THE STORY OF THE GINKGO 



worthless. In the Orient these ginkgo nuts are still 

 an important commodity, biit formerly they were 

 even more so. Pallas, a famous Prussian botanist, 

 visited the market town of Mai-mai-cheng, opposite 

 Kiakhta in Mongolia, in 1772 and saw there the nuts 

 on sale. They had been brought from Peking. 



That the Ginkgo has been closely identified with 

 Buddhist institutions from early times, and by ad- 

 herents and missionaries of this religion planted 

 wherever they have obtained a stronghold in the 

 Orient, is beyond question. It may not be too much 

 to say that its very existence to-day is due to the 

 adherents of this faith. Very probably they found 

 it in some way associated with Taoism and other 

 forms of nature worship which were current in 

 China when first they established their faith there, 

 and with the tolerant Catholicism which character- 

 ized the early fathers of this religion, adopted it as 

 their own. But whatever the actual motive which 

 induced the Buddhists and other religious sects to 

 protect and preserve by wide planting the Ginkgo- 

 tree it may safely be inferred that its edible nuts 

 played no unimportant part. The Ginkgo is, in fact, 

 the oldest cultivated nut tree. 



73 



