PEACH-GROWING 



CHAPTER I 

 HISTORICAL NOTES 



The peach has been in cultivation since ancient times, so 

 long in fact that it is said commonly to be unknown in the 

 wild state. For an indefinite period it was supposed to be 

 native to Persia. Evidently the Ancients so regarded it, since 

 more than three centuries before the Christian Era the peach 

 was referred to by Theophrastus as a Persian fruit.^ De 

 Candolle opposes this view with the contention that the peach 

 originally came from China. Perhaps no one can speak in 

 this matter with greater authority than this author. 



The peach was received by the Greeks and Romans soon 

 after the beginning of the Christian Era. De Candolle 

 reasons that, had it been grown in antiquity in Persia, it 

 would have reached these peoples at an earlier time. He 

 also places much significance in the fact that there are no 

 Sanskrit or Hebrew names for it. He was convinced such 

 names would have existed had the peach been indigenous to 

 Persia, since the Hebrew- and Sanskrit-speaking people, as 



1 De Candolle, Alphonse, "Origin of Cultivated Plants " (1884 

 English Translation), p. 222. 



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