232 AMYGDALUS PERSICA. 
A modern writer on " Timber-trees and Fruits," remarks that. " The facility 
of raising the peach from the stone has probably tended to its general diffusion 
throughout the world. This fruit has steadily followed the progress of civiliza- 
tion; and man, 'from China to Peru,' has surrounded himself with the luxury 
of this, and of the other stone-fruits, very soon after he has begun to taste the 
blessings of a settled life. There are still spots where ignorance prevents portions 
of the human race from enjoying the blessings which Providence has everywhere 
ordained for industry ; and there are others where tyranny forbids the earth to 
be cultivated, and produce its fruits. The inhabitants of the Haouran, who are 
constantly wandering, to escape the dreadful exactions of some petty tyrant, 
have neither orchards nor fruit-trees, nor gardens, for the growth of vegetables. 
' Shall we sow for strangers V was the affecting answer of one of them to Burck- 
hardt." "One of the greatest blessings," continues he, " that can be conferred 
upon any rude people, (and it is a blessing which will bring knowledge, and virtue, 
and peace, in its train,) is to teach them how to cultivate those vegetable produc- 
tions which constitute the best riches of mankind." The traveller, Burchell, ren- 
dered such a service to the Bachapins, a tribe of the interior of southern Africa. 
He gave to their chief a bag of fresh peach-stones, in quantity about a quart ; " nor 
did I fail," says the benevolent visiter of these poor people, " to impress on his 
mind, a just idea of their value and nature, by telling him that they would pro- 
duce trees which would continue every year to yield, without further trouble, 
abundance of large fruit of a more agreeable flavour than any which grew in 
the country of the Bachapins." 
The peach is in general cultivated as a fruit-tree, against walls, and in hot- 
houses, in the middle and north of Europe, and as a standard tree, in the fields 
and gardens of the southern parts of that country, as well as in those of northern 
Africa, and many of the islands of the Mediterranean, and of the Atlantic Ocean. 
At Montreuil, in the neighbourhood of Paris, peaches are produced of the finest 
flavour, the excellence of which is attributed to the exclusive attention of the 
people to their culture : and a single tree there, sometimes covers a space of wall 
sixty feet in length. The peach also abounds in various countries of the east, 
including China, India, and Persia, where, according to Mr. Royle, it grows both 
wild and in a state of cultivation. On the Himalayas, it flourishes at elevations 
of five thousand to six thousand feet ; and in Madeira and Teneriffe, which lie 
in about the same latitude, it brings forth fruit of the finest quality, and in the 
greatest abundance, at all points below the height of five thousand feet. 
The peach was introduced into North America by the first European settlers, 
probably towards the close of the XVIth, or early in the X Vllth century, where 
it is cultivated in extensive plantations, which often grow with such luxuriance 
as to resemble forests of other trees. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, and several other states, much attention is paid to its culture, 
and the fruit is of an excellent quality. It is no uncommon circumstance for a 
planter to possess a peach-orchard containing one thousand or more of standard 
trees. It is only in the middle states of the union where this fruit arrives at the 
greatest perfection. In favourable seasons, it matures in the open air, as far north 
as Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the falls of Niagara ; but its pulp is not 
so delicious as when grown some degrees farther south ; it is also trained against 
walls at Montreal and Torento, in Canada, where, in some seasons, fruit of a fine 
quality is obtained. In the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, the trees make 
much foliage and wood ; still, if well cultivated and properly pruned, the fruit 
grows to a large size, and is juicy and well-flavoured. On the Mississippi, partic- 
ularly in Louisiana, which lies in the same latitude as that part of Asia where 
this species is indigenous, it grows spontaneously, but is regarded as of foreign 
origin, having been introduced from Spain before that river was explored by the 
