222 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



numerous ; ^ and m particular the singular variety with 

 compressed or flattened fruit,^ which appears to be further 

 removed than any other from the natural state of the 

 peach ; lastly, a simple name, to, is given to the common 

 peach.^ 



" From all these facts, I am inclined to believe that the 

 peach is of Chinese rather than of western Asiatic origin. 

 If it had existed in Persia or Armenia from all time, the 

 knowledge and cultivation of so pleasant a fruit would 

 have spread earlier into Asia Minor and Greece. The 

 expedition of Alexander probably was the means of 

 making it known to Theophrastus (332 B.C.), who speaks 

 of it as a Persian fruit. Perhaps this vague idea of 

 the Greeks dates from the retreat of the ten thousand 

 (401 B.C.) ; but Xenophon does not mention the peach. 

 Nor do the Hebrew writings speak of it. The peach 

 has no Sanskrit name, yet the peoples who spoke this 

 language came into India from the north-west; that is 

 to say, from the generally received home of the species. 

 On this hypothesis, how are we to account for the fact 

 that neither the Greeks of the early times of Greece, nor 

 the Hebrews, nor the Sanskrit-speaking peoples, who all 

 radiated from the upper part of the Euphrates valley or 

 communicated with it, did not cultivate the peach ? On 

 the other hand, 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 

 centre of Asia into Kashmir, Bokliara, and Persia. The 

 Chinese had very early discovered this route. The im- 

 portation would have taken place between the epoch of 

 the Sanskrit emigrations and the relations of the Persians 

 with the Greeks. The cultivation of tlie peach, once 



sents, etc. According to the -work of Chin-nong-king, the peach Yu 

 prevents death. If it is not eaten in time, it at least preserves tlie body 

 from decay until the end of the -^vorld. The peach is always mentioned 

 among the fruits of immortality, with which were entertained the hopes 

 of Tsinchi-Hoang, Vouty, of the Hans and other emperors who pretended 

 to immortality, etc. 



* Lindley, Trans. Hort. Soc, v. p. 121. 



* Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond., iv. p. 512, tab. 19, 

 ' Hoxburgh, Fl. Ind. 



