The peaches of New York
by U. P. Hedrick · English · Gutenberg #47263 · 1,647,045 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The peaches of New York
Author: U. P. Hedrick
Contributor: G. H. Howe
O. M. Taylor
C. B. Tubergen
Release date: November 1, 2014 [eBook #47263]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK ***
[Transcriber's Note:
Bold text denoted with =equal signs=, italic text denoted with
_underscores_.]
[Illustration:
[Hand written text:]
Yours sincerly,
A. J. Downing]
STATE OF NEW YORK--DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Twenty-Fourth Annual Report--Vol. 2--Part II
THE
PEACHES OF NEW YORK
BY
U. P. HEDRICK
ASSISTED BY
G. H. HOWE
O. M. TAYLOR
C. B. TUBERGEN
Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1916
II
ALBANY
J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS
1917
NEW YORK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION,
GENEVA, N. Y., _January 31, 1917_.
_To the Honorable Board of Control of the New York Agricultural
Experiment Station_:
GENTLEMEN:--I have the honor to transmit herewith the manuscript of
the fifth in our series of fruit-publications, to be known as "The
Peaches of New York," and to constitute Part II of the report of this
institution for 1916.
Peach-growing is an important industry in the State of New York. In
certain counties the production of this fruit has been a main factor in
the well-known prosperity of many owners of peach-orchards. Moreover,
the peach, when at its best, is a luscious article of food and adds
greatly not only to the enjoyment, but to the healthfulness, of our
diet.
The commercial and dietary importance of the peach is, therefore, the
justification for the preparation of this volume.
Because the numerous varieties of peaches differ greatly in quality and
in their adaptation to varying conditions, a comprehensive study of
those varieties which are, or which may be, grown in this State seemed
greatly worth while.
It is with a feeling of satisfaction, even of pride, that I submit to
you the accompanying manuscript. Its preparation reflects great credit
upon Prof. Hedrick and his associates and upon the makers of the plates.
W. H. JORDAN,
_Director_.
PREFACE
The present volume is the fifth in the plan of the New York
Agricultural Experiment Station to make a more or less complete record
of all of the different fruits grown in this region. This work differs
from the preceding fruit-books but little or not at all in nature
and purposes, yet a statement of its contents, even though it be
almost identical with that in the prefaces of the preceding volumes,
is necessary for those who may not have the other books and may be a
convenience to those who have all of the series.
The title implies that _The Peaches of New York_ is written for the
confines of a state; but all varieties of the peach grown in North
America, as well as many known only in other continents, Europe
especially, have been considered, under the supposition that all might
be grown in New York and are therefore of interest to the peach-growers
of the State. Broadly speaking, then, the design is to make the book as
complete a record as possible of the development of the peach, wherever
grown, up to this time.
The book contains: An account of the history and uses of the peach; a
discussion of the botanical characters of the species of cultivated
peaches; an account of the peach-regions and of peach-growing in New
York with the most important statistics relating to this fruit; and,
lastly and in greatest detail, the synonymy, bibliography, economic
status, and full descriptions of all the most important cultivated
peaches, with briefer notices of varieties of minor importance and of
those appearing in peach-literature which are now no longer grown.
In foot-notes running through the text, biographical sketches are
published of the persons who have done most in America toward improving
the peach. Incidentally, all that was thought would be helpful in
breeding peaches was included. So, too, whatever appeared to be of
interest to students of ecology has been given a place.
As in the preceding books, color-plates occupy prominent places in this
volume. Pains and expense have not been spared in the attempt to make
the plates the best possible with the present knowledge of reproduction
in colors. All who have seen the plates in this and the first four
fruit-books of the series will agree that the reproductions of peaches
are more accurate than those of the apples, grapes, plums or cherries,
and yet these are not as exact as might be wished. Although most
carefully selected, an illustration of one or two fruits does not give
an adequate picture of a variety. Neither does the camera take colors
quite as the eye sees them nor can the plate-maker quite reproduce what
the camera takes. The illustrations are of life-size as the peaches
grow on the grounds of this Station and represent specimens of average
size and color. The fruits, as shown in the plates, look small for the
reason that a flat picture of a round object minifies size.
In all of these fruit-books it has been difficult to decide what
varieties merit color-plates and full descriptions. Briefly, the choice
of sorts to be illustrated and described in detail has been determined
by the following considerations: (1) By the value of the variety for
home or commercial orchards; (2) the probable value if the peach is a
new sort on probation; (3) its desirability as a parent in breeding
new peaches or to show combinations of varieties, to illustrate
new characters, or to show the range in variation--in a word to
enlighten the peach-breeder; (4) not a few varieties are described and
illustrated to show the trend of peach-evolution--for their historical
value; (5) to show relationships of varieties.
The peach is profoundly influenced by soil, climate and culture, and a
discussion of its status is not complete without taking full account of
the environment in which it is growing. For this reason, chiefly, the
peach-regions and peach-growing in New York are discussed as fully as
space permits. This part of the book is designed, also, to serve the
prospective peach-planter in this State in the selection of locations
and soils and in the culture of the peach. Since the cultivation of any
plant changes from year to year, though, experiment station bulletins
and circulars and treatises on the culture of the peach should supply
growers of this fruit with better information on the year-to-year
management of the peach-plantation.
The botany of the peach, as compared with its congeners, the plum
and the cherry, is simple, indeed, and is well agreed upon by
botanical writers, so that this book may be said to be almost wholly a
horticultural one. Yet the few pages devoted to the botany of the peach
may make plainer, to the horticulturist at least, the botany of this
fruit.
The chief contribution _The Peaches of New York_ makes to pomology
is in the descriptions of varieties it contains. All who grow or
use peaches are dependent on descriptions of fruit and tree for the
identification of varieties. From a well-written description one should
get an exact mental picture of the fruit--we try to present such a
pen-picture. With a few exceptions the descriptions of major varieties
have been made from peaches growing on the Station grounds, though in
many cases fruits from several localities have been compared with those
grown at home.
The fruits, it must be said at once, have been described with other
ends in view than identification. Chief of these is the effort to set
forth the elementary characters, or unit-characters, of the peach. It
is now certain that the characters of plants are independent entities
thrown into various relationships with each other in individual plants.
On this conception of unit-characters the improvement of plants is
founded. An important part of the work in describing fruits has been
to discover what seem to be unit-characters in peaches, thereby aiding
in building a foundation in breeding peaches. To improve the peach we
must combine the characters of species and varieties; we must know what
these are before we can rearrange them in an improved peach.
In the marked attention paid to the improvement of plants, following
the work of Mendel and others, the peach is bound to receive
consideration. Never was information more needed in regard to the
processes that have brought peaches from their primitive condition to
their present perfection. We have done our utmost to give all that
could be learned of the origin and history of varieties with the hope
that such knowledge may be helpful to those who are trying to improve
the peach.
We wish again to call attention to the great value of definite
knowledge regarding the soils, climates and other environmental
conditions under which species and varieties of fruits thrive.
It is obvious to all thinking pomologists and biologists that,
when the ecological conditions under which the several fruits
and their many varieties are grown can be accurately specified,
valuable generalizations can be made regarding life-zones and
plant-distribution. In _The Peaches of New York_, as in the preceding
books, we state as accurately as possible the regions in which and
the conditions under which, species and varieties of the peach are
successfully grown.
So few species have been considered in _The Peaches of New York_ that
we have had no need to refer to codes of botanical nomenclature. In
the use of horticultural names, lacking a better code, we have kept
before us the revised rules of the American Pomological Society though
in many cases we have not seen fit to follow these rules as the changes
required by their strict observance would augment rather than diminish
confusion.
The references given are those that have been used in ascertaining the
history and the economic status or in verifying the description of
the variety that follows. All of the synonyms created by pomologists
to whose works we have had access have been noted but in no case have
we published synonyms quoted by other writers. The work of reading
references and seeking out synonyms is a tremendous one, involving
nearly three years' work for several persons. We hope that this work
sets straight in high degree the great confusion in the names of
peaches, but that we, no matter how painstaking, could bring perfection
out of chaos, no one could expect.
Again we call attention to the biographical sketches found in the
foot-notes. Some men in every profession surpass their fellows in
true greatness. Such men there are in pomology, and a knowledge of
their career is indispensable to a full comprehension of the industry
of growing fruit. In the conquest of America we have honored, so
far, only the men who have expressed their energy in conquering the
mines, the forests, the fisheries and to a small degree those who have
developed the soils; we have shamefully neglected the great men who
have developed our native fruits and vegetables and adapted to the
conditions of the New World the agricultural products of the Old World.
The brief biographical sketches in these fruit-books are written in an
effort to give in some measure the credit and honor due to those who
have improved fruits.
In the preparation of _The Peaches of New York_, besides those whose
names appear on the title page, I am indebted to R. D. Anthony, for
reading proof; to the Station editor, F. H. Hall, for his assistance;
to the Zeese-Wilkinson Company, New York City, for the beautiful
color-plates of peaches; and to the J. B. Lyon Company, Albany, New
York, for good workmanship in printing the book.
U. P. HEDRICK,
_Horticulturist, New York Agricultural Experiment Station_.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS xi
CHAPTER I.--HISTORY OF THE PEACH 1
CHAPTER II--BOTANICAL AND HORTICULTURAL CLASSIFICATIONS
OF THE PEACH 68
CHAPTER III.--COMMERCIAL PEACH-GROWING IN AMERICA 98
CHAPTER IV.--PEACH-GROWING IN NEW YORK 131
CHAPTER V.--LEADING VARIETIES OF PEACHES 178
CHAPTER VI.--MINOR VARIETIES OF PEACHES 291
BIBLIOGRAPHY, REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS 499
INDEX 511
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT OF ANDREW JACKSON DOWNING _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
DESCRIPTION OF A PEACH 76
MAP SHOWING PEACH REGIONS IN NEW YORK 134
VARIETIES
ADMIRAL DEWEY 178
ALEXANDER 180
ALTON 180
ARP 182
BELLE 184
BEQUETTE FREE 184
BERENICE 186
BLOOD CLING 188
BLOOD LEAF 188
BRIGDON 190
CANADA 190
CAPTAIN EDE 192
CARMAN 194
CHAIRS 194
CHAMPION 196
CHILI 198
CHINESE CLING 198
CLIMAX 200
CROSBY 202
DAVIDSON 204
EARLY CRAWFORD 206
EARLY YORK 208
EDGEMONT 208
ELBERTA 210
ENGLE 212
EUREKA 212
FAMILY FAVORITE 214
FITZGERALD 214
FOSTER 216
GENERAL LEE 216
GEORGE IV 218
GOLD DROP 220
GOVERNOR HOGG 220
GREENSBORO 222
HALE EARLY 222
HEATH CLING 224
HEATH FREE 226
HILEY 226
HYNES 228
ILLINOIS 230
IMPERIAL 230
IRON MOUNTAIN 232
J. H. HALE 234
JENNIE WORTHEN 236
KALAMAZOO 236
KENTUCKY (NECTARINE) 84
LAMONT 238
LATE CRAWFORD 240
LATE RARERIPE 242
LEMON FREE 244
LOLA 246
MAMIE ROSS 246
MAY LEE 248
MORRIS WHITE 250
MOUNTAIN ROSE 250
MUIR 252
NEWTON (NECTARINE) 84
NIAGARA 254
OLDMIXON CLING 254
OLDMIXON FREE 256
PALLAS 258
PEARSON 260
PEENTO 260
[Reproduced from Transactions of the Horticultural Society of
London IV: 512. 1822.]
