THE ROMANCE OF OUR TREES— 
WHENCE CAME THE COMMON FRUITS? 
ERNEST H. WILSON 
Assistant Director, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University 
Changed as Greatly from the Earliest Specimens as Man Is Himself Changed and Developed 
Above His Primitive Prototype, They Still Hold Rich Promise of Further Advance 
jN THE northern Hemisphere two forms of civilization 
have developed during the course of ages, commonly 
jp? expressed as of the west and of the east, otherwise 
of Europe and of eastern Asia or the Orient, the domin- 
ant factor of the latter being China. So, too, have two distinct 
stocks of tree fruits. There is the Eurasian group of Apples, 
Pears, Plums, and Cherries and there is the Chinese group of the 
same. They are separate and distinct one from another, and 
have been evolved independently, from the wild species found 
in their respective areas east and west of the high table-land of 
central Asia. 
The origin of the common fruit trees of our western civiliza- 
tion is lost in the dust of antiquity Some — the Damson for 
example — can be traced in old Greek literature back to the sixth 
century before Christ. 
But they are much 
older than this, for 
charred remains of the 
Apple and stones of the 
Bullace (Yellow Plum) 
have been found in 
the pre-historic lake- 
dwellings of Switzer- 
land. 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 
place of origin of our 
Plums, Apples, Pears, 
and Cherries. Books 
generally make them of 
Eurasian origin, giving 
their distribution from 
southeast Europe, the 
Asiatic shores of the 
Black Sea, the Cauca- 
sus, Persia to Kashmir 
and north to Bokkara. 
Possibly some of 
them, like the Common 
Plum, were first culti- 
vated on the shores of 
the Caspian Sea and 
on the Plains of Turan 
where the Huns, Turks, 
Mongols, and Tartars, 
flowing back and forth 
in tides of war-like mi- 
gration, maintained in 
times of peace a crude 
agriculture — p ro ba bl y 
long before the Greeks 
and Romans tilled the 
soil. But all that can 
be definitely stated to- 
day is that our common 
THE APRICOT IN CHINA IS BOTH WILD AND CULTIVATED 
Its story is similar to the story of the Peach, both probably 
coming from the land of their nativity by the old trade routes 
across central Asia into Persia, and thence on to the Romans 
fruit trees are native of those parts of the Old World west of the 
highlands of central Asia. 
Since the wild habitat of the trees is not clearly understood, 
it will occasion no surprise to learn that botanists differ in 
opinion as to which species some of the domesticated fruits 
belong. Naturally they have become so vastly changed under 
long cultivation that they bear but a remote resemblance to 
their ancestral forms. And another fact that adds enormously 
to the confusion of the problem is that the parts of Europe, 
western Asia and the Orient where they are supposed to have 
had their home, have changed completely under long, if inter- 
mittent, practice of agricultural husbandry. The ravages 
of a thousand wars and the migrations of peoples have 
likewise profoundly influenced the circumstances, until in 
the case of the com- 
mon Apple and the 
Domestica Plums it is 
indeed doubtful if we 
shall ever be absolutely 
sureof the original habi- 
tat and identity of the 
feral types. Reversions 
toward the wild type or 
types of Apple — Crab- 
apples — are found 
everywhere in the world 
where Apples have been 
long cultivated; and 
casual observers have 
concluded that these 
are truly wild. But 
“naturalized” is the 
correct term to apply 
to them since they are 
possibly all escapes 
from ancient cultiva- 
tion. 
The latest authority 
as represented by 
Bailey’s “Standard 
Cyclopedia of American 
Horticulture,” V, 2870 
(1916), gives southeast- 
ern Europe to western 
Asia as the home of the 
principal, or supposed 
principal, parent of the 
Apple, and western 
and central Europe for 
its other and lesser 
parent. The fruit was 
supposedly introduced 
into France and Britain 
by the Romans, as was 
also the Pear; and like 
that, probably reintro- 
duced by religious 
houses on their estab- 
lishment, after the 
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