THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 4 1 



in the valley of this great river. No doubt the Jesuit and Franciscan 

 fathers, chief representatives of the Roman Catholic Church in the early 

 settlement of Mexico and southwestern America, early carried the peach 

 from place to place, for, as advance guards of civilization, these men usually 

 planted fruits, grains, vegetables and flowers at the missions they founded. 

 Therefore, it is hardly too much to say that the history of the peach in the 

 southwest follows the establishment, one after another, of the old missions, 

 beginning in America with the settlement of Sante Fe in 1605 and con- 

 tinuing until Spanish rule passed into that of the United States. 



That the padres of the early religious orders planted gardens and 

 orchards as they planted the cross of Christianity among the Indian tribes 

 in the southwest may be seen from such accounts of the mission as the 

 following, written by a Spanish officer traveling in what is now New Mexico 

 in 1799: ^ " The Moquinos are the most industrious of the many Indian 

 nations that inhabit and have been discovered in that portion of America. 

 They till the earth with great care, and apply to all their fields the manures 

 proper for each crop. The same cereals and pulse are raised by them, 

 that are everywhere produced by the civilized population in our provinces. 

 They are attentive to their kitchen gardens, and have all the varieties of 

 fruit-bearing trees it has been in their power to procure. The peach tree 

 yields abundantly." 



The afltiquity of peach-culture among southern Indians, from Mexico 

 to Florida, is shown by the fact that, among the prominent tribes of this 

 region, there is a distinct name for the peach but the names of other intro- 

 duced fruits, and of some native ones, are derived from that of the peach. 

 Thus, according to W. R. Gerard,^ who gave careful study to Indian names 

 of plants in at least four Indian languages, the name of the peach is the 

 radical while that of several plums is the equivalent of " little peach," 

 " deer's peach " and " barren peach " while the cultivated apples and 

 pears were by some Indians called " big peach." 



As these Indian peaches have cut a prominent figure in furnishing 

 stocks for American peach-orchards, are the source from which came a 

 number of varieties, and, more than all else, gave inspiration for planting 

 permanent orchards of this fruit on American soil, we may well consider 

 them at greater length. 



Indian peaches. — In many parts of the South, from the Ohio to the 



1 Explorations and Surveys jor a Railroad Route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, War 

 Department 3:122. 1854. 



''Bui. Tor. Bot. Club 12:85-86. Aug. 1885. 