PROLIFIC 262
_PRUNUS DAVIDIANA_ 86
RAY 262
RED CHEEK MELOCOTON 264
REEVES 266
RIVERS 266
ROCHESTER 268
ST. JOHN 270
SALWEY 272
SCHUMAKER 274
SMOCK 274
STEVENS 276
STUMP 278
SUMMER SNOW 278
SURPASSE 280
THURBER 280
TRIANA 282
TRIUMPH 282
WADDELL 284
WAGER 286
WATERLOO 288
WHEATLAND 288
YELLOW RARERIPE 290
PEACH BLOSSOMS
ALTON (LARGE FLOWERED) 78
BLOOD LEAF 78
CHINESE FREE (MEDIUM FLOWERED) 80
CROSBY (SMALL FLOWERED) 80
KENTUCKY (NECTARINE) 82
SUMMER SNOW (WHITE FLOWERED) 82
THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK
CHAPTER I
HISTORY OF THE PEACH
The history of the peach follows step by step the history of
agriculture. The beginning of agriculture, as depicted in the
traditions and embellished in the poetry of ancient peoples, was the
creation of useful plants by some Divinity. But, counting unwritten
history and poetic fancy as naught and coming to recorded facts--those
of history as we now have it--the beginning of agriculture is marked by
two recorded events. The first occurred 2700 years B. C. when Emperor
Chenming, Ruler of China, instituted ceremonies for the sowing of
various vegetables and grains. The second event was the building of the
Great Pyramid of Gizeh by some ruler who lorded it over Egypt between
2500 to 2000 years B. C. and who ornamented his handiwork with drawings
of figs.
Yet these early records in China and Egypt were not made at the
beginnings of agriculture in those countries. Plants were undoubtedly
cultivated centuries before it occurred to Emperor Chenming that rice,
wheat and other crops deserved ceremonial sowings. The pyramids of
Gizeh could only have been built by an organized, civilized people
with cultivated fields on which to levy toll for the dormant season
and lean years--pyramids could hardly be raised by a people forced to
skim a day-to-day existence from wild plants. "Art is long and time
is fleeting" in agriculture, and between the obscure beginnings of
this ancient art, when naked men following the chase began to vary a
meat diet with fruits, grains and roots plucked from the wild, and the
regular cultivation of useful plants, as implied by these old records
from China and Egypt, there are many steps and thousands and thousands
of years.
If, then, the history of the peach begins with the history of
agriculture, and the beginnings of agriculture are lost in the
obscurity of antiquity, it is useless to speculate as to how long the
peach has been cultivated. The statements of the early historians as to
the age of the domesticated peach are so at variance that they serve
only to confuse. Indeed, were we to attempt to bring into agreement the
diverse assertions of historians we should never know even the place
of origin of the peach; for it is upon data from botany that we must
depend most in determining the habitat of our fruit. This subject we
now come to discuss in detail.
THE ORIGIN OF THE PEACH
Names frequently breed misunderstandings and in the case of the peach a
fine brood of mistakes as to the origin of the fruit has come from the
name. As all know, "peach" and most of its equivalents in the countries
of Europe are derived from "Persia" and this has given rise to the
supposition that the original habitat of the fruit is Persia. The
ancient authors who mention the peach, as Theophrastus, Columella and
Pliny, agree that the home of the peach was Persia and, even until our
own time, to be written in any of these worthies is proof conclusive.
While negative evidence counts for but little, the notion is so firmly
fixed that some, at least, of the races of peaches are Persian products
that it seems best to clear the way for positive evidence by first
proving that the first home of the peach was not Persia.
Persia is pictured as a land of fruits before agriculture had begun in
Greece and Rome. The quince and the pomegranate probably originated
here and, with the olive, grape, almond, and, to the north at least,
the cherry and plum, have been cultivated from three to four thousand
years.
At very early times the quince, pomegranate, olive and grape were
introduced from Persia, according to De Candolle, still our best
authority, into Greece and Rome and even the cherry and plum, from
countries to the north if not from Persia, reached southern Europe long
before the peach. It seems certain, as De Candolle suggests,[1] that
if the peach had been a native of Persia, had it existed there during
all time, so beautiful and so delectable a fruit would have been taken
earlier into Asia Minor and Greece. As gratifying to all the senses by
which we judge fruits as any other product of the orchard, as easily
transported and propagated as any--more so than most--it cannot be
believed that the other fruits named would have been given preference
over the peach by conquerors or travelers carrying Persian luxuries to
westward countries.
Moreover, as De Candolle further points out, the several Hebrew
and Sanskrit peoples did not speak in sacred or vulgar writings of
the peach as they did many times of the olive, quince, grape and
pomegranate. Yet these peoples radiated from the valleys of the
Euphrates and were at all times in close communication with Persia.
Since, according to the authoritative De Candolle, Xenophon, who
retreated with the ten thousand 401 B. C., does not mention the peach,
this fruit probably did not reach Greece until Alexander's expedition
and was first mentioned by Theophrastus 332 B. C. (if the fruit
mentioned by Theophrastus is the peach) and did not reach Rome until
after the beginning of the Christian era.
The more one examines historical records the more evident it becomes
that Greek and Roman writers assumed that the habitat of the peach,
which they called the Persian apple, was Persia because it came
thence to their countries. Ancient historians very commonly and very
confusingly made the assumption that the region from which a plant
product came to their country was its first habitat.
The best means of establishing the origin of a plant is to discover in
what country it grows spontaneously. This would be a simple matter,
indeed, if one could be sure that a given plant found growing wild
is not an escape from cultivation. Here is the trouble in the case
of the peach. According to the botanists the tree is now growing
wild in Persia, as it is in nearby countries, and for that matter in
other parts of the Old World and in many places in the New World. The
painstaking De Candolle, who has carefully sifted the evidence of the
leading botanists until his time of writing, 1882, concludes that the
peach has never been truly wild in Persia. An examination of the works
of botanists writing since De Candolle's study of the subject does not
show that any offers proof that the peach was originally wild in Persia.
Without going into the matter further it seems safe to say that the
Greek and Roman writers were at fault in naming Persia as the home
of the peach. To summarize: its late distribution, as compared with
that of other Persian fruits argues against such an origin; philology,
which usually affords indications touching the habitat of a species, is
against the Persian theory of origin since neither Hebrew nor Sanskrit
names the peach; lastly, botany, the most direct means of discovering
the geographic origin of a plant, offers no positive evidence that
Persia is the home of the peach. The fallacy that the peach comes from
Persia, written in nearly all horticultural and botanical works for
2000 years, now being disposed of, we may take up the claim of China
that the peach is another of its great gifts to the world.
A survey of the subject is convincing that the peach comes from China.
Necessarily, such a survey must be brief, yet it is important that no
doubt be left as to the origin of the peach, thus freeing pomological
literature from the train of misunderstandings following the current
opinion that part of our peaches, at least, come from Persia. The terms
"Persian peaches" and the "Persian race of peaches" are misleading and
should be discarded. Data from botany and history furnish the chief
proofs that the fruit of this discussion is of Chinese origin.
Botany and history are a hard team to drive but when the two do travel
together in determining the origin of a plant the matter, as a rule,
is settled. Does botany accord with history in placing the original
peach in China? Botanists and explorers from first to last agree
that the peach is, and long has been, wild in China but there is no
agreement as to the nature of its wildness. Some say it is indigenous
and others that it may be an escape from cultivation. The peach runs
wild so quickly in countries to which it is adapted that it is almost
impossible to say, from the evidence to be found, whether it is an
original or only a naturalized inhabitant of China. But it seems more
nearly to approach a truly feral condition in China than in any other
country unless it be America and all know that in the New World it is
an introduced plant.
Of the botanists and explorers who report finding the peach wild in
China, Frank N. Meyer[2] of the United States Department of Agriculture
is most explicit. Meyer, in sending seeds of wild peaches from China,
accompanies them with the following remarks:
"40001. Wild peaches having larger fruits than the ordinary wild ones,
said to come from near Tze Wu, to the south of Sianfu, but some also
probably collected from trees in gardens which were raised from wild
seeds. When seen wild this peach generally assumes a low bush form of
spreading habit; when planted in gardens and attended to, it grows
up into a small tree, reaching a height of 12 to 20 feet, with a
smooth trunk of dark mahogany-brown color. The leaves are always much
smaller and more slender than in cultivated varieties, while their
color is much darker green. They seem to be somewhat less subject to
various diseases than the cultivated sorts and they are most prolific
bearers, although the fruit is of very little value on account of its
smallness and lack of flavor. In gardens around Sianfu this wild peach
is utilized as a stock for improved varieties. It is also grown as an
ornamental; said to be literally covered in spring with multitudes of
shell-pink flowers."
"40002. Wild peaches, occurring in the foothills of the higher
mountains at Tsing Ling Kang, Shensi, at altitudes from 2000 to 5000
feet, generally found at the edges of loess cliffs and on rocky slopes.
There is a great deal of variation to be observed as regards size and
shape of leaves, density of foliage and general habits."
"40003. Wild peaches found on a mountain side, near Pai dja dien,
Shensi, at an elevation of 4000 feet; these small trees and bushes had
borne such a heavy crop that the ground beneath them was covered with a
layer, a few inches thick, of the small, yellowish, hairy fruits. The
local inhabitants didn't consider them worth collecting even, and they
were rotting and drying up."
"40004. Wild peaches occurring as tall shrubs in loess cliffs, at the
Tibetan frontier, Kagoba, Kansu, at elevations of 6000-8000 feet.
Save for some children who eat these wild peaches, they are otherwise
considered worthless wild fruit. Local name _Yeh t'ao_, meaning 'wild
peach,' and _Mao t'ao_, meaning 'hairy peach.'"
"40005. Wild peaches found on stony mountain slopes in a wild, very
sparsely populated country, near Kwa tsa, on Siku River, Kansu. No
fruit trees whatsoever are cultivated by the local settlers in the
mountains, and the way some of these peach bushes grow excludes them
from ever having been brought there by any man or even any quadruped;
only birds might have transported them."
In a letter to the author,[3] Mr. Meyer says further:
"Where did I find the peach wild? Well, I first came across it in loess
cliffs in southern Shensi at an elevation of about 4000 feet above sea.
Later on I found plenty of them in central Shensi, in southern Kansu
and in the Tibetan borderland, up to 7000 feet elevation above sea. All
the plants I found were freestone types, and according to the natives
they all have shell-pink flowers. In the mountains of the Chekiang
Province, however, I found a type which seems to be clingstone."
In still another letter sent me from the United States Department of
Agriculture, Mr. Meyer says:
"It is about one month ago since I wrote you last, and so far as real
distance is concerned, I have not advanced much, but we went over some
very interesting territory and I was lucky enough to discover the
_real wild peach_, growing in loess ravines some 2-3 days to the East
from here, near a village called _Tchao yu_. The plants are of smaller
dimensions than our cultivated strains, and the stones are somewhat
different as regards shape and grooves, but still on the whole there is
little difference between a very poor seedling-peach and this wild one.
These wild peaches are locally cut for firewood, for the fruits are
pretty near inedible, being small and having hard, sourish flesh. They
grow at the edges of deep loess ravines and on the steep, sloping
bottom of such ravines. The Chinese locally do not call this peach
'_yeh tao_' or '_shan tao_' but '_Mao t'ao_,' meaning 'hairy peach.'
In the vicinity where they grow, no peaches are cultivated although
half a day's journey lower down, one meets with some poor looking trees
in gardens.
The elevation I found them was almost exactly 4000 feet above sea.
