THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 3 



times in close communication with Persia. Since, according to the authori- 

 tative De Candolle, Xenophon, who retreated with the ten thousand 

 401 B. c, does not mention the peach, this fruit probably did not reach 

 Greece until Alexander's expedition and was first mentioned by Theo- 

 phrastus 332 b. c. (if the fruit mentioned by Theophrastus is the peach) 

 and did not reach Rome until after the beginning of the Christian era. 



The more one examines historical records the more evident it becomes 

 that Greek and Roman writers assumed that the habitat of the peach, 

 which they called the Persian apple, was Persia because it came thence 

 to their countries. Ancient historians very commonly and very con- 

 fusingly made the assumption that the region from which a plant product 

 came to their country was its first habitat. 



The best means of establishing the origin of a plant is to discover in 

 what country it grows spontaneously. This would be a simple matter, 

 indeed, if one could be sure that a given plant found growing wild is not 

 an escape from cultivation. Here is the trouble in the case of the peach. 

 According to the botanists the tree is now growing wild in Persia, as it is 

 in nearby countries, and for that matter in other parts of the Old World 

 and in many places in the New World. The painstaking De Candolle, 

 who has carefully sifted the evidence of the leading botanists until his time 

 of writing, 1882, concludes that the peach has never been truly wild in 

 Persia. An examination of the works of botanists writing since De Can- 

 dolle's study of the subject does not show that any offers proof that the 

 peach was originally wild in Persia. 



Without going into the matter further it seems safe to say that the 

 Greek and Roman writers were at fault in naming Persia as the home of the 

 peach. To summarize: its late distribution.as compared with that of other 

 Persian fruits argues against such an origin; philology, which usually 

 affords indications touching the habitat of a species, is against the Persian 

 theory of origin since neither Hebrew nor Sanskrit names the peach; 

 lastly, botany, the most direct means of discovering the geographic origin 

 of a plant, offers no positive evidence that Persia is the home of the peach. 

 The fallacy that the peach comes from Persia, written in nearly all horti- 

 cultural and botanical works for 2000 years, now being disposed of, we 

 may take up the claim of China that the peach is another of its great gifts 

 to the world. 



A survey of the subject is convincing that the peach comes from 

 China. Necessarily, such a survey must be brief, yet it is important 



