose | 0·991 |
| [Ash from soluble matter included in weights given] | 0·042] |
| Water | 84·990 |
| ———— | |
| 100·000 | |
| ———— |
It will be seen from the above that the peach contains a very small amount of sugar.
PEACH′WOOD. The produce of a species of Cæsalpinia, now extensively used in calico-printing.