I gathered some fruits, but they are not quite ripe; I am trying to
ripen them off, however, so that we may obtain at least a few ripe
seeds. As a stock, however, it has not the value the _Davidiana_ peach
has, not being as vigorous and apparently being attacked by the same
pests that infest cultivated peaches. This 'find' is of great interest,
however, showing that wild peaches exist much nearer the coast than
we suspected, and that the peach naturally is a native of semi-arid
regions."
The explorations made by Mr. Meyer cover, of course, but a small part
of the vast empire of China. Further search will, no doubt, show many
other localities in Central and Eastern Asia where the peach grows
naturally and has probably done so from time immemorial.
As all who consult them know, ancient authors are often at fault in
matters of history in determining the origin of cultivated plants but
they are usually fairly accurate in stating the date of culture of a
plant in a country. In the case of the peach the date of culture can
be established as so much earlier in China than elsewhere that history
alone all but proves its previous existence there in the wild state.
In short, the peach was a cultivated fruit in China before there were
other agricultural communities from which it could come; for, be it
remembered, in China, according to De Candolle, our best authority,
agricultural and horticultural arts flourished long before they had
even begun elsewhere, unless, possibly, Egypt be excepted, and here the
peach, where it may be grown at all, is surely an introduced plant.
A statement of the first known dates of peach-culture in various
countries is strong proof that its cultivation began in China.
According to De Candolle[4] the culture of the peach was "spoken
of 2000 years before its introduction into the Greco-Roman world,
a thousand years before its introduction into the lands of the
Sanskrit-speaking race." As we have said, the Bible and other Hebrew
books do not mention the peach and there is no Sanskrit name for it.
Of the Greeks, Xenophon, 401 B. C., makes no mention of the peach but
Theophrastus, a little later, 322 B. C., speaks of it as a fruit of
Persia. Coming to the Romans, no mention is made of the peach by Cato,
201 B. C., nor by Varro, 117-27 B. C., but Pliny, A. D. 79, expressly
states that the peach was imported by the Romans from Persia not long
before.
De Candolle gives no authority for his statement that the peach was
spoken of 2000 years before its introduction into Europe and I cannot
verify it; but a search through even such Chinese literature as is
accessible to one who does not read the Chinese language shows that the
peach was commonly spoken of in the literature of China several hundred
years before the Christian era. Two examples must suffice, taking
those that seem most authentic as to the identity of the peach. In the
Shi-King, or book of poetry, a collection of ancient Chinese poems made
by Confucius (551-478 B. C.) the peach, in common with the plum, pear,
jujube and other fruits, is several times mentioned. According to the
translator all of these poems were written before the Sixth Century B.
C., the oldest dating back eighteen centuries. Thus in Book I,[5] Odes
of Chow in the South, is the following bit of verse:
In Praise of a Bride
"Graceful and young the peach-tree stands;
How rich its flowers, all gleaming bright!
This bride to her new home repairs;
Chamber and house she'll order right.
Graceful and young the peach-tree stands;
Large crops of fruit it soon will show.
This bride to her new home repairs;
Chamber and house her sway shall know.
Graceful and young the peach-tree stands;
Its foliage clustering green and full.
This bride to her new home repairs;
Her household will attest her rule."
Other references to the peach may be found in Book IX,[6] The Odes of
Wei, and Book XIII,[7] The Odes of Kwei.
Superstitions and legends throw light on the antiquity of the objects
with which they are connected. It is significant that the Chinese
alone ascribe miraculous powers to the peach, their traditions of the
properties of different forms of this fruit being both numerous and
very ancient. M. Cibot, a French missionary among the Chinese, in a
series of cyclopedic volumes on China, devotes a chapter to the peach
in which, after describing the peaches of the country and giving a
full discussion of methods of culture, he mentions numerous Chinese
superstitions concerning this fruit. He writes:[8]
"The Chinese have for a long time preserved the history of the first
ages either in their books or in their traditions. The oldest of their
books have perished. They have saved only a part of their ancient
national works on the great wars and general uprisings, and the
original traditions, changed in a thousand ways, made into fables,
finally corrupted by idolatry, are today only chaos; but this chaos
is not without any ray of light. Many of these traditions, although
disfigured, bear back too exactly to the marvelous tales of the lost
books to be able to mistake the beliefs of the early ages. Thus, there
are many traditions referring to the peach. Some call it the tree of
life, others the tree of death. Peaches lengthened to a point, of
large size, and colored red on one side, are regarded by the Chinese
as the symbol of a long life. In consequence of these ancient national
superstitions, peaches enter into all the ornaments of painting and
sculpture. They are saved for the salute to the new year. Here are
several ancient texts on the peach and its fruits:
From Chin-non-King: 'The peach 'Yu' signifies death and eternal life.
If one has been able to eat it enough times, it saves the body from
corruption till the end of the world.' From Chin-y-King: 'There is
in the Orient a peach whose almond, eaten, makes eternal life.' From
Chou-y-Ki: 'Whoever eats this fruit (the peach 'Yu' from the Koue-liou
Mountain) obtains immortal life.'
Still other texts could be cited but I will merely remark that in all
the peach is connected with immortality. Again we find that certain
peaches can not be offered by the ancients in sacrifice, and that the
premature blossoming of another peach signifies great calamities. To
quote again: From Sin-lin: 'In the garden of Yang was the peach of
death; whoever approached it must die.' From Fong-fou-teng: 'It is said
in the book of Hoang-ti that two brothers found on a mountain a peach
tree under which were a hundred demons to cause death to men.' From
Lietchouen, on the subject of the evils which afflict the earth: 'the
tree of Knowledge is the peach.'"
Very interesting and illuminating as to the age of the peach in China,
is an account given by Dr. Yamei Kin[9] who was asked by a member of
the staff of the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, United
States Department of Agriculture, for information concerning the
peach-blossoms. After describing the several kinds of blossoms borne
by Chinese peaches, the writer gives some of the superstitions and
legends which the Chinese connect with the peach.
"The ordinary name for pink is peach flower color, and notwithstanding
the love of Chinese for color, it is used sparingly, in fact, owing to
its being associated with the peach blossom, seems to have an unsavory
significance, as I found when I came home one day with a pink satin
brocade gown that I had just purchased. My people held up their hands
in horror, and exclaimed it was a mercy that I did not intend to wear
that here, it would only do for outside countries that did not know
about peach flowers, which remarks led me to leave it in America when
I came back, though it was a very lovely delicate color and one of my
prettiest gowns.
The reason for this prejudice is owing to its symbolism. Just as the
violet is considered in western lands to be the symbol of modest worth,
so the plum is that of feminine virtue in China and the peach flower
the opposite. Not even the beauty of its color, whether delicate pink
or deep cerise, redeems it from this fatal significance. In order
that there may be no possible opportunity for a 'peach flower heart'
to spring up unawares in some girl of respectable family, it is not
considered wise to plant a peach of any kind near the bed room windows
of the court yards inhabited by the women, yet peach wands are supposed
to be especially useful to beat off all evil spirits, only they must
be plucked during a solar eclipse and a hole bored through one end
for hanging up by, during a lunar eclipse, which perhaps accounts for
their fewness, as during those times in the old days the people were
generally busily occupied in beating gongs and firing off crackers to
drive away the heavenly dogs which were supposed to be devouring those
luminaries, and no one had time to think of making peach wands. The
lucky possessor of an efficacious peach wand is supposed to be able to
sleep at night with it under his pillow in full confidence that no evil
spirits can harm him.
Taoism from early days has taken the peach as its particular fruit,
signifying longevity, much as the apples of Hesperides were symbolic in
the Grecian mythology.
Furthermore peach stones are often made into rosaries which are
considered specially fine. There is a collection of tales by one
Cornaby to be found in almost every library called 'A String of
Peach Stones.' And a host of legends cluster around the tale of Sun,
the stone monkey, eating the peaches of immortality stolen from the
gardens of the genii, whereby he attains immortality. This theme is
seen elaborated in many scenes, that decorate pottery, textiles, and
congratulatory scrolls.
I wish that I were not tied down so much by tedious detail in the
medical work, as there is a most interesting book that needs to be
translated telling much of the folk lore of the peach interwoven
with the plot, which is supposed to be the journey of Hsien tsang to
bring back the sacred sutras of Buddha from India. It is said that
this is an actual historic occurrence, but this tale is evidently
semi-religious and allegorical, as well, combining in itself the
characteristics of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Hans Christian
Andersen, and the Arabian Nights, if you can imagine such a mixture,
yet giving graphic pictures of Chinese life in various phases that are
as true as when the book was written.
One of the most charming legends of peach flower lore is that of
the 'Peach Blossom Fountain,' an allegory written by T'ao Yuan Ming
between A. D. 365-427, describing how a fisherman got lost one day and
penetrating up a river finds himself in a creek bordered with many
peach trees full of bloom, at the end of which he comes upon a small
mountain in which is a cave which he traverses and enters on a new
country where there is every sign of prosperity, every one is courteous
to each other, kindliness and contentment prevail, but they wear the
garb of the times of the First Emperor some five centuries previous and
have been lost to the rest of the country ever since. The fisherman
returns after a sojourn with them, and tells his fellow villagers of
this wonderful country and stirs up so much interest that finally
the governor of the province joins in the search for this wonderful
country, but it is all of no avail and at last the fisherman realizes
that he will never more see the peach blossom days of his youth with
its rosy dreams and ideals that come but once in a lifetime."
Lastly, a significant fact suggesting the Chinese origin of the peach
is found in the behavior of this fruit in America. The peach is more at
home in North America than in any other part of the world unless it be
China. Now, that there is a pomological alliance between eastern Asia
and eastern America is well known. The remarkable relationship between
the plants of the two regions was first set forth by Asa Gray and
subsequent writers have added much to what he told us. The explanation
lies, as all agree, in similarities in climate. Now, with this
relationship of the wild and cultivated floras of eastern America and
China in mind, the rapid acclimation and acclimatization of the peach
in the United States are readily understood if we accept China as the
habitat of this fruit. On the other hand, the natural plant-products of
Persia find life anything but easy in eastern America.
There is but one further consideration before beginning the history
of the peach as a cultivated fruit. Thomas Andrew Knight and Charles
Darwin contended that the peach is a modified almond. This hypothesis
would scarcely deserve consideration were it not for the high authority
of the men who espoused it--the judgments of a Knight and a Darwin
cannot be overlooked.
HAS THE PEACH COME FROM THE ALMOND?
In the light of evolution every plant has been preceded by another and
since the peach and almond have many characters in common, one may have
descended from the other. But as to which, if either, is the parent
species it would seem idle to speculate with the shreddy and patchy
knowledge we now possess of the descent of plants. Yet Thomas Andrew
Knight, the greatest horticultural authority of his time and one of
the leading experimenters of all time in this field of agriculture,
maintained that the peach is a modified almond. His theory received the
support of several of the leading English horticulturists of the last
century and Darwin gave it credence to the extent of collecting data
for its substantiation.
Knight believed that the almond and the peach constituted a single
species and that by selection under cultivation an almond could
ultimately be turned into a peach.[10] He sought proof for his theory
in hybridization and on a tree raised from the seed of an almond
fertilized by peach-pollen produced a fruit with soft and melting flesh
and in all characteristics more like the peach than the almond. This
experiment, which in the light of our present knowledge of the laws of
inheritance does not in the least illuminate the hypothesis with which
Knight started, carried on in the medieval days of plant-breeding,
convinced not only Knight in his belief that the peach may be bred from
the almond but led others, even down to our own time, to accept the
theory.
Thus, a writer, presumably Lindley, in _The Gardener's Chronicle_[11]
in 1856 says "we are justified in the conclusion that the Almond
bears about the same relation to the Peach that the Crab bears to the
Cultivated Apple." Later, in the same article, the descent is pictured
as follows:
"1. Almond became more fleshy--Bad clingstone.
