Chapter I: History of the Peach (2)

"Next to the pomegranate, the Asiatics prize the peach, and the Oriental poetry compares its lusciousness to the fruits of Paradise. The culture of the peach reaches its northern limit in the district of the Ili. The young plants, which, as throughout Asia, are grown from the seed, without grafting, suffer greatly there from frost and require careful covering; nevertheless the large, smooth, red and the rough, hairy, yellow fruit of the Chinese varieties develop excellent characteristics. According to the observations of the naturalist Wilkins, there are 40 varieties in the Kokan district, among them some Chinese ones. In the South the peach extends to Afghanistan and Tshotral; its proper home, however, is Northern Persia to the Caucasus. In Darvas the peach forms trees 30 feet high with broad tops. The rough-skinned giant peaches of the garden of Kalaichumb are of unsurpassed lusciousness and aroma, and most inviting bloom (tinting of the cheeks). They attain the size of an average apple. The fruitfulness of this variety is so great that the leaves seem to be concealed by the peaches. The Bokhariots prize the smaller rough skinned, and red cheeked variety at Tchaspak, which is distinguished by strong aroma and firm, almost astringent flesh. The yellow peaches are especially sweet. The number of rough-skinned kinds at Kalaichumb is considerable.

The smooth-skinned nectarines of this region, among which there are smaller, pale yellow varieties and very large red cheeked ones, are of unusually fine flavor and melting flesh; but they are equalled by the nectarines of Samarkand. There are also small sweet yellow kinds, which stand half way between the rough coated and smooth coated peaches. Such an one grows in the exposed region of Paendish. In Jasqulam, a small rough-skinned, red peach with astringent flesh and musky aroma flourishes. Roshan, the district of Barpaendsha, and Surshan on the lower Hund, produce later ripening and less valuable varieties, than the territory of the lower Paendish."

Another quotation shows the intensity of the orcharding in some parts of this favored land of fruits. In his chapter on the Zarafshan Valley, Schuyler says:[75]

"The gardens constitute the beauty of all this land. The long rows of poplar and elm trees, the vineyards, the dark foliage of the pomegranate over the walls, transport one at once to the plains of Lombardy or of Southern France. In the early spring the outskirts of the city, and indeed the whole valley, are one mass of white and pink, with the bloom of almond and peach, of cherry and apple, of apricot and plum, which perfume the air for miles around. These gardens are the favourite dwelling-places in the summer, and well may they be. Nowhere are fruits more abundant, and of some varieties it can be said that nowhere are they better. The apricots and nectarines I think it would be impossible to surpass anywhere. These ripen in June, and from that time until winter fruit and melons are never lacking. Peaches, though smaller in size, are better in flavour than the best of England, but they are far surpassed by those of Delaware. The big blue plums of Bukhara are celebrated through the whole of Asia. The cherries are mostly small and sour. The best apples come either from Khiva, or from Suzak, to the north of Turkestan, but the small white pears of Tashkent are excellent in their way. The quince, as with us, is cultivated only for jams or marmalades, or for flavouring soup."

West-central Asia, "the cradle of races," is, as well, the cradle of fruits and vegetables and he who would know more of its orchards, gardens and vineyards should read Schuyler's _Turkestan_ and Lansdell's _Russian Central Asia_. We have quoted from the first-named book and now close the discussion of peaches in Asia by a few brief quotations from Lansdell, taking a few from many to bring out points worth noting. We usually think of flat peaches as belonging to southeastern Asia, yet Lansdell found them in west-central Asia:[76] "Here we bought our first ripe grapes and nectarines. Apricots ripen at Kuldja at the beginning of July, and we were, therefore, too late for them, but of late peaches, that ripen early in August, we came in for the last, flat in form, about an inch and a half in diameter and half an inch in thickness. They tasted fairly well, but there was little flesh on the stone."

Nectarines, as we have mentioned before, seem to be especially plentiful in this region:[77] "In the market (Vierny) we also bought grapes, and, still better, small but luscious nectarines, the latter for a halfpenny each, of which, as I sat over my writing at night, I ate so many as to alarm Mr. Sevier, whose medical instincts led him to fear for the consequences. All went well, however, and I never stinted myself from that time onward from Central Asian fruit, and I am thankful to say was not once inconvenienced thereby."

As throwing light on the wild fruits of this region, we have Lansdell's statement that there are whole forests of almond trees and many species of cherries, plums, apples, pears and apricots, but wild peaches are not mentioned.[78]

On another page we are told that peaches in Bokhara are of three varieties, red, white and green, and in a foot-note that they are grown as follows:[79] "When sown, the stone is put in the earth two fingers deep, before the frosts set in; water is then let in and allowed to freeze; after that, earth is put over it and left till the following spring, when the young shoots are transplanted at intervals of four paces. The best peaches are said to come from Samarkand."

One is tempted to enlarge upon fruit-possibilities in these west-Asiatic valleys. Without much strain upon the imagination it is easy to conjure up visions of great fruit-industries in west Asia rivaling those of our own Pacific Coast when communications with European markets are opened and if the people now there or those who may migrate there begin to make use of their opportunities and to take advantage of the best that art and science now offer horticulture. In the event of such a development, peaches, fresh and dried, will not be the least of the products of the region.

