THE DRUPE-FRUITS 133 



1. Prunus Armeniaca, Linn. Tree small, with a round spreading top 

 and in color of bark resembling the peach. Leaves round-ovate, thin; 

 margins finely serrate; teeth obtuse; upper surface smooth, bright green; 

 lower surface smooth or nearly so; petioles ^/^-l inch long, with one to 

 several glands. Flowers light pink in bud, white when open, 1 inch across, 

 borne singly, nearly sessile, opening before the leaves. Fruits earlier than 

 those of the peach and plum ; variable in size and shape, smaller than those 

 of the peach, usually compressed; pubescence fine and short or nearly 

 lacking; yellow with more or less red; flesh yellow, sometimes tinged with 

 red, firm, dry, sweet and rich; stone clinging or free, obovate, flat, smooth, 

 ridged or sulcate on one suture. 



189. Habitat and history of the apricot. — The wild form of 

 the apricot grows spontaneously over a wide area in western 

 and central Asia and as far eastward as Pekin, China. Alex- 

 ander the Great is said to have brought the apricot from Asia 

 to Greece, from which country it was carried to Italy, being 

 first mentioned as a Roman fruit by Pliny in the time of Christ. 

 From Italy, its culture spread slowly northward in Europe, 

 reaching England about the middle of the fourteenth century. 

 There seems to be no mention of the apricot in North America 

 earlier than 1720, when it was said to be growing abundantly 

 in Virginia. In 1792 Vancouver saw apricots in the mission 

 orchards of California. Commercial plantations were not made 

 in the United States until the middle of the past century. 



190. Cultivation of the apricot in North America. — The apri- 

 cot is popular in America only in California and in a few 

 favored spots in the Rocky Mountains and westward. Farther 

 east the crop is destroyed by spring frosts too frequently to make 

 apricot-growing a safe venture. Moreover, the curculio takes 

 too great toll unless combated by rather expensive treatments. 

 Also, the fruit and its requirements are little known in the East. 

 California has a monopoly of commercial apricot-growing for 

 the world, at least nowhere else does the industry attain so 

 great importance. The fruits are preeminently well adapted 

 to canning and evaporating, and California seems to have cap- 

 tured this trade in apricots, an industry which requires more 

 than 3,000,000 trees. Apricots are grown in a small way, how- 

 ever, wherever peaches thrive. 



191. Russian apricots. — The Russian apricot is a strain of the 

 common apricot, although it is thought by some to be a distinct 



