2 Peach-Growing 



well as those of ancient Greece, radiated from Persia and 

 the upper Euphrates Valley or were in communication there- 

 with from the earliest times. " On the other hand/' writes 

 De Candolle/ "it is very possible that the stones of a fruit 

 tree cultivated in China from the remotest times should have 

 been carried over the mountains from the center of Asia into 

 Kashmir, Bokhara, and Persia. The Chinese had very early 

 discovered this route." 



Although in different parts of Asia, in the region of the 

 Caucasus, in the Crimea, and in other regions, the peach 

 has sometimes been reported as occurring in the wild state, 

 there always arises a very definite doubt, amounting to a 

 practical certainty, that it has been introduced and the 

 trees, escaping cultivation, have become naturalized. 



Furthermore, De Candolle traces evidence of the existence 

 of the peach in China at a much earlier period than in any 

 other country. He calls attention to the fact that the peach 

 was referred to in the writings of Confucius in the fifth 

 century before the Christian Era, and also in other writings 

 in the tenth century preceding and, he adds: "The peach 

 spreads easily in the countries in which it is cultivated, so 

 that it is hard to say whether a given tree is of natural origin 

 and anterior to cultivation, or whether it is naturalized. But 

 it was certainly first cultivated in China ; it was spoken of 

 there two thousand years before its introduction into the 

 Greco-Roman world, a thousand years perhaps before its 

 introduction into the lands of the Sanskrit-speaking race." 

 Thus, if sacred and profane writings be correlated, it would 

 seem that the peach was known in that part of the world 

 which later came to be called China at the time when Lot 



iDe Candolle, Alphonse, "Origin of Cultivated Plants" (1884 

 English Translation), p. 221, 