THE PEACH IN EUROPE

One finds treasures of experience and inspiration for narrative in the history of the peach in Europe. But to present a systematic record of the peach as it traveled from country to country after its introduction into ancient Greece would require a volume and a long one, which, interesting and profitable as it might be, could hardly be justified in this work. Present purposes are best served by attempting only to point out the landmarks in the history and development of the peach from the time it left Asia until it reached America. The first landmark is in the introduction of the peach into Greece.

_The peach in Greece._--As to the approximate date and the manner in which the peach reached Greece, there is now common accord among those who may be considered authorities on the history of fruits. Theophrastus (332 B. C.) was the first Greek to mention the peach, speaking of it as a "Persian fruit." It may be, of course, that the peach came to Greece from Asia Minor or Persia at an earlier date. One might well suspect that if peaches were growing in Persia at the time of the retreat of the Ten Thousand (401 B. C.), since the army must have traversed the country in which, according to some, the peach is native and at least had probably then been introduced, the taste of so pleasant a fruit would have inspired some soldier of the retreating Greeks to carry seeds to his western home. But Xenophon, historian of the retreat and a writer on agriculture as well as of war, does not mention the peach as he almost certainly would have done had it occupied a prominent place among the agricultural products of his time.

There is another story of the introduction of the peach into Greece that may be mentioned to separate fact from fable. Some of the old writers assert that the peach came to Greece from Persia by the way of Egypt. Such statements are founded on a traditionary tale first printed by Pliny to the effect that this fruit was sent into Egypt by the kings of Persia to poison the Egyptians. Pliny[80] denies that the kings of Persia had the peach transplanted into Egypt from motives of revenge but evidently is under the belief that the peach came from Egypt for he says:

"As to the peach-tree, it has been only introduced of late years, and with considerable difficulty; so much so, that it is perfectly barren in the Isle of Rhodes, the first resting-place that it found after leaving Egypt."

We would like to amplify the bare statement that Alexander brought the peach to Greece 332 B. C., but this single fact, if it be a fact, seems to constitute the recorded history of the peach in Greece before the Christian era. Dioscorides, about 64 A. D., was the next Greek to mention the peach but he discusses it with reference to its medicinal properties and does not enlighten us greatly as to its horticultural standing. The fact that the several Greek writers whose books have come down to us from the period under consideration do not mention the peach does not argue that this fruit was not then growing in Greece; for classicists, then as now, seldom got down to earth and the things growing in it.

_The peach in Italy._--Naturally one goes to the oldest book in Latin literature on agriculture to look for the beginnings of peach-culture in Italy. This, as every student knows, is _De Re Rustica_, a work on farming, gardening and fruit-growing by Cato (235-150 B. C.) on whom posterity has bestowed the appellation "Sturdiest Roman of Them All." Cato mentions most of our common orchard-fruits, as well as our field crops and garden-plants, but the peach is not in his list of fruits; neither does Varro (117-27 B. C.), the next great Roman writer on agriculture, seem to have known the peach though he mentions choice varieties of cultivated cherries, which at his time had but newly been introduced into Rome.

To Vergil (71-19 B. C.), we are indebted for the first reference to the peach in Roman literature. The "Prince of Latin Poets," writing on agriculture, orcharding and gardening, in the Georgics, mentions the peach in these graceful lines:

"Myself will search our planted grounds at home,
For downy peaches and the glossy plum."

Columella, writing in the next generation after Vergil, about 40 A. D., adopts or starts the story of the peach being a poisonous gift sent from Persia to Egypt:

"And apples, which most barbarous Persia sent,
With native poison arm'd (as fame relates):
But now they've lost their pow'r to kill, and yield
Ambrosial juice, and have forgot to hurt;
And of their country still retain the name."

Some hold, however, that Columella refers not to the peach, "persica" but to "persa" a quite different fruit. But unquestionably, according to commentators, Columella has the peach in mind in these lines:

"Those of small size to ripen make great haste;
Such as great Gaul bestows observe due time
And season, not too early, nor too late."

By these tokens do we know that the peach was cultivated in Italy some years before the Christian era.

In Pliny's remarkable compend of the natural history lore that existed at the beginning of the Christian era, we have the first information worthy of note on the peach in Italy. His statements, though they throw more light on what the peach then was than the writings of any one until his time, taking a more utilitarian turn than those of the Greeks, are confusing and do not enlighten us greatly either as to the history of the peach, or as to its pomological standing. Still, Pliny's observations constitute an important landmark in the history of this fruit and we must give them full consideration. First, let us give attention to Pliny's account of the introduction of the peach into Italy. He devotes Chapter 13, Book XV, to "The Peach" confining his observations to historical references but in it so confounds peaches, plums and other trees that we learn but little as to when, whence or how the peach came to the Romans. Since this reference is much quoted, however, despite its indefiniteness, we give it in full.[81]

"The name of 'Persica,' or 'Persian apple,' given to this fruit, fully proves that it is an exotic in both Greece as well as Asia, and that it was first introduced from Persis. As to the wild plum, it is a well-known fact that it will grow anywhere; and I am, therefore, the more surprised that no mention has been made of it by Cato, more particularly as he has pointed out the method of preserving several of the wild fruits as well. As to the peach-tree, it has been only introduced of late years, and with considerable difficulty; so much so, that it is perfectly barren in the Isle of Rhodes, the first resting-place that it found after leaving Egypt.