2. Bad clingstone became more fleshy--Good clingstone.
3. Good clingstone became more fleshy--Our soft peaches.
4. Soft peach sported, receding toward the original fleshy type
and lost its wool--Nectarine."
Another high authority in his time, Thomas Rivers,[12] in 1863, held
that peaches, if left to a state of nature would degenerate into
thick-fleshed almonds and makes the positive statement that he has "one
or two seedling peaches approaching very nearly to that state."
Darwin,[13] in 1868, considers Knight's supposition at length and while
he does not positively accept it, yet lends it his support by quoting
several authors who put forth proofs in favor of it. His most positive
statement in discussing the theory referring to facts regarding the
origin of the peach is: "The supposition, however, that the peach is a
modified almond which acquired its present character at a comparatively
late period, would, I presume, account for these facts."
Carrière,[14] one of the most eminent French pomologists of the last
century, is the chief French champion of the theory that the peach
came from the almond and devotes several pages in his estimable work,
_Variétés De Pêchers_, in demonstrating that the one is a form of the
other. His arguments, however, are but amplifications of those of
Knight and Lindley though he cites more intermediate forms than either
of the English writers--so many that they go far toward convincing one
of the correctness of his views. There is the feeling, however, in the
case of Carrière, in the light of present knowledge, that his botanical
evidence is pushed a little too far for full credulity.
Knight, Lindley, Rivers, Darwin and Carrière, the men holding the
theory whose opinions are most worthy consideration, fell into error,
as we think, through attaching too much importance to likenesses in
the fruits of the peach and almond and because they became confused
in following the behavior of the two fruits under hybridization. As
we shall show later in discussing the characters of the peach, this
fruit differs from the almond in other characters than those of the
fruit--characters not at all likely to be changed by cultivation
and selection as would all those of the fruits. Knight's proof from
hybridization was purely speculative. The fact that the peach and
almond may be crossed, giving intermediate forms, nowadays would not be
looked upon as proof that the two necessarily belong to one species.
However, in the light of the knowledge in existence at the beginning
of the last century regarding the crossing of plants, we need not
apologize for the inference that Knight drew from his simple experiment.
Students of heredity would find almost conclusive proof that the peach
is not a modified almond--a descendant, say, in this geologic period at
least--in the fact that there is no recorded case of a peach fertilized
by a peach producing an almond, or _vice versa_. If the relationship
were at all close, if the two species had had a common origin even
though in rather remote times, if they were nearly enough related
readily to hybridize or be hybridized, it would be expected that now
and then, as in the case of a nectarine, the peach would produce an
almond or the almond a peach.
Geographical botany also opposes Knight's hypothesis, as De
Candolle[15] points out, for, as he plainly shows, the almond had its
origin in western Asia, it being found truly wild in many parts of
south-western Asia and having been cultivated many centuries before
the peach was known in these regions. On the other hand, the almond
was not known in China before the Christian era whereas the peach had
been cultivated there at least 2000 years anterior to the introduction
of the almond. With such widely separated habitats, the two fruits can
hardly be considered as parent and offspring.
We cannot close our eyes to the patent relationships of the peach and
the almond. That the two constitute but one species, as we now consider
species, or that they bear the close relationship of the peach and
the nectarine, probably no one now in high authority will concede.
But for the weight of the names we have used, and the fact that the
theory still finds supporters, Knight's hypothesis, the outcropping of
a speculative mind in a speculative age, might have been overlooked or
dismissed with a word.
THE PEACH IN ASIA
We must have more knowledge of the peach in Asia than the bare fact
that it originated somewhere in the vast empire of China. We want,
first, to know what the characters of the prototypal peach were. If we
can get some idea of the original wild peach of China we shall know
something of how this fruit has been improved by man and, perhaps,
something of its future potentialities. Second, though not essential
to this study, it will be profitable to peach-growers to inquire
whether there are types of peaches still remaining in China that might
be improved under western cultivation. If so, we want them, since our
cultivated peaches are not free from faults, some of which we might
get rid of by the interjection of new blood. It is now about seventy
years since Robert Fortune, the adventurous English plant-collector,
began dipping into the horticultural treasures of China; and recent
explorations make plain that there are still riches in plants in that
country--the fact that they can now be brought through the "open door,"
instead of as spoils to be smuggled out, makes it easier to obtain any
new types of peaches that may now be found.
What were the characters of the prototypal peach in China? The few
records that have come down through the ages do not enable us to form
much of a picture of the primitive peach. But plants do not change
quickly in China, for their orchard-cultivation is not as intensive nor
selection as assiduously practiced as in western countries, so that
we are warranted in assuming that cultivation for forty centuries has
not greatly changed this fruit. Besides, it is probable that the wild
forms, whether truly wild or reverted escapes from cultivation, now
represent closely the original indigenous stocks of the peach. Luckily,
we have trustworthy sources of information in regard to both the wild
and the cultivated peaches as they now grow in China. We are at this
time concerned, it should be said, only with the common peach, _Prunus
persica_.
Fortune began botanical explorations in China in 1844, since which
time one enthusiast after another, thirsting for botanical spoils and
honors, has brought from eastern Asia and Europe to America, varieties
and species of ornamental and agricultural plants. In the accounts of
these exploring and collecting expeditions, there are many records of
peaches, wild and cultivated, that are now growing in China and from
these we may piece out a fair description of the original races of
this fruit. The United States Department of Agriculture, through its
agricultural explorers, collaborators and correspondents in the Office
of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, has given special attention
to agricultural plants and from the accounts of the workers in this
department alone, we can get a good picture of the peach of the
Twentieth Century in China which, as we think, will represent very well
the original stock from which all peaches have come.
It is now almost the unanimous judgment of scientists that the
characters of plants are independent entities which are thrown
into various relationships with each other in individuals and
groups of individuals as varieties and species. This conception of
unit-characters lies at the foundation of botanical and horticultural
descriptions and of plant-breeding. It is more important, then, to know
what the characters of Chinese peaches were and are than to attempt to
describe in full the wild and cultivated peaches of China. In this, a
horticultural study, it answers our purpose to consider chiefly the
characters of the fruits.
The fruit-characters that differentiate races and varieties of
cultivated peaches in America are ten, as follows: Downy skin; smooth
skin; white flesh; yellow flesh; red flesh; flesh clinging to the
stone; flesh free from the stone; shape more or less round; shape
roundish but decidedly beaked; shape distinctly flat. Let us see by
direct quotations from the workers in the United States Department of
Agriculture how many of these ten fruit-characters are named in the
wild and cultivated Chinese peaches of today.
_Downy skin._--A downy skin is the normal condition of the peach.
This character is found in all of the peaches to be mentioned in this
discussion except those under the next heading.
_Smooth skin._--"28963--From Samarkand, Turkestan."[16]
"A small nectarine of very firm flesh and of subacid flavor; red
throughout; from a distance resembles a crab apple more than anything
else. Said to come from Chartchui."
"29227[17]--From Samarkand, Russian Turkestan. A yellow clingstone
nectarine of medium size; meat very firm and of medium sweet taste, not
melting."
"30325[18]--From Khotan, Chinese Turkestan. A nectarine called
_Dagatch_. Fruits red, of medium size, clingstone."
"30332[19]--From Karghalik, Chinese Turkestan. A nectarine called
_Anar-shabdalah_. Fruits rather small, whitish pink in color, and of
sweet, aromatic flavor. This is a medium-late ripen er and a rare local
variety."
"30334[20]--From Shagra-bazar, Chinese Turkestan. A nectarine called
_Kizil-dagatch_. Fruits small, red; medium early."
"30335[21]--From Upal, Chinese Turkestan. A nectarine called
_Ak-tagatch_. Fruits large, white; a late ripener; of good keeping and
shipping qualities."
"30336[22]--From Yarkand, Chinese Turkestan. A nectarine called
_Ak-dagatch_. Fruits medium-sized, of white color; clingstone; late in
ripening; of good keeping and shipping qualities."
"30341[23]--From Upal, Chinese Turkestan. A nectarine called _Kizil
tagatch_. Fruits large, red throughout; meat firm; of good keeping and
shipping qualities."
"30359[24]--From Kashgar, Chinese Turkestan. A very large, red,
clingstone nectarine; late ripener; can be kept for several weeks after
being fully ripe."
"30647[25]--From Khotan, Chinese Turkestan. A nectarine called _Togatch
Moneck_."
"30648[26]--From Guma, Chinese Turkestan. A small late variety of
nectarine, white in color, of fresh, sweet taste and good keeping
qualities."
_White flesh._--"27111[27]--Chinese name _Ta po tao_. A large white
peach, native in Shantung Province, China (Chefoo district)."
"30324[28]--From Khotan, Chinese Turkestan. A peach called
_Ak-shabdalah_. Fruits large, white, juicy, and aromatic; an early
ripener."
"30337[29]--From Shagra-bazar, Chinese Turkestan. A peach called
_Kok-shabdalah_. Fruits medium large, of greenish-white color; taste
sweet; medium late; not a keeper."
"30338[30]--From Yarkand, Chinese Turkestan. A peach called
_Taka-shabdalah_. Fruits very large, of whitish color with a slight
blush; late in ripening; can be kept for several weeks."
"30339[31]--From Karawag, Chinese Turkestan. A peach called
_Ak-shabdalah_. Fruits large, white in color; flavor very sweet and
pleasing; early in ripening."
"17167[32]--From Tung-chow. A large, white peach, considered a fine
fruit by the Chinese. Non-melting flesh."
"20239[33]--From Kirin. A pale colored, medium-sized peach. Kirin is
the most northern locality where I have as yet found peaches."
"27111[34]--Chinese name _Tah-buy-tower_. A large white peach native in
Shantung Province, China."
_Yellow flesh._--"30333[35]--From Shagra-bazar, Chinese Turkestan. A
peach called _Serech-shabdalah_. Fruits very large, of yellow color
throughout; meat very firm; clingstone. Stands shipping well, but does
not keep long; late in ripening (October)."
"35201[36]--From Mengtsz, Yunnan, China. Seeds of Mengtsz white peach
and yellow free peach. This fruit is grown all over this province and
occasionally attains an enormous size, and in that respect could easily
compete with the best French peaches.'"
_Red flesh._--"6543[37]--From Sai Tseo. Long, rather pointed,
red-fleshed, freestone."
"34275[38]--From Soochow, China. This is a mixed lot of peach seeds
containing some from red clingstones and some from white freestones."
"17728[39]--From Matou. A peach described to me by the natives as very
large, red meated, and juicy."
"21991[40]--From Hangchow, Chehkiang, China. A flat, red-meated peach,
not very sweet in taste. Chinese name _Hung pien tao_."
_Clingstone._--"30340[41]--From Karawag, Chinese Turkestan. A peach
called _Ais-shabdalah_. Fruits large, pinkish-white; meat firm, sweet;
clingstone. It is said here that it can be kept for several months."
"21989[42]--From Feitcheng, Shantung, China. The most famous peach
of northern China, called the _Fei tao_. The fruits grow as heavy
as one pound apiece and are pale yellowish colored, with a slight
blush; meat white, except near the stone, where it is slightly red;
taste excellent, sweet, aromatic, and juicy. Is a clingstone. Has
extraordinary keeping and shipping qualities. The branches need
propping up on account of the weight of the fruits."
"29991[43]--Seeds of a peach from Tsinanfu, Shantung, China. It is a
cling and though rather inconvenient for eating, is very large and
luscious, coming into market about the middle of September and lasting
for a month or more."
