32 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



we might well quote what Matthiolus wrote, but, as in Pliny, few of his 

 varieties can be made out, and Gerarde, writing later in English, amplifies 

 the Latin author so well that we shall wait for his account. 



The peach in France. — -Peach-culture in France probably began about 

 as early as in Italy, for both Columella and Pliny, as we have seen, mention 

 the peaches of Gaul with those of Rome. Introduced thus early, finding 

 suitable soil and climate and easily propagated, so delicious a fruit as 

 the peach must at once have become a prime favorite in the orchards of 

 the monasteries, where, tended by monks who were the most skilled horti- 

 culturists of the times, the peach was disseminated throughout France 

 with the spread of Christianity. France was the foster-mother of the 

 peach in Europe — from her nurseries the Belgians, Dutch, Germans and 

 English had their first peach-trees. The history of the peach in France, 

 then, is an important chapter in the history of this fruit. 



Andr6 Leroy, author of the great French work, Dictionnaire de 

 Pomologie, gives in considerable detail the history of the peach in France 

 and from him we briefly summarize the material he has brought together 

 in regard to this fruit up to 1600 after which our purposes are best met 

 by quoting directly from the originals. 



According to Leroy ^ only peaches with a downy skin and soft flesh 

 which adhered to the stone came from Asia — all others, in his belief, 

 originated in southern France. That any peach came originally from 

 France we do not agree, for reasons given on a foregoing page. Leaving 

 the statements of origin in dispute, the first records of peaches in France 

 are to be found in the quotations from Columella and Pliny which we 

 have already discussed. Leroy mentions as the second record a reference 

 to the peach by Bishop Fortunat of Portiers in 530; a third from the four- 

 teenth Abbot of the monastery of Saint- Denis near Paris in the year 784; 

 while the great Charlemagne, who in 800 mentions " peaches of different 

 kinds," furnishes the fourth of Leroy 's early records; the fifth account is 

 taken from the letters of Lupus, Abbot of Ferrieres, near Amiens, who 

 sent several varieties of peaches to a brother with instructions as to how 

 to plant the pits, the approximate date being 860. 



After these Leroy gives several references to show that the peach was 

 commonly cultivated from the Ninth Century on but none of the writers 

 whom he quotes gives a recognizable picture of the kinds of peaches in 

 their day until we come to the epoch-making agricultural book of Olivier 



' Leroy Dici. Pom. t:io. 1879. 