It is quite untrue that the peach which grows in Persia is poisonous, and produces dreadful tortures, or that the kings of that country, from motives of revenge, had it transplanted in Egypt, where, through the nature of the soil, it lost all its evil properties--for we find that it is of the 'persea' that the more careful writers have stated all this, a totally different tree, the fruit of which resembles the red myxa, and, indeed, cannot be successfully cultivated anywhere but in the East. The learned have also maintained that it was not introduced from Persis into Egypt with the view of inflicting punishment, but say that it was planted at Memphis by Perseus; for which reason it was that Alexander gave orders that the victors should be crowned with it in the games which he instituted there in honour of his ancestor; indeed, this tree has always leaves and fruit upon it, growing immediately upon the others. It must be quite evident to every one that all our plums have been introduced since the time of Cato."

Our author's discussion of the kinds of peaches and of their market value is somewhat more satisfactory. In Chapter 11, Book XV, entitled "Six Varieties of the Peach," Pliny again discusses several fruits but in the last paragraph confines himself to the peach and puts on record the first account of varieties of this fruit. The chapter follows in full:[82]

"Under the head of apples, we include a variety of fruits, although of an entirely different nature, such as the Persian apple, for instance, and the pomegranate, of which, when speaking of the tree, we have already enumerated nine varieties. The pomegranate has a seed within, enclosed in a skin; the peach has a stone inside. Some among the pears, also, known as 'libralia,' show, by their name, what a remarkable weight they attain.

Among the peaches the palm must be awarded to the duracinus: the Gallic and the Asiatic peach are distinguished respectively by the names of the countries of their origin. They ripen at the end of autumn, though some of the early kinds are ripe in the summer. It is only within the last thirty years that these last have been introduced; originally they were sold at the price of a denarius apiece. Those known as the 'supernatia' come from the country of the Sabines, but the 'popularia' grow everywhere. This is a very harmless fruit, and a particular favourite with invalids: some, in fact, have sold before this as high as thirty sesterces apiece, a price that has never been exceeded by any other fruit. This, too, is the more to be wondered at, as there is none that is a worse keeper: for, when it is once plucked, the longest time that it will keep is a couple of days; and so sold it must be, fetch what it may."

The first of Pliny's six varieties is the "Persian Apple"--"_malum persicum_" in the original text. It is well to note the author's statement that "Under the head of apples, we include a variety of fruits." A literal translation of the Latin word _malum_ in Pliny has brought about many misunderstandings. Beside the peach, pear and pomegranate grouped here as "apples," the apricot, orange, citron and no doubt other fruits come "under the head of apples." The "Persian apple," then, must be counted as one of Pliny's "six varieties of peaches." From the name we know whence the Romans had the peach.

The second variety is the duracinus, to which, among peaches, "the palm must be awarded." The name translated literally is "hard-berry" and must refer to the firmness of the flesh. Despite the fact that De Candolle[83] and others hold that Pliny does not mention the nectarine, "duracinus" can hardly be other than the nectarine--at least the name fits the nectarine better than it does any peach.

The third and fourth of Pliny's peaches are the "Gallic" and "Asiatic," "distinguished respectively by the names of the countries of their origin." Can it be possible that there is a peach native to France? We should say at once that this is but one of Pliny's inaccuracies were it not for the fact that several of the highest French pomological authorities state that certain races of the peach are natives of southern France. Duhamel Du Monceau[84] and Leroy[85] are chief champions of this belief and the latter says that Mayer, Calvel and Carrière, other French authorities, are of the same opinion. These French writers offer no substantial proofs and botanists do not agree with them; it seems, weighing the evidence at this distance, as if they had copied Columella and Pliny too closely. The fact that the peach is a perfectly naturalized denizen of parts of France, of course, gives color to the belief that it is a native and not an exotic in that country. Quite similarly, our early botanists, including so careful an observer as Bartram, were of the opinion that the peach belonged to America for the reason that they found it growing wild in our southern woods--an escape from early Spanish settlers. Pliny's Gallic peach, probably, was a descendant of an early introduction from some outside source. How the "Asiatic peach" of our quotation differs from the "Persian apple" does not appear except in its origin, it probably having come more or less directly from Asia Minor which in Pliny's time seems to have been Asia.

The last two of Pliny's six varieties are those known as "supernatia" which "come from the country of the Sabines" and the "popularia" which "grow everywhere." Whether supernatia, meaning "from above," refers to the fact that this peach grows in the high and mountainous country of the Sabines or to its being a choice variety, cannot be said. Probably, however, it designates choice peaches while the "popularia" which grow everywhere refers to the common run of this fruit.

Peaches were profitable in Rome in Pliny's time, for they sold "as high as thirty sesterces apiece." A sesterce is four and one-half cents so that the possible price of a peach in Rome 1900 years ago was $1.35. The Roman peach-grower was at the mercy of the seasons as are those of nowadays for we read that when once plucked the peach could be kept but a couple of days, "so sold it must be, fetch what it may."