_Freestone._--"6635[44]--From mountains near Ichang. Flowers late,
fruit ripens in September. Freestone. Fruit small and quite hairy."
"30357[45]--From Kashgar, Chinese Turkestan. A large, red, freestone
peach, fine flavored; a medium-late ripener, and a most prolific
bearer."
"30358[46]--From Kashgar, Chinese Turkestan. A large, pale reddish,
freestone peach of very fine flavor; medium-late ripener; not a keeper."
"39428[47]--Amygdalus sp.--Seeds of a wild peach from Sianfu, Shensi,
China. Stones of the real wild peach, growing in the mountains, one
day's journey south of Sianfu. The fruits are small, hard and sourish,
but there is considerable variation in them as regards size and taste.
They are apparently all freestones and while some have red flesh near
the stone, others are white throughout."
_Round peaches._--Roundness is one of the characteristics of the
peach and it but labors the argument to give space to show that this
character is found in Chinese varieties. All peaches mentioned in this
discussion are round or roundish except those coming under the heading
"flat."
_Round and beaked._--"8331 to 8334[48]--Eagle Beak peach from Canton,
China. From orchard trees growing near the Great North Gate of Canton,
at Ngau lan Kong, of the _Ying tsui t'o_ or Eagle Beak peach. This
variety resembles the Honey closely, except that the pointed tip of
the fruit is more curved, according to Dr. J. M. Swan, of the Canton
Hospital."
"9805[49]--From Canton, China. _Hung Wat tim._ A variety of the 'Honey'
type, reported to be good for preserves and not so sweet as the _Ying
tsui_ or Eagle Beak variety. It is medium early."
"22650[50]--Shanghai. These peaches are called the _Honey_ peach, and I
think are very fine."
_Flat._--"6541[51]--From Sai Tseo, above Hankow. Flat, freestone,
ripens in May."
"6542[52]--From near Sai Tseo, above Hankow. White, fine fleshed, flat,
freestone, ripening the middle of May."
"6544[53]--From Sai Tseo. Medium size, flat, freestone, ripening in
May."
"6545[54]--From Sai Tseo. Flat, freestone, quality very good. Ripens in
June."
"29991[55]--Chinese Flat Peach. From Tsinan, Shantung, China. Called
_Feicheng_. It is a cling and, though rather inconvenient for eating,
is very large and luscious, coming into market about the middle of
September and lasting for a month or more."
"30482[56]--From about 50 miles southwest of Tsinan, Shantung, China.
_Feicheng._ Chinese flat peach. This is a large, luscious cling, very
much esteemed by the Chinese."
"21990[57]--From Kianchau, Shantung, China. A flat, juicy, white peach
of fine taste. Chinese name _Pai pien tao_."
"21992[58]--From near Chiningchou, Shantung, China. A flat,
pale-fleshed peach, juicy but somewhat insipid."
"22352[59]--From Shifengtse Temple, west of Peking, Chihli, China. Said
to be medium sized, very flat, and of reddish color. Chinese name _Pien
tau_."
_White stone._--"8340[60]--From Canton, China. _Pak Wat tim t'o._ A
slightly sweet, white stone variety of rather small size, preferred by
some to the _Ying tsui t'o_, which, it is said, has too sweet a flavor.
It has no beak like the latter, but is a typical south Chinese shape,
according to Dr. J. M. Swan, of the Canton Hospital, who very kindly
described this variety."
"24915[61]--_Hung wat to_ (red-stone peach)."
"24916[62]--_Paak wat to_(white-stone peach)."
"The _Hung wat to_ is a new variety and so recognized by the Chinese.
From what I can gather they believe the _Paak wat to_ to be the best,
but have some trees of the _Hung wat to_. The _Hung wat to_ seems to
blossom much quicker than the _Paak wat to_."
_Winter peaches._[63]--"The so-called winter peaches they have here are
all clingstones, somewhat watery and not very fine in general."
"30340[64]--From Chinese Turkestan is said locally to keep for several
months."
"Cuttings of nectarines from Chinese Turkestan. Among these are some
from an altitude of 5000 feet, large, late ripeners, and keeping and
shipping well, and one, number 30359,[65] recommended by the British
consul, Mr. Macartney, is said to keep for several weeks after being
fully ripe."
"30482[66]--Cuttings of the Feitcheng peach from about fifty miles
southwest of Tsinan, Shantung, China. It is a late variety, coming into
market about the middle of September or October. It is reported to
have such unusual keeping qualities, that it can be kept, when wrapped
in tissue paper, until February. Though a cling stone it is luscious,
sweet and aromatic, and of unusual size, reaching a pound in weight and
is so prized by the Chinese that as much as 15 cents apiece is paid for
it in the region where it is grown; every year the Feitcheng peaches
are sent as a present to the Imperial court in Pekin."
The evidence given encourages the belief that in the native peaches of
China may be found all of the characters that distinguish cultivated
peaches wheresoever grown. The smooth-skinned peach, or nectarine,
from the evidence at my command, is not common in eastern China but
in Chinese and Russian Turkestan it is evidently one of the commonest
fruits. Neither does yellow flesh appear to be a common character of
peaches of eastern China but is now and again mentioned so that it may
be put down as existing in the peaches of the region. Bear in mind
that the accounts given are but random ones taken by persons not more
interested in peaches than in other agricultural products and covering,
of course, but a very small part of the vast region under the dominion
of China. There is, no doubt, much to be learned about the peaches of
Asia in future explorations.[67]
In America, at least, certain characters of peaches, as flatness,
smooth skin, red flesh and prolonged beak are looked upon as
comparatively new in this fruit. At any rate, varieties having these
relatively rare characters are spoken of as sports and pomologists,
as we shall see, not infrequently announce the date of birth of one
or another of these characters. Now, a careful examination of the
evidence, scant though it is, will carry conviction to all that none of
the prominent characters of peaches have originated within the period
covered by history--all exist in China and probably have so existed
since time beyond record.
The size and color of the blossoms are distinguishing characters
of races and varieties of cultivated peaches, less valuable in
classification than the fruit-characters we have been discussing only
because they are less numerous. Peach-blossoms fall into four very
distinct kinds: Petals large and pink; petals intermediate in size
and pink or red; petals small and red or reddish; and petals large
and white. Through the United States Department of Agriculture, I am
in possession of copies of nine letters from Foreign Seed and Plant
Introduction correspondents of the United States Department in China
who had been asked to report on the size and color of peach-blossoms in
the parts of China in which they lived. The information thus obtained
is most interesting but space forbids considering it further at present
than to say that it indubitably establishes the fact that peaches with
the four kinds of blossoms are found in China. This further encourages
the belief, just set forth, that the essential characters of peaches
are old, of great fixity and originated in China at a time in the past
on which it would be idle to conjecture.
It is interesting to note that there are peaches in China with at least
two characters not found in any American varieties. Two varieties
are mentioned as having "white stones." There is no peach in America
with stones that could be described as white though several early
white-fleshed peaches have light-colored stones. This character is
unimportant and seems, from the brief descriptions of the varieties
having such stones, not to be correlated with other especially
desirable characters, yet such a peach would, at least, add an
interesting novelty to the flora of this fruit. The other character,
that of late keeping, appears to have more value. A peach that would
"keep for several months" or one ripening in September "that can
be kept, when wrapped in tissue paper, until February," is highly
desirable. No doubt through the efforts of the workers in the United
States Department of Agriculture we shall sooner or later be growing
these peaches in America.
As the probable home of the peach, we have given China so much space
in this discussion of the peach in Asia that we can now but briefly
summarize what is known of this fruit in other Asiatic countries.
_The peach in Japan._--From _Fruit Culture in Japan_[68] it is patent
that the peach is one of the leading fruits of the country. In number
of varieties of the several fruits grown in Japan the peach is exceeded
only by the persimmon--ninety-five peaches and two nectarines being
listed, all having Japanese names. The following account gives some
idea of the peach-industry as carried on in Japan:
"There are a number of varieties of our native peaches and nectarines.
From the extreme south of Formosa to Hokkaido, local forms are
cultivated side by side with Western and Chinese varieties, which are
all much superior to ours in all respects. During the past twenty
years, the growing of introduced peaches has replaced the native one
with striking rapidity. Their growing seems to be naturally limited in
Hokkaido to the south part up to about 43 degrees N. L. The mid-season
and late varieties do not properly ripen there and peach growing
consequently does not develop to be a profitable industry in Hokkaido.
Peaches are rather easy to cultivate and seem to be less susceptible
to the effects of climate, than apples, provided suitable sites and
soil be given. Consequently peach orchards are found scattered here
and there all over the country. For the peaches there is no difference
between the two longitudinal halves of Japan. At present, large
orchards of peaches, regularly planted and trained, are found on the
alluvial lowlands and hillsides. The heavy rainfall during June and
July causes an overluxuriance of growth and considerable portion of the
fruits drop down without reaching maturity. To prevent the damage from
the parasites our people have learned through experience the important
operation of bagging. On the loamy soils, good qualities of fruits may
be attained, but the growers are accustomed to prefer light sandy soils
to insure success. Sometimes rather dry hillsides give good results."
_The peach in Turkestan and Persia._--We shall become too deeply
involved if we attempt to trace the cultivation of peaches in all of
the countries of Asia. A sentence each suffices for other regions
than China and Japan, excepting Turkestan, where the peach seems
preeminently at home, and must therefore have more than a word.
The peach is commonly grown in Mongolia and Cochin China.[69] Several
kinds of peaches are cultivated in the north of India.[70] The peach
requires the greatest care to ensure success in the north-east
of India.[71] A correspondent of the United States Department of
Agriculture at Kashgar, British India, describes a nectarine grown
there wanting "a hot but only a short summer."[72] Meyer, Agricultural
Explorer for the United States Department of Agriculture, found a
variety of peach growing at Kirin, Mongolia, not far from Vladivostock,
which he says "is the most northern locality where I have yet found
peaches."[73] These references might be multiplied but enough are given
to show that the peach grows wild or cultivated wherever the climate
permits in central and eastern Asia.
The peach seems to be quite as much at home, as highly prized and as
commonly grown in Russian Turkestan, northern Persia, Trans-Caucasia
and Asia Minor--the countries of western Asia--as in the eastern part
of the continent. The Chinese early discovered trade routes over the
mountains from the center of Asia to Kashmir, Bokhara and northern
Persia. What more probable than that in remote times the seeds of
peaches should have been carried westward from China and the peach
thus have been introduced into western Asia where it at once found a
congenial soil and climate. The peach-tree is so easily raised from the
pit that its diffusion along routes of travel must have been very rapid.
Of many accounts of the peaches of this region, long and short, perhaps
the following from Mr. Albert Regel gives, in the space to be spared,
the best idea of the extent of the peach-region in western Asia and
the races represented--races rather than varieties, for of the latter
there must be legions since we are told the trees are grown from seed.
Regel,[74] a physician by vocation, lived in Turkestan for nine years
and collected fruits and flowers as an avocation. He seems to have
penetrated every nook and corner of Turkestan and adjacent regions. Of
peaches and nectarines he says:
"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."
There are many indirect references to peaches in the Mississippi Valley
most of which can be traced to Father Hennepin's account of peaches
in Louisiana. He says:[102] "The peaches there are like those of
Europe and bear very good fruit in such abundance that the savages are
often obliged to prop up the trees with forked sticks." It turns out,
however, that Father Hennepin was the Baron Munchausen of the early
French explorers, it being doubtful whether he was ever farther down
the Mississippi than the mouth of the Illinois. Probably, therefore,
we must put much of what early writers say of the great abundance
of peaches in this region to the soaring imagination of this early
religious explorer. Yet these reports are credited by so careful a man
as Kalm, who writes:[103] "I have been told by all those who have made
journies to the southern parts of Canada, and to the river Mississippi,
that the woods there abound with peach-trees, which bear excellent
fruit, and that the Indians of those parts say that those trees have
been there since times immemorial."
