THE PLUM. 59 



and the best found in Persia, the Apricots of Iran, have 

 won for themselves the glowing title of" Seed of the Sun." 

 In Japan the tree attains very large size, but by the Chi- 

 nese the double-blossoming kind is reduced to a dwarf, 

 and grown in pots as a favourite ornament for their rooms 

 in spring. One sort, too, which has little pulp, is culti- 

 vated only on account of its kernel, which is very large, 

 sweet, and nut-like. The Wild Apricot in that country, 

 though admitted into a corner of even the Emperor's gar- 

 den, needs no culture, will grow in the worst of soil, and 

 flowers so late in spring as to be in no danger from frost. 

 The otherwise barren mountains which lie to the west of 

 Pekin are covered with these trees, and " what, perhaps," 

 says G-rosier, " will be hardly believed, is, that the crops 

 produced by them, and the oil extracted from their ker- 

 nels, render the peasants who inhabit these mountains as 

 rich as those who live in the lowlands. The oil is superior 

 to that from walnuts,* is burnt in lamps and used at table ; 

 the peasants warm their stoves with what remains of the 

 stones, and collect the cinders to manure their land." In 

 China, too, Apricots are generally the earliest fruit of 

 summer. When fully ripe, the Chinese preserve them in 

 a conserve, and also take out the stone, dip them several 

 times in some of their own expressed juice, and then dry 

 them in the sun to eat during winter, stewed ; or if boiled 

 till quite dissolved, and honey and vinegar added to the 

 water, they afford a wholesome and most refreshing drink, 

 used by all classes. Their expressed juice, too, is formed 

 into lozenges, also sometimes dissolved in water to make 

 a beverage. 



G-ough records, in his Topographical Anecdotes > that the 

 Apricot was first brought to England by Wolf, head gar- 

 dener to Henry VIII. ; and there are now about 20 good 

 English sorts besides the Peach- Apricot, supposed to be 

 a hybrid between these two fruits; while from time to 



* Oil is also extracted in France and Piedmont from the Briancon Apricot, 

 the produce of a small tree or shrub, 10 or 12 feet high, which is a native of 

 the Alps, and bears abundance of small round yellow tmit, in clusters, which 

 are scarcely eatable, but furnish, when crushed, "huile de marmotte" which 

 .sells for double the price of olive oil. 