The statement that the peach is a "particular favorite with invalids," reminds us that the ancients ascribe various medicinal properties to nearly all plants and Pliny sets forth those of the peach as follows:[86]

"Peaches, again, are more wholesome than plums; and the same is the case with the juice of the fruit, extracted, and taken in either wine or vinegar. Indeed, what known fruit is there that is more wholesome as an aliment than this? There is none, in fact, that has a less powerful smell, or a greater abundance of juice, though it has a tendency to create thirst. The leaves of it, beaten up and applied topically, arrest haemorrhage: the kernels, mixed with oil and vinegar, are used as a liniment for head-ache."

One other consideration, and we are done with Pliny. In Chapter 13, quoted on page 28, we are told that the peach "has been only introduced of late years." This can hardly mean during the day of the author. The peach had probably been cultivated in ancient Rome for a considerable length of time before Pliny wrote. Vergil and Columella had mentioned it as a planted plant; Pliny, himself, speaks of the "popularia" as being grown "everywhere;" and the facts that it was a common article of food and used in medicine argue an earlier date of introduction than we might be lead to suppose from Pliny's statement "introduced of late years." Indeed, knowing the great length of time it takes in our days of rapid transportation and quick diffusion of knowledge to accustom ourselves to new food-plants and to persuade agriculturists to grow them, we should say that the peach must have been grown in Rome at least two or three centuries to have become so well known as it seems to have been in Pliny's time. The chief point established by these quotations is that the peach was well established in Italy at the beginning of the Christian era.

After leaving Pliny there is a boundless, uncharted waste before we find another landmark in the history of the peach. In all matters relating to agriculture and natural history Roman writers for several centuries but copied the men from whom we have quoted and it was not until the Sixteenth Century that we have any substantial account of the further progress of this fruit. During this century, curiously enough, about the only books on botany and horticulture were commentaries on Dioscorides, the Greek botanist, who lived and made his reputation in Christ's time and who for 1600 years thereafter was the sole authority on botany. Of the ten or twelve commentaries, that of Matthiolus is most replete with information on the fruits of the times and especially in the matter of varieties, which he describes in greater detail than any other man since Pliny. It must be remembered that at this time, the closing years of the Middle Ages, there was a great awakening in agriculture and horticulture in southern and western Europe. As the second descriptive list of peaches we might well quote what Matthiolus wrote, but, as in Pliny, few of his varieties can be made out, and Gerarde, writing later in English, amplifies the Latin author so well that we shall wait for his account.

_The peach in France._--Peach-culture in France probably began about as early as in Italy, for both Columella and Pliny, as we have seen, mention the peaches of Gaul with those of Rome. Introduced thus early, finding suitable soil and climate and easily propagated, so delicious a fruit as the peach must at once have become a prime favorite in the orchards of the monasteries, where, tended by monks who were the most skilled horticulturists of the times, the peach was disseminated throughout France with the spread of Christianity. France was the foster-mother of the peach in Europe--from her nurseries the Belgians, Dutch, Germans and English had their first peach-trees. The history of the peach in France, then, is an important chapter in the history of this fruit.

André Leroy, author of the great French work, _Dictionnaire de Pomologie_, gives in considerable detail the history of the peach in France and from him we briefly summarize the material he has brought together in regard to this fruit up to 1600 after which our purposes are best met by quoting directly from the originals.

According to Leroy[87] only peaches with a downy skin and soft flesh which adhered to the stone came from Asia--all others, in his belief, originated in southern France. That any peach came originally from France we do not agree, for reasons given on a foregoing page. Leaving the statements of origin in dispute, the first records of peaches in France are to be found in the quotations from Columella and Pliny which we have already discussed. Leroy mentions as the second record a reference to the peach by Bishop Fortunat of Portiers in 530; a third from the fourteenth Abbot of the monastery of Saint-Denis near Paris in the year 784; while the great Charlemagne, who in 800 mentions "peaches of different kinds," furnishes the fourth of Leroy's early records; the fifth account is taken from the letters of Lupus, Abbot of Ferrieres, near Amiens, who sent several varieties of peaches to a brother with instructions as to how to plant the pits, the approximate date being 860.

After these Leroy gives several references to show that the peach was commonly cultivated from the Ninth Century on but none of the writers whom he quotes gives a recognizable picture of the kinds of peaches in their day until we come to the epoch-making agricultural book of Olivier de Serres, who, in his _Théatre de Agriculture_, published in 1604, names and describes twelve kinds of peaches. While these descriptions are so incomplete as to be most tantalizing to one trying to recognize varieties, yet Olivier de Serres is one of the outstanding historians of agriculture and his few paragraphs on the peach constitute a prominent landmark in the history of this fruit because he names a considerable number of sorts and makes it plain that the peach is no longer grown as a species but that varieties are receiving recognition, though, sorry to say, we cannot be sure from the fragmentary description whether or not any of his kinds have come down to our time.

From the beginning of the Seventeenth Century the history of the peach in France is common property to students of pomology. Botanists and agriculturists by this time had begun to break away from Dioscorides, Pliny and the other ancients of Greece and Rome; and in France, Germany and England one herbal after another was beginning to appear in nearly all of which the peach received attention. Perhaps, since France plays so important a part in the development of the peach, a brief recapitulation from French pomological authorities following Olivier de Serres, showing the increase in varieties of this fruit and bringing to mind the men who have written in pomology, may be of interest and profit.