A little later we have reliable information that the peach was
naturalized in parts of the Mississippi Valley at least, for Thomas
Nuttall, leading botanist of his time and a thoroughly reliable
reporter, traveling in Arkansas in 1819, writes:[104] "The thermometer
towards noon rises to seventy degrees and the peach and plum trees,
almost equally naturalized, have nearly finished blooming." And,
again,[105] "The peach of Persia is already naturalized throughout the
forests of Arkansa." From this we may picture wild peaches as having
grown for generations in parts of Arkansas and, no doubt, of the now
famous Ozark region, where, we are told, peach-trees in abundance now
decorate, with flower and fruit, primeval forests.
Reserving the best description of Indian peaches to the last we now
turn from Arkansas to the Carolinas. Here, in 1700, John Lawson, a
surveyor, who in his work had ample opportunity to know the country,
wrote about the wild and cultivated plants of the region. Lawson,
although not a trained naturalist, was a keen observer, a lover of
nature and much interested in the agricultural development of the
Carolinas. Moreover, he writes so simply, directly, and in a tone so
temperate, in contrast to the declamatory style of the times, that one
accepts without question what he says. We feel we are justified in
quoting at some length Lawson's description of Indian peaches:[106]
"All peaches with us are standing; neither have we any wall fruit in
Carolina, for we have heat enough, and therefore do not require it. We
have a great many sorts of this fruit, which all thrive to admiration,
peach trees coming to perfection, with us, as easily as the weeds. A
peach falling to the ground brings a peach tree that shall bear in
three years, or sometimes sooner. Eating peaches in our orchards makes
them come up so thick from the kernel, that we are forced to take a
great deal of care to weed them out, otherwise they make our land a
wilderness of peach trees. They generally bear so full that they break
great part of their limbs down. We have likewise very fair nectarines,
especially the red, that clings to the stone; the other yellow fruit,
that leaves the stone. Of the last I have a tree that most years brings
me fifteen or twenty bushels. I see no foreign fruit like this, for
thriving in all sorts of land, and bearing its fruit to admiration. I
want to be satisfied about one sort of this fruit, which the Indians
claim as their own, and affirm they had it growing amongst them before
any Europeans came to America.
The fruit I will describe as exactly as I can. The tree grows very
large, most commonly as big as a handsome apple tree; the flowers are
of a reddish, murrey color, the fruit is rather more downy than the
yellow peach, and commonly very large and soft, being very full of
juice. They part freely from the stone, and the stone is much thicker
than all the other peach stones we have, which seems to me that it is
a spontaneous fruit of America; yet in those parts of America that
we inhabit, I never could hear that any peach trees were ever found
growing in the woods; neither have the foreign Indians, that live
remote from the English, any other sort. And those living amongst us
have a hundred of this sort for one other. They are a hardy fruit,
and are seldom damaged by the north-east blast, as others are. Of
this sort we make vinegar; wherefore we call them vinegar peaches, and
sometimes Indian peaches.
This tree grows to a vast bigness, exceeding most apple trees. They
bear well, though sometimes an early spring comes on in February, and
perhaps when the tree is fully blown, the cloudy, north-east winds,
which attend the end of that month, or the beginning of March, destroy
most of the fruit. The biggest apricot tree I ever saw, as they told
me, was grafted on a peach stock in the ground. I know of no other sort
with us, than the common. We generally raise this fruit from the stone,
which never fails to bring the same fruit. Likewise our peach stones
effect the same, without so much as once missing to produce the same
sort that the stone came from."
_Peaches in the colonies._--The first peaches in the American colonies
must have been planted at Jamestown for, in 1629, Captain John Smith
writes of "peaches in abundance."[107] The trees, however, seem to have
been neglected for, continuing, Smith says: "Apples, Peares, Apricocks,
Vines, figges, and other fruits some have planted, that prospered
exceedingly; but their diligence about Tobacco left them to be spoiled
by the cattell; yet now they beginne to revive." The settlement in
Virginia at that time, so soon after the Indian massacres, was small
and there could have been but few trees so that Smith's "abundance"
was but as a grain of sand on the seashore with the many thousands of
bushels required to make an abundance at the present time.
Despite the neglect of fruit to attend to tobacco which Smith laments,
the planting of orchards must have gone on apace, for in 1633 a Dutch
sea-captain named De Vries visiting Virginia describes the Menife
plantation, famous in the colony at that time, as having a garden
containing rosemary, sage, marjoram and thyme, the apple, pear and
cherry while the house itself was surrounded by peach-trees.[108] Three
years later, 1642, Berkeley became governor of the colony and we are
told that about his house at Green Spring there were fifteen hundred
apple, peach, apricot, quince and other fruit-trees.[109] Robert
Evelyn, writing forty years after the settlement of Jamestown says:
"Peaches better than Apricocks by some doe feed hogs, one man hath ten
thousand trees."[110]
Fruit-growing in colonial Virginia was not without promoters and
one, a Colonel Norwood, had the persuasive eloquence of the barkers
for get-rich-quick orchard-planting concerns of our own times.
Colonel Norwood, an Englishman, visited Virginia in 1649 and on his
return wrote:[111] "Oranges, Lemons, Pine-aples, Plantanes, Peaches,
Apricocks, Peares, Apels, in a word all sort of excellent Fruits
will grow there in full perfection: you may sleepe whilst they are
growing, after their setting or engrafting, there needes no more labour
but your prayers, that they may prosper, and now and then an eye to
prevent their casualties, wounds or diseases." No doubt Norwood is over
enthusiastic in his praises and yet it is true that there were few
pests of the peach at this time, most of these coming, one by one, with
the development of the fruit-industry. About all that any fruit needed
at this time was, to use a modern political phase, "watchful waiting."
Considering the agricultural efforts that must have been required
to produce tobacco, then the medium of exchange at home and abroad,
and of corn, which in Virginia was the staff of life, one wonders
that fruit received the attention indicated by the following account
written in 1656 of a still earlier period:[112] "The Country is full of
gallant Orchards, and the fruit generally more luscious and delightful
than here, witnesse the Peach and Quince, the latter may be eaten
raw savourily, the former differs as much exceeds ours as the best
relished apple we have doth the crabb, and of both most excellent and
comfortable drinks are made." Perhaps the explanation of the popularity
of fruits in Virginia is to be found in the statement that from fruits
are made "most excellent and comfortable drinks." On the word of
Captain John Smith we have it that "few of the upper-class planters
drink any water."[113] Wine was not made in quantity in the colonies
and liquors distilled from grains were not known so that thirst, in
this case the mother of invention, caused the colonists to turn to
peaches and apples for strong drink.
Prohibition was not preached in the colonies nor in the states until
long after the Revolution and King Alcohol dominated every part of the
New World. Distilling spirituous liquors from rye and corn seems not
to have been practiced, if the art were known, until the beginning
of the Nineteenth Century. The upper classes drank wine, but cider,
perry, peach-vinegar and similar fermented fruit-juices were in common
use by the middle and lower classes while the carousing population
of the whole country, and there seems to have been many liberal
tipplers, slaked their thirst with rum, apple-jack and peach-brandy.
So much on drinking, not to point a moral or adorn a tale, but to
bring out the fact that fruit-growing in America had its beginning
and for two hundred years had almost its whole sustenance in the
demand for strong drink. This is shown in almost every page of the
horticultural literature of the times and in the laws of the colonies
restricting prices and levying taxes on liquors made from fruits.
Peaches were grown in quantities wherever they could be made to succeed
in the colonies, not for the fruit itself, but for the making of
peach-vinegar, a sort of cider, and peach-brandy, a distilled liquor.
By the end of the first hundred years in America the English seem to
have brought orcharding to a fine state of perfection in Virginia,
the peach succeeding then, by all accounts, rather better than now.
Bruce[114] gives an admirable summing-up of orchard-conditions at the
end of the period named: "In the closing years of the seventeenth
century, there were few plantations in Virginia which did not possess
orchards of apple and peach trees, pear, plum, apricot, and quince.
The number of trees was often very large. The orchard of Robert Hide
of York contained three hundred peach and three hundred apple trees.
There were twenty-five hundred apple trees in the orchard of Colonel
Fitzhugh. Each species of fruit was represented by many varieties;
thus, of the apple, there were mains, pippins, russentens, costards,
marigolds, kings, magitens and batchelors; of the pear, bergamy and
warden. The quince was greater in size, but less aciduated than the
English quince; on the other hand, the apricot and plum were inferior
in quality to the English, not ripening in the same perfection.
Cherries grew in notable abundance. So great was the productive
capacity of the peach that some of the landowners planted orchards of
the tree for the mere purpose of using the fruit to fatten their hogs;
on some plantations, as many as forty bushels are said to have been
knocked down to the swine in the course of a single season."
Treasure after treasure of experience and narrative may be found in
tracing the history of the peach in Virginia but space permits only
the references that best illuminate the development and culture of
this fruit in America. Two accounts must serve to give an idea of the
peach in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century. Robert Beverly, in his
_History of Virginia_ gives a good idea of the culture, kinds and uses
of peaches in the early part of the Eighteenth Century:[115] "Peaches,
nectarines and apricots, as well as plumbs and cherries, grow there
upon standard trees. They commonly bear in three years from the stone,
and thrive so exceedingly, that they seem to have no need of grafting
or inoculating, if any body would be so good a husband; and truly I
never heard of any that did graft either plum, nectarine, peach or
apricot in that country, before the first edition of this book."
"Peaches and nectarines I believe to be spontaneous, somewhere or
other on that continent, for the Indians have, and ever had greater
variety, and finer sorts of them than the English. The best sort of
these cling to the stone, and will not come off clear, which they call
plum nectarines, and plum peaches or clint stones. Some of these are
twelve or thirteen inches in the girt. These sorts of fruits are raised
so easily there, that some good husbands plant great orchards of them,
purposely for their hogs; and others make a drink of them, which they
call mobby, and either drink it as cider, or distill it off for brandy.
This makes the best spirit next to grapes."
The text for the only other account we have space to publish for the
period under consideration is found in Washington's diary for February
22, 1760. "Laid in part, the Worm of a fence around the Peach orchard."
The information in Washington's short statement is inconsequential but
from it we form a pleasant picture of peach-growing at Mount Vernon.
Washington owned a distillery and in another place we learn that "the
distiller made every fall a good deal of apple, peach and persimmon
brandy." To supply the needs of the plantation in fruit and brandy,
there must have been a considerable number of trees, all seedlings, but
set in straight rows, for Washington, the surveyor, would have no botch
work in aligning and spacing. The fence, the worm of which Washington
was laying on his twenty-eighth birthday, if typical of the times, was
of split walnut-rails, laid zigzag. Eventually it became trellised
with wild grapes, Virginia creepers, honeysuckles and morning-glories.
The corners grew up to sassafras, brambles and other plants of the
region. In spring, we picture then, the pink-petalled trees, in the
peach-orchard at Mount Vernon, making obeisance to the Father of his
Country as he rode the rounds of the plantation; in summer the shady
shrub-grown corners of the worm-fence, sweet-scented with honeysuckle
or aromatic with sassafras, furnished refreshing resting places as
Washington watched his harvest; later, the orchard, voluptuous with
fruit, gave gustatory promises of products to eat and drink and
dazzled the eye with autumn colors of Virginia creeper, wild grape and
sassafras. The peach-orchard not only served the appetite at Mount
Vernon but was one of the most picturesque spots on the plantation.
