CHAPTER XII 

 OUR COMMON FRUIT TREES 



THE origin of our common fruit trees is lost 

 in the dust of antiquity. Some — the Dam- 

 son, for example — can be traced in old Greek 

 literature back to the sixth century before Christ. 

 But they are much older for charred remains of the 

 Apple and stones of the Bullace (Yellow Plum) have 

 been found in the pre-historic lake-dwellings of 

 Switzerland. They are, of course, the oldest trees 

 cultivated by man, and did we know just where the 

 human race had its cradle we might be a little more 

 sure of the birthplace of our Plums, Apples, Pears, 

 and Cherries. Books generally make them of Eur- 

 asian origin giving their distribution as from south- 

 eastern Europe, the Asiatic shores of the Black Sea, the 

 Caucasus, Persia to Kashmir, and north to Bokhara. 

 Doubtless this vast and vague area includes the 

 home of some of our fruit trees but there is nothing 

 definitely known. Possibly some of them, like the 

 common Plum, were first cultivated on the shores of 

 the Caspian Sea and on the plains of Turan where the 

 Huns, Turks, Mongols, and Tartars^ flowing back 



199 