Lectier, agent of the King at Orleans, in a catalog of an orchard in his charge, published a list of 27 varieties of peaches in 1628. Thirty-nine years later, 1667, Merlet in his _Abrégé des bons fruits_ names 38 sorts of this fruit. For the next hundred years the increase in number seems to have been small, for in 1768 Duhamel du Monceau in _Traité des arbres fruitiers_, the first great pomological work to be published, describes but 43 peaches. This century, however, was one in which peach-culture increased enormously throughout France. At the beginning of the period peaches began to be grown in the shelter of walls--a method the results of which greatly increased the culture of this fruit. Calvel, in 1805, names 60 varieties; Louis Noisette, 1839, lists 60 sorts; André Leroy, 1852, names but 41 varieties, but in an edition of the same work in 1865, describes 148 peaches; lastly, O. Thomas in _Guide pratique_ (1876) publishes a list of 355 peaches.

_The peach in Belgium, Holland, Germany and Spain._--In the search for prominent events in the development of the peach, we are absolved from the task of tracing in detail the history of this fruit in the countries named in the heading of this paragraph. These nations have furnished no landmarks in the history of the peach. France has provided all with their varieties of this fruit. Indeed, in none, unless perhaps it be Spain, does the peach find a congenial climate and certainly in none is the crop of any considerable commercial value. Amateurs, too, in all but Spain at least, give their attention to its orchard-associates rather than to the peach. It is true, as we shall see, that the peach first came to America from Spain and a considerable number of our varieties are now grouped in what is called the "Spanish race." But horticulture in Spain, from the few accounts to be had, is primitive in the extreme--there are no Spanish pomologies and one cannot conceive that this country has aided appreciably in the development of the peach.

It is possible--would that we could know the facts--that Spain may have played an important part in introducing peaches into Europe. For the earliest Spanish gardens were the work of the Moors and since Moorish gardens, wonderful in beauty of design, show a strong resemblance to the gardens of Persia, what more probable than that the Moor, half-Asiatic, early brought the peach from Persia to Spain.

_The peach in England._--The peach and the gooseberry do not thrive side by side. England grows the gooseberry to highest perfection, fogs, rains and cloudy weather seemingly ministering to its wants. But the peach loves sun, heat and clear skies and if these come not naturally the peach-tree must be artificially grown. The peach is not, after centuries of cultivation, acclimatized in England. But in all times, and of all people, the English have been most fond of gardens and orchards and so beautiful and delectable a fruit as the peach could not escape their attention. And so, though under the necessity of growing this fruit on walls or under glass, England, since the Middle Ages, has done much toward the development of the peach, the difficulties of culture seeming to stimulate interest. Her pomological literature is particularly rich in references to this fruit. We in America, too, are greatly indebted to England for many varieties of peaches. The history of the peach in England, then, should afford much interesting and profitable material in this discussion.

There seems to be no record of the Romans having brought the peach to England, yet there can be little doubt that they did so. The remains in England of Roman houses, baths, roads, pavements and bridges, very similar if not quite so well built as those of Italy, suggest that there were Roman gardens about these early houses and villas in England just as there were about those in the great Empire on the Mediterranean. Moreover, there was an early Saxon name for the peach. The Latin is "Persica;" the early Anglo-Saxon is "Persoc treou;" the English, "peach."[88] But gardening in England for most part went as it came, with the Romans, and, during nearly a thousand years of struggling with barbarians after the fall of the Roman Empire, the peach, in common with all other garden-plants needing culture, seems to have disappeared and was not reintroduced until in the Thirteenth Century.

That the peach came to England, as a permanent asset, from France, is so certain from the general history of English horticulture, though there be no authentic record to substantiate the statement, that we need consider no alternative. One looks in vain for a satisfactory date for the beginning of peach-culture in England. In France the monastic orders, as we have seen, were the conservators of horticulture, as they were of all arts excepting war, and we feel sure that, as the Church reached England, some good bishop, father or brother planted peaches in a monastery garden. Yet our quest of a date is rewarded with nothing earlier than 1216, in which year, according to the Chronicle of Roger of Wendover,[89] "King John, at Newark, in the midst of his despair and disappointment, hastened his end by a surfeit of peaches and ale." From this we may certainly say that peach-culture was established in England at least as early as the beginning of the Thirteenth Century.

Two hundred years elapse before we find another reference to the peach in England. Lydgate, English monk and poet (1375-1440?), as quoted by the Hon. Mrs. Evelyn Cecil,[90] mentioned peaches among "the fruits which more common be." Possibly an earlier reference is found in Chaucer's _Romaunt of the Rose_:

"And many hoomely trees there were
That peches, coynes, and apples bere."

English fruit-books commonly accredit the introduction of the peach in England to a certain Wolf, gardener to Henry VIII, and fix the date at about 1524, but the quotations given show that this fruit was probably well established long before the Sixteenth Century. Perhaps it suffices to say that the peach began to be cultivated in England at the close of the Middle Ages--a time sufficiently vague to be convenient in the state of inexactness of our knowledge.

