14 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



out, makes it easier to obtain any new types of peaches that may now be 

 found. 



What were the characters of the prototypal peach in China? The 

 few records that have come down through the ages do not enable us to 

 form much of a picture of the primitive peach. But plants do not change 

 quickly in China, for their orchard-cultivation is not as intensive nor 

 selection as assiduously practiced as in western countries, so that we are 

 warranted in assuming that cultivation for forty centuries has not greatly 

 changed this fruit. Besides, it is probable that the wild forms, whether 

 truly wild or reverted escapes from cultivation, now represent closely 

 the original indigenous stocks of the peach. Luckily, we have trustworthy 

 sources of information in regard to both the wild and the cultivated peaches 

 as they now grow in China. We are at this time concerned, it should be 

 said, only with the common peach, Prunus persica. 



Fortune began botanical explorations in China in 1844, since which 

 time one enthusiast after another, thirsting for botanical spoUs and honors, 

 has brought from eastern Asia and Europe to America, varieties and species 

 of ornamental and agricultural plants. In the accounts of these exploring 

 and collecting expeditions, there are many records of peaches, wild and 

 cultivated, that are now growing in China and from these we may piece out 

 a fair description of the original races of this fruit. The United States 

 Department of Agriculture, through its agricultural explorers, collaborators 

 and correspondents in the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, 

 has given special attention to agricultural plants and from the accounts 

 of the workers in this department alone, we can get a good picture of the 

 peach of the Twentieth Century in China which, as we think, will represent 

 very well the original stock from which all peaches have come. 



It is now almost the unanimous judgment of scientists that the char- 

 acters of plants are independent entities which are thrown into various 

 relationships with each other in individuals and groups of individuals as 

 varieties and species. This conception of unit-characters lies at the 

 foundation of botanical and horticultural descriptions and of plant-breeding. 

 It is more important, then, to know what the characters of Chinese peaches 

 were and are than to attempt to describe in full the wild and cultivated 

 peaches of China. In this, a horticultural study, it answers our purpose 

 to consider chiefly the characters of the fruits. 



The fruit-characters that differentiate races and varieties of culti- 

 vated peaches in America are ten, as follows: Downy skin; smooth skin; 



