THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 117 



these would yield from 600 to 1,200 tons of kernels from which 210 to 420 

 tons of oil cotild be extracted. The wholesale price of bitter-almond oil, 

 or oils purchased under this name, for which peach-oil could be substituted, 

 is from $3.25 to $4.75 per pound. 



Pliny named several medicinal uses for the peach and from his time 

 down the flesh, kernels, leaves, bark and blossoms have had a place in the 

 pharmacopoeia of various countries though nowadays little used except in 

 domestic therapeutics. All of the structures named abound in a bitter 

 and astringent principle and most of them produce hydrocyanic acid upon 

 maceration with water. The peach might have value in medicine for 

 this acid were not the chemical more easily obtained elsewhere. The oils 

 from the kernels, as we have seen, may be used in medicine. Noting the 

 medicinal uses to which peach-products have been put by various peoples 

 in various times we find: The leaves are pounded and boiled in vinegar 

 for a liniment, an eye-wash, a cure for " scurf," a preventive of bald heads, 

 and as an insecticide on the heads of children. The blossoms, treated in 

 various ways, have been used for the same ailments and also as a febrifuge. 

 The burned pits are also used in making lampblack for paints. 



For more than two thousand years stories have been rife of the poison- 

 ous properties of peach-pits and peach-leaves. In a careful perusal of 

 peach-literature for this period and in several languages we have not found 

 a single case cited of fatal results to man or beast from eating the leaves or 

 kernels of peaches. No doubt these stories arise from common knowledge 

 that parts of the peach, as the kernels and possibly the leaves, contain 

 prussic acid though in so minute quantities as never to be toxic in any 

 quantity likely to be eaten by humans or animals. No doubt, too, the 

 myth that the Persians sent the peach to the Egyptians as a deadly poison 

 is still perpetuated. 



The wood of the peach is fine-grained and takes a beautiful polish and 

 in Europe is used somewhat in cabinet-work and toy-making. Its numerous 

 reddish-brown veins make it a most beautiful wood but the trees seldom 

 attain sufficient size to give the species value as a lumber-product. 



The peach is attractive to the eye at all seasons. A tree or an orchard 

 in bloom is a strikingly beautiful sight while a panorama in a peach-country 

 in flowering-time is one of the most beautiful scenes in nature. There is a 

 great difference in the floral beauty of varieties, some sorts having very 

 inconspicuous flowers while others rank with our finest ornamentals when in 

 bloom. Several types of Prunus persica are planted for beauty of flower 