In the Sixteenth Century references to the peach become so numerous that one cannot reckon with all of them. Selecting only a few notable names of writers on plants, we have Turner, one of the first and perhaps the greatest of British herbalists, who mentions the peach in his _Herball_ of 1551, though rather disparagingly, for he says: "The peche is no great tre in England that I could se--the apples are soft flesshy when they are rype, something hory without." Tusser, author of _Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie_, 1573, the best-known work on farming of the times, gives a list of fruits to be transplanted in January among which are "Peaches, white and red." Lastly, the century ends with John Gerarde's _The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes_, 1597, in which the peach is treated at greater length and to better advantage than by any previous English author. An improved edition of Gerarde's herbal was brought out in 1633 by Thomas Johnson who adds very materially to the discussion of the peach in the first edition and from this we quote in full all that pertains to varieties:[91]

"There are divers sorts of Peaches besides the foure here set forth by our Author, but the trees do not much differ in shape, but the difference chiefly consists in the fruit, whereof I will give you the names of the choice ones, and such as are to be had from my friend Mr. Miller in Old-street, which are these; two sorts of Nutmeg Peaches; The Queenes Peach; the Newington Peach; The grand Carnation Peach; The Carnation Peach; The blacke Peach; The Melocotone; The White; The Romane; The Alberza; The Island Peach; Peach du Troy. These are all good ones. He hath also of that kinde of Peach which some call _Nucipersica_ or Nectorins, these following kindes; the Roman red, the best of fruits; the bastard Red; the little dainty greene; the Yellow, the White; the Russet, which is not so good as the rest. Those that would see any fuller discourse of these may have recourse to the late work of Mr. John Parkinson, where they may find more varieties, and more largely handled, and therefore not necessary for me in this place to insist upon them.

1. The Peach tree is a tree of no great bignesse: it sendeth forth divers boughes, which be so brittle, as oftentimes they are broken with the weight of the fruit or with the winde. The leaves be long, nicked in the edges, like almost to those of the Walnut tree, and in taste bitter: the floures be of a light purple colour. The fruit of Peaches be round, and have as it were a chinke or cleft on the one side; they are covered with a soft and thin downe or hairy cotton, being white without, and of a pleasant taste; in the middle whereof is a rough or rugged stone, wherein is contained a kernell like unto the Almond; the meate about the stone is of a white color. The root is tough and yellowish.

2. The red Peach tree is likewise a tree of no great bignesse; it also sendeth forth divers boughes or branches which be very brittle. The leaves be long, and nicked in the edges like to the precedent. The floures be also like unto the former; the fruit or Peaches be round, and of a red colour on the outside; the meate likewise about the stone is of a gallant red colour. These kindes of Peaches are very like to wine in taste, and therefore marvellous pleasant.

3. _Persica praecocia_, or the d'avant Peach tree is like unto the former, but his leaves are greater and larger. The fruit or Peaches be of a russet colour on the one side, and on the other side next unto the Sun of a red colour, but much greater than the red Peach: the stones whereof are like unto the former: the pulpe or meate within is of a golden yellow colour, and of a pleasant taste.

4. _Persica lutea_, or the yellow Peach tree is like unto the former in leaves and flours, his fruit is of a yellow color on the out side, and likewise on the in side, harder than the rest: in the middle of the Peach is a wooddy hard and rough stone full of crests and gutters, in which doth ly a kernel much like to that of the almond, and with such a like skin: the substance within is white, and of taste somewhat bitter. The fruit hereof is of greatest pleasure, and of best taste of all the other of his kinde; although there be found at this day divers other sorts that are of very good taste, not remembered of the ancient, or set down by the later Writers, whereof to speake particularly would not bee great to our pretended purpose, considering wee hasten to an end.

5. There is also kept in some of our choice gardens a kind of Peach which hath a very double and beautifull floure, but it is seldom succeeded by any fruit: they call this _Persica flore pleno_, The double blossomed Peach."

In the first edition Gerarde describes but four peaches, but Johnson, 36 years later, says "there are divers sorts besides the foure here set forth by our Author" and then names thirteen "choice ones, such as are to be had from my friend Miller in Old-street," who "hath also" six varieties "of that kinde of Peach which some call _Nucipersia_ or _Nectorins_." Either Gerarde neglects the peach or varieties increased greatly in 36 years--probably the former. We have not found the nectarine mentioned before Johnson's revision of Gerarde in 1633 and probably this fruit was not well known in England long before, for Parkinson, discussing them in 1629, says "they have been with us not many years." This brings us to Parkinson's list of peaches, which contains, as Johnson says, a "fuller discourse," than Gerarde. John Parkinson (1567-1650), another British herbalist, who also cultivated a famous garden in London, devotes a chapter to the peach and another to the nectarine. These being short, and every word pertinent, we publish them in full:[92]

"The great white Peach is white on the outside as the meate is also, and is a good well rellished fruit.

The small white Peach is all one with the greater, but differeth in size.

The Carnation Peach is of three sorts, two are round, and the third long; they are all of a whitish colour, shadowed over with red, and more red on the side is next the sunne: the lesser round is the more common, and the later ripe.

The grand Carnation Peach is like the former round Peach, but greater, and is as late ripe, that is, in the beginning of September.

The red Peach is an exceeding well rellished fruit.

The russet Peach is one of the most ordinary Peaches in the Kingdome, being of a russet colour on the outside, and but of a reasonable rellish, farre meaner then many other.

The Island Peach is a faire Peach, and of a very good rellish.

