THE PEACH AND NECTARINE. 1 37 



fruit would have spread sooner into Asia Minor and 

 Greece. The expedition of Alexander is probahly what 

 made it known to Theophrastus, B.C. 322, who speaks 

 of it as a Persian fruit. . . . Admitting this to be 

 the country, how can it be explained that neither the 

 early Greeks, nor the Hebrews, nor the people who 

 speak Sanscrit, and who have all sprung from the upper 

 region of the Euphrates, had grown the peach-tree? 

 On the contrary, it is very probable that the stones of 

 a fruit-tree cultivated from all antiquity in China may 

 have been carried across the mountains from the centre 

 of Asia into Cashmere or Bokhara and Persia. . . . 

 The cultivation of the peach-tree, once established at 

 this point, would easily extend on one side towards the 

 west, and on the other by Cabul towards the north of 

 India. In support of the supposition of a Chinese 

 origin, it may be added that the peach was introduced 

 from China into Cochin China, and that the Japanese 

 call it by the Chinese name Too. The peach is men- 

 tioned in the books of Confucius, fifth century before 

 the Christian era ; and the antiquity of the knowledge 

 of the fruit in China is further proved by the represen- 

 tations of it on sculpture and on porcelain. The above 

 are some of the arguments adduced by DecandoUe 

 against the commonly-received opinion that the peach 

 originated in Persia." * 



The peach is very extensively and well cultivated in 

 China. In America it is grown in great abundance, and 

 is extensively used for making peach-brandy; and in 

 some of the States it is an important article of food in 

 a dried state. It is cultivated as a common standard 

 orchard-tree. The hot summers of the Western World 

 * Treasury of Botany. 