Let the foregoing accounts of Smith, Bruce and Beverly suffice to give
status to early peach-growing in Virginia. They apply equally well to
Maryland, these neighboring colonies, it will be remembered, being
called by one of our authors, "Leah and Rachel or the Two Fruitful
Sisters." Of the peach in the states to the south at least a few words
ought to be said.
In the discussion of Indian peaches we have had a good account of the
early history of the peach in the Carolinas by Lawson. We now show the
status of peach-growing in this region at a later period. In an account
of South Carolina and Georgia, said to have been written by General
Oglethorpe, printed in London in 1733, we find the following:[116]
"Mulberries, both black and white, are natives of this soil, and are
found in the woods, as are many other sorts of fruit trees of excellent
kinds, and the growth of them is surprisingly swift; for a peach,
apricot, or nectarine tree will, from the stone, grow to be a bearing
tree in four or five years' time."
"They have oranges, lemons, apples and pears, besides the peach and
apricot mentioned before. Some of these are so delicious that whoever
tastes them will despise the insipid, watery taste of those we have in
England; and yet such is the plenty of them that they are given to the
hogs in great quantities."
A little later, 1740, Mr. Thomas Jones of Savannah wrote to Mr. John
Lyde concerning the contents of his town-garden as follows:[117]
"As to our fruit, the most common are peaches and nectarines (I believe
that I had a hundred bushels of the former this year in my little
garden in town); we have also apples of divers sorts, chincopin nuts,
walnut, chestnut, hickory, and ground nuts."
The third writer is Sir John Oldmixon who quotes a Mr. Archdale in
regard to the fruits of Carolina. He writes:[118]
"Everything generally grows there that will grow in any part of Europe,
there being already many sorts of fruits, as apples, pears, apricots,
nectarines, etc. They that once taste of them will despise the watery,
washy taste of those in England. There's such plenty of them that they
are given to the hogs. In four or five years they come from a stone to
be bearing trees."
The same author is worth quoting in regard to the early culture of
the Melocoton peach in Virginia.[119] "Here is such plenty of peaches
that they give them to their hogs; some of them, called malachotoons,
are as big as a lemon and resemble it a little." The history of the
word melocoton, by the way, is interesting. It comes from the Latin
_melum cotoneum,_ literally, apple-quince. The corruption is of Spanish
origin and in Spain "melocoton" is a common name for the peach. The
word, however, is now common enough in English, no less than 29 variant
spellings being found in the dictionaries and every extensive list of
peaches having a number of varieties with melocoton as a prefix or an
affix to the name.
Passing now to the northern colonies we find that the history of the
peach in Pennsylvania begins with the history of the State. William
Penn founded Philadelphia in 1682 and a year later, in describing the
new country, names the peach as one of its assets:[120] "There are also
very good peaches, and in great quantities; not an Indian plantation
without them, but whether naturally here at first, I know not. However,
one may have them by bushels for little; they make a pleasant drink;
and I think not inferior to any peach you have in England, except the
true Newington."
It would be hard to find a part of the earth better fitted in soil and
climate for sure and abounding harvests of peaches than the Chesapeake
peach-belt extending up through Maryland and taking in Delaware, New
Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. We may be sure, then, that if the
Indians were growing peaches in the abundance described by Penn in
what is now Philadelphia, peach-orchards were not less common in all
of the Chesapeake belt. That the whole region was bountifully supplied
with this delicious fruit when settled by whites is further indicated,
however, in a letter written by Mahlon Stacy from the "Falls of the
Delaware," New Jersey, in 1680, to his brother Revell in England. He
says:[121]
"I have travelled through most of the places that are settled, and some
that are not; and in every place I find the country very apt to answer
the expectation of the diligent. I have seen orchards laden with fruit
to admiration; their very limbs torn to pieces by the weight, and most
delicious to the taste and lovely to behold. I have seen an apple tree
from a pippin kernel yield a barrel of curious cider, and peaches in
such plenty that some people took their carts a peach gathering; I
could not but smile at the conceit of it; they are very delicate fruit,
and hang almost like our onions that are tied on ropes."
We are told in Watson's Annals of Philadelphia[122] that one of the
remarkable characteristics of Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1700 was
that the whole of the main street, one mile in length, "was fronted
with blooming peach trees."
An account of peaches in the Delaware region as late as the middle of
the Eighteenth Century shows that even then the peach was regarded
as indigenous "like maize and tobacco." This quotation, too, is
interesting because it gives a glimpse of cultural methods, kinds, uses
and danger from frost. The author was a Swedish clergyman, a resident
of the region for some years. He writes:[123]
"Peach trees stand within an enclosure by themselves; grow even in the
stoniest places without culture. The fruit is the most delicious that
the mouth can taste, and often allowable in fevers. One kind, called
clingstones, are considered the best; in these the stones are not loose
from the fruit as in the others. Many have peach orchards chiefly for
the purpose of feeding their swine, which are not allowed to run at
large. They first bloom, in March, the flowers coming out before the
leaves, and are often injured by the frosts; they are ripe toward the
close of August. This fruit is regarded as indigenous, like maize and
tobacco; for as far as any Indians have been seen in the interior of
the country these plants are found to extend."
Pressed for space, we must conclude the discussion of early
peach-growing in this region by quoting an account of the industry
as it existed in 1750 when the Swedish naturalist, Kalm, visited the
colonies and spent some time in Pennsylvania and neighboring states.
Writing of orchards he says:[124] "Every countryman, even a common
peasant, has commonly an orchard near his house in which all sorts of
fruit, such as peaches, apples, pears, cherries, and others, are in
plenty. The peaches were now almost ripe. They are rare in Europe,
particularly in Sweden, for in that country hardly any people besides
the rich taste them. But here every countryman had an orchard full of
peach trees, which were covered with such quantities of fruit, that we
could scarcely walk in the orchard, without treading on those peaches
which were fallen off; many of which were always left on the ground,
and only part of them was sold in town, and the rest was consumed by
the family and strangers; for every one that passed by, was at liberty
to go into the orchard, and to gather as many of them as he wanted.
Nay, this fine fruit was frequently given to the swine.
This fruit is, however, sometimes kept for winter use, and for this
purpose they are prepared in the following manner. The fruit is cut
into four parts, the stone thrown away, and the fruit put upon a
thread, on which they are exposed to the sunshine in the open air, till
they are sufficiently dry. They are then put into a vessel for winter.
But this manner of drying them is not very good, because the rain of
this season very easily spoils and putrifies them, whilst they hang in
the open air. For this reason a different method is followed by others,
which is by far the most eligible. The peaches are as before cut into
four parts, are then either put upon a thread, or laid upon a board,
and so hung up in the air when the sun shines. Being dried in some
measure, or having lost their juice by this means, they are put into
an oven, out of which the bread has but just been taken, and are left
in it for a while. But they are soon taken out and brought into the
fresh air; and after that they are again put into the oven, and this is
repeated several times until they are as dry as they ought to be. For
if they were dried up at once in the oven, they would shrivel up too
much, and lose part of their flavour. They are then put up and kept for
the winter. They are either baked into tarts and pyes, or boiled and
prepared as dried apples and pears are in Sweden. Several people here
dry and preserve their apples in the same manner as their peaches.
The peach trees have, as I am told, been first planted here by the
Europeans. But at present they succeed very well, and require even less
care than our apple and pear trees."
Kalm[125] also gives an account of the colonists' method of making
peach-brandy, which, as we have seen, plays so important a part in
the peach-industry of the times. Brandy-making, according to Kalm,
was simplicity itself and it is not to be wondered that in those days
of strong drink peach-brandy was popular. The following is Kalm's
description: "They make brandy from peaches here, after the following
method. The fruit is cut asunder, and the stones are taken out. The
pieces of fruit are then put into a vessel, where they are left for
three weeks or a month, till they are quite putrid. They are then put
into the distilling vessel, and the brandy is made and afterwards
distilled over again. This brandy is not for people who have a more
refined taste, but it is only for the common kind of people, such as
workmen and the like."
Kalm, travelling from Trenton to Princeton, found the country thickly
settled and full of orchards:[126]
"During the greater part of the day we had very extensive corn fields
on both sides of the road. * * * Near almost every farm was a spacious
orchard full of peach and apple trees, and in some of them the fruit
had fallen from the trees in such quantities as to cover nearly the
whole surface. Part of it they left to rot, because they could not take
it all in and consume it. Wherever we passed by we were always welcome
to go into the fine orchards and gather our hats and pockets full of
the choicest fruit, without the possessors so much as looking after it."
The soil and climate of Long Island and the lower reaches of the
Hudson, similar to those of the Chesapeake peach-belt, are so well
adapted to peaches that we may be sure that the early settlers in New
York eked out their scanty fare with this fruit soon after settlements
were made. Trade with the colonies to the south, where peaches were
common before the Dutch were established on Manhattan Island, began
almost immediately after the arrival of the Hollanders in America, and
knowledge of the adaptability of peaches to conditions in the New World
was no doubt quickly acquired from Virginia, if, indeed, the aborigines
were not cultivating this fruit in the region as Penn found them
doing on the site of Philadelphia. Yet careful search in the colonial
records of New York shows no early accounts of peaches, there being
few such accounts, by the way, of any agricultural product, no one
having undertaken the task of describing the natural and agricultural
resources of this State as was done by several able observers for
Virginia and the New England states.
No doubt, however, orchard-planting as a general practice was long
delayed in New York because of political and economic conditions. The
Dutch came to America as traders and not as home-makers, and almost
from the day they landed were in trouble with both their savage and
their civilized neighbors so that actual or petty warfare prevented
them from planting orchards until in 1647 when the reins of government
were taken in hand by Peter Stuyvesant, a farmer as well as a soldier,
who at once set about encouraging the planting of fields, gardens
and orchards. He brought, we are told, fruits, flowers, farm and
truck-crops from the neighboring colonies and Holland and these he not
only planted on Manhattan Island but sent to the settlements up the
Hudson. The peach may readily be grown in suitable soils from Albany
down the river to New York, and, by the end of the Seventeenth Century,
we are told by travelers, naturalists and missionaries that this fruit
was in common cultivation by the whites and was even rudely tilled by
the Indians of the Hudson Valley.
But, in eastern New York, away from the coast, the peach did not find
the climate as congenial as in the colonies to the south and then, too,
from the following record, the peach-borer early became troublesome.
Kalm says:[127] "Peach-trees have often been planted here (Albany,
New York) and never would succeed well. This was attributed to a worm
which lives in the ground, and eats through the root, so that the tree
dies. Perhaps the severity of the winter contributes much to it." We
have another reference to show that winter-killing must have been a
discouraging factor in peach-culture in this part of New York in early
days as it is now. Cadwallader Colden, appointed first surveyor-general
of New York in 1719, and in 1761 lieutenant-governor of the Province,
a botanist of note, who had a patent of land in what is now Orange
County, wrote in 1737 that cold had killed the peach-trees the previous
winter.
The traveler who visits New York today finds many orchards on the
Hudson but in them he sees comparatively few peaches. The peach is
much more at home two hundred miles west about the Central Lakes and
along the shores of Lake Ontario. Here, it is interesting to learn,
peaches were grown in considerable quantities long before the region
was settled by the whites--how long we have no record nor do we know
much of the character of the fruit. John Bartram in his _Travels from
Pensilvania to Onondago, Oswego and the Lake Ontario_, an account of
a journey made in 1743, mentions apples, peaches, plums and grapes
growing about the Indian villages passed through on his route. Whether
these peaches came from the white settlements nearer the Atlantic,
or at a much earlier date from the Indians to the South, or both, we
cannot even surmise.