The Newington Peach is a very good Peach, and of an excellent good rellish, being of a whitish greene colour on the outside, yet halfe reddish, and is ripe about Bartholmew tide.

The yellow Peach is of a deepe yellow colour; there be hereof divers sorts, some good and some bad.

The St. James Peach is the same with the Queenes Peach, here belowe set downe, although some would make them differing.

The Melocotone Peach is a yellow faire Peach, but differing from the former yellow both in forme and taste, in that this hath a small crooked end or point for the most part, it is ripe before them, and better rellished then any of them.

The Peach _du Troas_ is a long and great whitish yellow Peach, red on the outside, early ripe, and is another kinde of Nutmeg Peach.

The Queenes Peach is a faire great yellowish browne Peach, shadowed as it were over with deepe red, and is ripe at Bartholmew tide, of a very pleasant good taste.

The Romane Peach is a very good Peach, and well rellished.

The Durasme or Spanish Peach is of a darke yellowish red colour on the outside, and white within.

The blacke Peach is a great large Peach, of a very darke browne colour on the outside, it is of a waterish taste, and late ripe.

The Alberza Peach is late ripe, and of a reasonable good taste.

The Almond Peach, so called, because the kernell of the stone is sweete, like the Almond, and the fruit also somewhat pointed like the Almond in the huske; it is early ripe, and like the Newington Peach, but lesser.

The Man Peach is of two sorts, the one longer then the other, both of them are good Peaches, but the shorter is the better rellished.

The Cherry Peach is a small Peach, but well tasted.

The Nutmeg Peach is of two sorts, one that will be hard when it is ripe, and eateth not so pleasantly as the other, which will bee soft and mellow; they are both small Peaches, having very little or no resemblance at all to a Nutmeg, except in being a little longer than round, and are early ripe."

"Many other sorts of Peaches there are, whereunto wee can give no especial name; and therefore I passe them over in silence."

Agriculture seems to have received a great impetus in England about the middle of the Seventeenth Century, possibly with the beginning of Cromwell's Protectorate in 1653. Toward the end of the century the momentum began to carry pomology with it, the most apparent results of the movement at this distance, as it affects the peach, being a great output of new varieties and of fruit-books in which the new offerings were described. From this time the progress of peach-culture in England assumed so great proportions that space does not permit following it further in this brief account--a task unnecessary, too, for the pomological works of Lawrence, Switzer, Langley, Brookshaw, Miller, Rea, Hitt, Abercrombie and Forsyth, to select the most prominent names, cover the century well and are still accessible in large libraries. Moreover, by this time the peach was well established in America and we must take up its history there.

THE PEACH IN AMERICA

One of the first fruits of the heroic age of Spanish discovery in America was the naturalization in the New World of animals and plants which the discoverers brought with them. Most notable of these are the wild horses of the western plains and the Indian peaches of southern forests. Long before the English, Dutch, French or Swedes planted colonies in America, peaches, introduced by Spaniards, were common property of the Indians in southeastern and southwestern America. The Spaniards came to the New World to conquer and brought swords more often than fruits, but a cheery note in the long dirge of human woes suffered by the Aztecs is found in the rapid dissemination of the peach, among other domesticated plants, at an early period in Mexico. Which of the Spanish conquerors brought the peach or when it came does not appear but we have record that less than fifty years after Cortez conquered the country the peach was, apparently, commonly grown in Mexico. The beginnings of peach-culture on this continent are, then, to be sought in the region south of the Rio Grande.

_The peach in Mexico._--Authority for the statement that the peach was cultivated in Mexico less than fifty years after the Spanish conquest is found in a Spanish book published by Molina in 1571, in which three peaches are described in Hispano-Aztec compound words as follows: "_xuchipal durazno_, 'red-colored peach,' _cuztic durazno_, 'yellow peach,' and _xocotlmelocoton_, 'peach fruit.'"[93] That the peach is to be found everywhere in Mexico, cultivated and as an escape from cultivation, where climate permits is common knowledge to pomologists, explorers having from time to time brought to light sorts worthy of introduction in our southern states, and frequent mention is made of this fruit by visitors to that country.

These Mexican peaches become of special interest to American fruit-growers because they constitute, with the offspring of early introductions in Florida, what pomologists call the "Spanish Race" of this fruit. "American Race" is a more fitting name, for these peaches are an American product. Four centuries of reproduction from seed, in a climate and soil different from any previously imposed upon them, and abnormally short generations have given to this continent a group of peaches with many characters in common.

Tracing further the history of the peaches that early came to Mexico, we find evidence that in a comparatively short time they had been taken northward into New Mexico, Arizona and the Californias. It is barely possible that from the same source the peach was eventually carried as far eastward as the Mississippi, for early explorers found naturalized peaches in the valley of this great river. No doubt the Jesuit and Franciscan fathers, chief representatives of the Roman Catholic Church in the early settlement of Mexico and southwestern America, early carried the peach from place to place, for, as advance guards of civilization, these men usually planted fruits, grains, vegetables and flowers at the missions they founded. Therefore, it is hardly too much to say that the history of the peach in the southwest follows the establishment, one after another, of the old missions, beginning in America with the settlement of Sante Fe in 1605 and continuing until Spanish rule passed into that of the United States.

