3 



this fruit, and says there were then three kinds, viz. 

 Duracina, probably a hard-fleshed cUng-stone variety ; 

 PrcEcoqua Persica, an early-ripe variety; and Armeniay 

 which is our apricot, but classed by the ancients 

 among the peaches. Besides these and the two men- 

 tioned by Columella (the Gallic and the Asiatic), 

 Pliny mentions two others — Supernatiay produced in 

 the Sabine district of Italy, and Popularia, 



Pliny observes upon the history rather than upon 

 the cultivation of peaches, remarking that by their 

 Latin name, Persica, proof is given that they were 

 first brought from Persia to Rome ; adding that they 

 are not a native of either Greece or Natolia. It was 

 long, he says, before the peach was introduced at 

 Rome, and it was not until after many trials that the 

 Roman cultivators succeeded in establishing it in their 

 gardens. In the Isle of Rhodes, which was its abid- 

 ing place next to Egypt, the peach, in Pliny's time, 

 was always unfruitful. (Nat. Hist, 1. xv. c. 12 & 13.) 



He goes on to observe that the Buracina was the 

 best of all peaches, on account of the firmness of its 

 flesh. The French and Asiatic peaches were so 

 named from the regions whence they were imported. 

 The peach, he says, was sold at the time of its first 

 introduction for a Roman denier a piece, being equal 

 to about eightpence of our money. 



To our mind, the very name of Popularia is evi- 

 dence that the peach soon became one of the com- 

 B 2 



