THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 3I 



vinegar. Indeed, what known fruit is there that is more wholesome as 

 an aliment than this? There is none, in fact, that has a less powerful 

 smell, or a greater abundance of juice, though it has a tendency to create 

 thirst. The leaves of it, beaten up and applied topically, arrest haemor- 

 rhage: the kernels, mixed with oil and vinegar, are used as a liniment for 

 head-ache." 



One other consideration, and we are done with Plin}'. In Chapter 

 13, quoted on page 28, we are told that the peach " has been only intro- 

 duced of late years." This can hardly mean during the day of the author. 

 The peach had probably been cultivated in ancient Rome for a consider- 

 able length of time before Pliny wrote. Vergil and Columella had men- 

 tioned it as a planted plant; Pliny, himself, speaks of the " popularia " 

 as being grown " everywhere; " and the facts that it was a common article 

 of food and used in medicine argue an earlier date of introduction than 

 we might be lead to suppose from Pliny's statement " introduced of late 

 years." Indeed, knowing the great length of time it takes in our days of 

 rapid transportation and quick diffusion of knowledge to accustom our- 

 selves to new food-plants and to persuade agriculturists to grow them, 

 we should say that the peach must have been grown in Rome at least two 

 or three centuries to have become so well known as it seems to have been 

 in Pliny's time. The chief point established by these quotations is that 

 the peach was well established in Italy at the beginning of the Christian 

 era. 



After leaving Pliny there is a boundless, uncharted waste before we 

 find another landmark in the history of the peach. In all matters relating 

 to agriculture and natiu"al history Roman writers for several centuries 

 but copied the men from whom we have quoted and it was not until the 

 Sixteenth Century that we have any substantial account of the further 

 progress of this fruit. During this century, curiously enough, about the 

 only books on botany and horticulture were commentaries on Dioscorides, 

 the Greek botanist, who lived and made his reputation in Christ's time 

 and who for 1600 years thereafter was the sole authority on botany. Of 

 the ten or twelve commentaries, that of Matthiolus is most replete with 

 information on the fruits of the times and especially in the matter of 

 varieties, which he describes in greater detail than any other man since 

 Pliny. It must be remembered that at this time, the closing years of the 

 Middle Ages, there was a great awakening in agriculture and horticulture 

 in southern and western Europe. As the second descriptive list of peaches 