That the padres of the early religious orders planted gardens and orchards as they planted the cross of Christianity among the Indian tribes in the southwest may be seen from such accounts of the mission as the following, written by a Spanish officer traveling in what is now New Mexico in 1799:[94] "The Moquinos are the most industrious of the many Indian nations that inhabit and have been discovered in that portion of America. They till the earth with great care, and apply to all their fields the manures proper for each crop. The same cereals and pulse are raised by them, that are everywhere produced by the civilized population in our provinces. They are attentive to their kitchen gardens, and have all the varieties of fruit-bearing trees it has been in their power to procure. The peach tree yields abundantly."

The antiquity of peach-culture among southern Indians, from Mexico to Florida, is shown by the fact that, among the prominent tribes of this region, there is a distinct name for the peach but the names of other introduced fruits, and of some native ones, are derived from that of the peach. Thus, according to W. R. Gerard,[95] who gave careful study to Indian names of plants in at least four Indian languages, the name of the peach is the radical while that of several plums is the equivalent of "little peach," "deer's peach" and "barren peach" while the cultivated apples and pears were by some Indians called "big peach."

As these Indian peaches have cut a prominent figure in furnishing stocks for American peach-orchards, are the source from which came a number of varieties, and, more than all else, gave inspiration for planting permanent orchards of this fruit on American soil, we may well consider them at greater length.

_Indian peaches._--In many parts of the South, from the Ohio to the Gulf and from the Atlantic to the Great Plains, the peach is naturalized and has run into many varieties of a peculiar and well-recognized type. This is the "Indian Peach" of this vast region, the chief distinguishing characters of which are: Trees with long, spreading limbs; young growth with purplish bark; small, flat, comparatively persistent leaves; blossoms large; season sometimes covering several weeks; fruit small, streaked with red beneath the skin, giving it a striped appearance, heavily pubescent; flesh usually yellow; ripening very late, season long, and of poor or indifferent quality. The trees of these Indian peaches have a smack of wildness which the best of pruning does not wholly subdue. The aborigines undoubtedly obtained peaches from Spaniards settling in both Mexico and Florida. The first source we have discussed. We come now to the second.

No doubt the Spaniards planted peaches in their first settlement of Florida at Saint Augustine in 1565. We have no record of the fact but early Indian traders found the natives of northern Florida and the neighboring states growing peaches in and about their villages in such quantity and with such familiarity as to suggest that the several tribes had long known this fruit. Hilton, an Englishman, who visited Florida a hundred years after the Spaniards established themselves at Saint Augustine, records that: "the country abounds with grapes, large figs and peaches."[96] The besetting sins of our early explorers were hasty generalization and exaggeration, and since the Indian peach, in what is now Florida at any rate, does not "abound" we must believe that Hilton was either farther north or was dissembling. Of the abundance of Indian peaches in the other Gulf States, there can be no doubt, for John Bartram, America's first great botanist, a man of note among all American naturalists, in the account of his travels through this region in 1765-1766 frequently mentions the peach as wild or as having been cultivated by the Indians.

Thus, Bartram says, speaking of the Cherokee town of Sticoe, on or near the Savannah River:[97] "On these towering hills appeared the ruins of the ancient famous town of Sticoe. Here was a vast Indian mount or tumulus and great terrace, on which stood the council-house, with banks encompassing their circus; here were also old Peach and Plumb orchards; some of the trees appeared yet thriving and fruitful." And again, discussing the ruins of a French town near Mobile, Alabama, he says:[98] "I ascended the bank of the river, and penetrating the groves, came presently to old fields, where I observed ruins of ancient habitations, there being abundance of Peach and Fig trees, loaded with fruit, which affording a very acceptable dessert after the heats and toil of the day, and evening drawing on apace, I concluded to take up my quarters here for the night." And still again, he found on Pearl Island:[99] "Besides the native forest trees and shrubs already noted, manured fruit trees arrive in this island to the utmost degree of perfection, as Pears, Peaches, Figs, Grape Vines, Plumbs, &c."

Bartram in his travels found the peach so widely and abundantly naturalized that he was inclined to believe America to be its habitat. At least Kalm,[100] the Swedish naturalist, who visited Bartram in 1748-1749 reports that Bartram "looked upon peaches as an original American fruit, and as growing wild in the greater part of America."

In 1758 Le Page Du Pratz, who lived on a plantation in Louisiana for several years and wrote a history of the French colony, says that the natives had peaches and figs when the French settled in Louisiana in 1698. He probably errs, however, in stating that the natives got their trees from the English colony of Carolina since the English did not settle in Carolina until 1670. No doubt the Indians had long before had peaches and figs from the Spaniards of Florida or Mexico. The account which this historian gives of early peach-culture in Louisiana is worth printing in full:[101] "The natives had doubtless got the peach trees and fig trees from the English colony of Carolina, before the French established themselves in Louisiana. The peaches are of the kind which we call alberges; are of the size of the fist, adhere to the stone, and contain so much water that they make a kind of wine of it. The figs are either blue or white; are large and well enough tasted. Our colonists plant the peach stones about the end of February, and suffer the trees to grow exposed to all weathers. In the third year they will gather from one tree at least two hundred peaches, and double that number for six or seven years more, when the tree dies irrecoverably. As new trees are so easily produced, the loss of the old ones is not in the least regretted."