THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



CHAPTER I 



HISTORY OF THE PEACH 



The history of the peach follows step by step the history of agriculture. 

 The beginning of agriculture, as depicted in the traditions and embellished 

 in the poetry of ancient peoples, was the creation of useful plants by some 

 Divinity. But, counting unwritten history and poetic fancy as naught 

 and coming to recorded facts — those of history as we now have it — the 

 beginning of agriculture is marked by two recorded events. The first 

 occurred 2700 years b. c. when Emperor Chenming, Ruler of China, 

 instituted ceremonies for the sowing of various vegetables and grains. The 

 second event was the building of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh by some 

 ruler who lorded it over Egypt between 2500 to 2000 years b. c. and who 

 ornamented his handiwork with drawings of figs. 



Yet these early records in China and Egypt were not made at the 

 beginnings of agriculture in those countries. Plants were undoubtedly 

 cultivated centuries before it occurred to Emperor Chenming that rice, 

 wheat and other crops deserved ceremonial sowings. The pyramids of 

 Gizeh could only have been built by an organized, civilized people with 

 cultivated fields on which to levy toll for the dormant season and lean 

 years — pyramids could hardly be raised by a people forced to skim a 

 day-to-day existence from wild plants. " Art is long and time is fleeting " 

 in agriculture, and between the obscure beginnings of this ancient art, 

 when naked men following the chase began to vary a meat diet with fruits, 

 grains and roots plucked from the wild, and the regular cultivation of 

 useful plants, as implied by these old records from China and Egypt, there 

 are many steps and thousands and thousands of years. 



If, then, the history of the peach begins with the history of agri- 

 culture, and the beginnings of agriculture are lost in the obscurity of 

 antiquity, it is useless to speculate as to how long the peach has been culti- 

 vated. The statements of the early historians as to the age of the domesti- 

 cated peach are so at variance that they serve only to confuse. Indeed, 

 were we to attempt to bring into agreement the diverse assertions of 



