THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 65 



around homesteads, having been planted after the primitive method of 

 turning a furrow where the hedge was wanted and simply dropping the 

 seeds in after the plough. It is commonly recognised that the peach 

 hedge should duly appear and bear fruit in two years from planting the 

 seed. The writer has also seen them growing by the side of water-furrows 

 and dams, with the whole of the roots on one side of the tree at least 

 immersed in water." 



The Spaniards, no doubt, planted the peach in parts of South America 

 soon after the discovery of the continent and it now runs wild on both 

 coasts. Thus, Darwin in his famous voyage found the islands at the 

 mouth of the Parana River, Argentina, " thickly clothed with peach and 

 orange trees carried there by the waters of the river." ^ Many references 

 to wild peaches on the Pacific Coast may be found, as interesting as any 

 being one from Bertero who says that on Robinson Crusoe's island, Juan 

 Fernandez,^ ' The peach is so abundant that one can scarcely form an 

 idea of the quantity of fruit that it bears. They are in general of good 

 quality despite the state of wildness." According to OakenfuU,^ in Brazil, 

 " Of all the fruits introduced from abroad, the peach has made itself more 

 at home than any." Wight * reports the peach and nectarine in Argentina, 

 Chile, Peru and Bolivia under cultivation and as escapes from cultiva- 

 tion in seemingly all degrees of evolution. The peach-drying industry 

 is important in the province of Coquimbo, Chile. According to Louns- 

 bury the peach is the most common fruit-tree in Argentina. He says:^ 

 " It grows almost everywhere most luxuriantly, bears heavily and as yet 

 no very serious insect or fungus pest for it has become widespread. Solid 

 blocks of thousands of trees are not uncommon about Buenos Ayres. 

 Most of the choice varieties of Europe and America have been introduced." 

 The culture of this fruit in South America falls short of that in North 

 America only because of the lack of advancement in horticulture — the 

 one continent is a century behind the other in this field of agriculture. 



In temperate Oceanica the peach plays as important a part in horti- 

 culture as any other of the deciduous tree-fruits. In early days in New 

 Zealand, " vast groves of peaches existed, sometimes, as in the Waikato, 

 extending for miles, where magnificently grown trees cropped without 



' Darwin, Charles Voy. of a Nal. 1:154. 

 ' Bertero, Ann. Sc. Nat. 21:350. 

 ' Oakenfull, J. C. Brazil 358. 1913. 

 •Wight, W. F. Proc. .Sor. Hort. .Sci. 10:122-133. I9'3- 

 ^ Agr. Journal of the Cape of Good Hope No. 2, 27:197. 1905. 

 5 



