PLANTS CULTIVATED FOE THEIR FRUITS. 227 



unexpectedly appeared upon a peach tree, that it is 

 useless to insist longer upon this point, and I will only 

 add that the nectarine has every appearance of an arti- 

 ficial tree. Not only is it not found wild, but it never 

 becomes naturalized, and each tree lives for a shorter 

 time than the common peach. It is, in fact, a weakened 

 form. 



" The facility," I said, " with which our peach trees are 

 multiplied from seed in America, and have produced 

 fleshy fruits, sometimes very fine ones, without the resource 

 of grafting, inclines me to think that the species is in a 

 natural state, little changed by a long cultivation or by 

 hybrid fertilization. In Virginia and the neighbouring 

 states there are peaches grown on trees raised from seed 

 and not grafted, and their abundance is so great that 

 brandy is made from them.^ On some trees the fruit is 

 magnificent.^ At Juan Fernandez, says Bertero,* the 

 peach tree is so abundant that it is impossible to form 

 an idea of the quantity of fruit which is gathered ; it is 

 usually very good, although the trees have reverted to a 

 wild condition. From these instances it would not be 

 surprising if the wild peaches with indifferent fruit found 

 in Western Asia were simply naturalized trees in a climate 

 not wholly favourable, and that the species was of Chinese 

 origin, where its cultivation seems most ancient." 



Dr. Bretschneider,* who at Pekin has access to all the 

 resources of Chinese literature, merely says, after reading 

 the above passages, " Tax) is the peach tree. De Candolle 

 thinks that China is the native country of the peach. 

 He may be right," 



The antiquity of the existence of the species and its 

 wild nature in Western Asia have become more doubtful 

 since 1855. Anglo-Indian botanists speak of the peach 

 solely as a cultivated tree,^ or as cultivated and becoming 

 naturalized and apparently wild in the north-west of 

 India.^ Boissier' mentions specimens gathered in Ghilan 



' Braddick, Trwns. SoH. Soc. Lmd., ii. p. 205. ' Ibid., pi. 13. 



' Bertero, Annates Sc. Nat., xxi. p. 350. 



* Bretscbneider, On the Study and Value, etc., p. 10, 



* Sir J. Hooker, Flora of Brit. Ind., ii. p. 313. 



* Brandis, Forest Flora, etc., p. 191. ' Boissier, Fl. Otient., ii. p. 640. 



11 