Sullivan's army, which came to this region in 1779 to chastise the
Indians, found and destroyed considerable numbers of fruit-trees,
among them many peaches. After Sullivan's raid the region was quickly
settled by whites who, following the examples of the Indians, planted
apples and peaches, the orchard soon becoming a prominent asset to
every farm. Collections of pioneer papers frequently mention the great
adaptability of these lake-regions to peaches. In Conover's _History
of Kanadasaga and Geneva_[128] there are sixteen references to the
peach-orchards about Seneca and Cayuga lakes in and about the year
1800. As in the South, the products seem to have been used chiefly in
making peach-brandy.
David Thomas,[129] Aurora, Cayuga County, New York, was the pioneer
horticulturist, fruit-grower and nurseryman in this part of the State
and soon after coming to New York in 1805, we learn from several
references to his orchards and nurseries in his own writings, began
planting peaches. All of the named varieties from the South and East
were tried in his orchard and if valuable were propagated and sold from
his nursery. According to his son, John Jacob Thomas, the pomological
writer, he had in 1830 "the most extensive and valuable collection of
bearing trees west of the Hudson." Through him the western counties of
the State were stocked with named peaches and other fruits.
Of peaches in the New England colonies, we need say but little. Except
in favored parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts, this fruit was
little grown in these northern colonies. It is not at all probable that
New England Indians ever planted peaches and for a generation after the
whites came the struggle for the necessities of life kept them from
indulging in so great a luxury as a peach-orchard. Strong drink was
as commonly used by the Puritans as by the Churchmen in Virginia and
peach-brandy would have been as acceptable but it was easier to produce
cider, and rum from the West Indies could be had with little trouble.
Still, peaches were sparingly grown in the New England colonies.
The Massachusetts Company in 1629 sent peach-pits, along with seeds of
other fruits, to be planted by the colonists.[130] Twelve years later
George Fenwick, Saybrook, Connecticut, writes to Governor Winthrop that
he is "prettie well storred with chirrie & peach trees."[131] Justice
Paul Dudley,[132] who seems to have been the leading horticulturist
in Massachusetts in his time, writes in 1726: "Our Peaches do rather
excel those of _England_, and then we have not the Trouble or Expence
of Walls for them; for our Peach Trees are all Standards, and I
have had in my own Garden seven or eight Hundred fine Peaches of the
Rare-ripes, growing at a Time on one Tree." From another statement made
by Justice Dudley,[133] we learn that peaches were still being grown
from the stone and may assume that budding was not known or so careful
a horticulturist as our author would have mentioned it. He says: "Our
Peach Trees are large and fruitful, and bear commonly in three Years
from the Stone. I have one in my Garden of twelve Years Growth, that
measures two Foot and an Inch in Girt a Yard from the Ground, which,
two Years ago, bore me near a Bushel of fine Peaches."
SEEDLINGS GIVE WAY TO BUDDED TREES
About the close of the Eighteenth Century the planting of pits for
permanent trees began to give way to budding. It does not appear
who began budding peaches on this side of the Atlantic but the
desirability of budded stock was discussed as early as 1736, for in
that year we find the English botanist, Peter Collinson, urging his
American colleague, John Bartram, to "graft Plums and Nectarines on
Peach stocks."[134] The matter had evidently been under consideration
before for Collinson tells Bartram "Pray try; I have great opinion of
its succeeding."[135] Bartram is hard to convince and ten years later
Collinson is still urging him to bud, for, in a letter of April 26,
1746, he writes, rather impatiently, "Though thou canst not see, yet I
have told thee what inoculating a Peach stock may do."[136]
Probably the Princes, pioneer nurserymen in America, in their nursery
at Flushing, Long Island, first began to bud the peach, for in their
catalog of 1771 they offer 29 sorts though most of these appear to be
types rather than varieties. Twenty years later they list 35 varieties
with the statement that all "are inoculated." John Kenrick,[137]
father of William Kenrick,[138] the pomological author, who for
years was Prince's chief competitor, his nurseries being located at
Newton, Massachusetts, began business in 1790 by planting a quantity
of peach-stones the trees from which he did not bud. Four years later,
we are told, he learned to bud and greatly extended his assortment of
varieties, making a specialty of budded peach-trees.[139]
Until the middle of the next century, peaches were nevertheless
commonly grown from the pits. It is probable that never before nor
since, the world over, have seedling peaches been raised on so
extended a scale as in America during the half-century following the
Revolutionary war. The country between the Atlantic seaboard and the
Mississippi was being rapidly settled and on nearly every farm from the
Great Lakes to the Gulf, barring a few in the northernmost parts of
this great area, peaches were planted. They furnished food not only for
the pioneers but were used in fattening pigs and in the earlier part of
the period, at any rate, were, with apples, the chief supply of ardent
spirits which every farmer then kept on hand for daily use. There were
millions of peach-trees in America before 1825 but until that time
there were but few named varieties. Then the art of budding began to
spread; nurseries sprang up; this vast collection of peaches was
passed through the sieve of selection; local varieties quickly acquired
fame; and, as means of communication developed, the new varieties began
to be disseminated, until, in 1850, American nurseries were selling
over 400 varieties, a number which at the close of the century had
increased to over 1000.
THE CARE OF THE PEACH IN COLONIAL TIMES
Peach-growers, in the period under consideration, gave their trees
much the same care as is given in the present time except that
they did not spray. Pests were fewer and yet some were especially
troublesome, notably the peach-borer, the remedies for which were
as numerous as today. Curculio, then as now, almost prohibited the
culture of nectarines. A rot, the brown-rot, without doubt, did much
damage. Peach-yellows, as yet, was not the scourge it now is but,
as we shall see, was well in evidence. There were faddists in those
days as in these. Thomas Coulter of Bedford County, Pennsylvania, was
one of the original "sod-mulchers"--at least year in and year out he
inveighed against cultivation. He managed to get himself in all of
the publications of the times for a period of a half-century. We find
his method discussed in Volume V of the Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society, in the _Domestic Encyclopaedia_[140] in 1803
and, as late as 1821, a full account was published in the _American
Farmer_.[141] We quote the article in full, as it came out in the three
publications named, as a record of the times and because it contains a
number of novel ideas some of which may commend themselves to modern
orchardists of the sod-mulch school who want a cheap and easy way of
growing peaches.
"Transplant your peach-trees, as young as possible, where you mean
them to stand; if, in the kernel, so much the better ... because, in
that case, there will be no check of growth, which always injures
peach-trees. Plant peach-trees 16 feet apart, both ways, except you
would wish to take your waggon through the orchard to carry the
peaches away; in that case, give 24 feet distance to every fifth row,
one way, after transplanting. You may plough and harrow amongst your
peach-trees, for two years, paying no regard to wounding or tearing
them, so that you do not take them up by the roots. In the month of
March, or April, in the third year after transplanting, _cut them all
off by the ground_; plough and harrow amongst them as before, taking
special care not to wound or tear them in the smallest degree, letting
all the sprouts or scions grow that will grow; cut none away, supposing
six or more should come from the old stump; the young scions will grow
up to bearing trees on account of the roots being strong. Let no kind
of beasts into peach-orchards, _hogs excepted_, for fear of wounding
the trees; as the least wound will greatly injure the tree, by draining
away that substance which is the life thereof; although the tree may
live many years, the produce is not so great, neither is the fruit so
good.
After the old stock is cut away, the third year after transplanting,
the sprouts or scions will grow up, all round the old stump, from four
to six in number; no more will come to maturity, than the old stump
can support and nourish; the remainder will die before ever they bear
fruit. These may be cut away, taking care not to wound any part of any
stock, or the bark. The sprouts growing all round the old stump, when
loaded with fruit will bend and rest on the ground in every direction,
without injuring any of them, for many years, all of them being rooted
in the ground, as tho' they had been planted. The stocks will remain
tough, and the bark smooth for 2 years and upwards; if any of the
sprouts or trees from the old stump should happen to split off, or die,
cut them away, they will be supplied from the ground, by young trees,
so that you will have trees from the same stump for 100 years, as I
believe. I now have trees, 36, 20, 10, 5 and down to one year old, all
from the same stump.
The young trees coming up, after any of the old trees split off or
die, and are cut away, will bear fruit the second year; but this fruit
will not ripen so easily as the fruit on the old trees from the same
stem. Three years after the trees are cut off by the ground, they will
be sufficiently large and bushy, to shade the ground so as to prevent
grass of any kind from matting or binding the surface, so as to injure
the trees; therefore; ploughing is useless, as well as injurious;
useless, because nothing can be raised in the orchard, by reason the
trees will shade all the ground, or nearly so; injurious, because
either the roots, stocks or branches will be wounded: neither is it
necessary ever to manure peach-trees, as manured trees will always
produce less and worse fruit, than trees that are not manured; although
by manuring your peach-trees, they will grow larger, and look greener
and thicker in the boughs, and cause a thicker shade, yet on them will
grow very little fruit, and that little will be of a very bad kind
generally looking as green as the leaves, even when ripe, and later
than those that never have been manured."
None of the varieties that we now grow was then cultivated. Taking the
sorts described in 1800 we find that four were red-fleshed; eight,
yellow-fleshed; thirty-four, white-fleshed; eighteen, freestones;
nineteen, clingstones, and twelve nectarines. There were no flat, or
Peento, peaches but a sort known as Venus's Nipple was seemingly a
typical beaked peach.
In 1800, Baltimore was the best market for peaches in America and
was near the Chesapeake peach-belt. We are fortunate in having a
description of peach-growing around Baltimore at about that time.
Richard Parkinson, an English farmer and agricultural writer, came to
America to rent one of George Washington's farms in 1798. The two could
not agree and Parkinson rented a farm near Baltimore on which was a
peach-orchard. He published an account of his experiences in two very
readable volumes and from this work we quote in part the story of his
peach-orchard. Perhaps allowances should be made, for Parkinson seems
to have been soured by failure and some of his expressions are such
as might be expected from an opinionated Englishman undergoing new
experiences in America just after the Revolution. Parkinson says:[142]
"It would astonish a stranger to see the quantity of fruit in these
parts, which makes the country to look beautiful twice a-year, when the
trees are in blossom, and when the fruit is on the trees ripe. But the
fruit is chiefly for the use of hogs and can be applied to no better
purpose.
On my farm at Orange-Hill, only three miles from Baltimore, the last
year I was there, I sold all my peaches to two men at four pence per
peck, and let them have a cart and a horse to take them into the city
to sell, knowing I had only made four pence per peck on the average
the year before, and gathered them myself. These men agreed to pick
them, and feed the horse in town at their expence. It was the opinion
of every one that they had got a great bargain, and many others wished
they had had it. They picked about one-half of them, and carried
them to Baltimore: but, alas! they gave up the business, saying they
could not make wages, although they at first had said that they would
certainly take every peach, intending, if the market should not suit,
to carry them to the stills, &c. I was in hopes all this exertion would
make this bargain successful, as four pence per peck would pay much
better than to give them to hogs, as I have no knowledge of what number
a hog will eat. Seeing this scheme frustrated, and thinking it a sin
and a shame to see such a number of fine peaches rot on the ground, I
mounted my horse and rode to the stills, as there were many small ones
within three or four miles of me in the country. They have been erected
for this use; but many of them are never used after the first year;
and I am of the opinion that they will not pay expences. The men at
the stills were civil enough; they offered to lend me the still, and
let me find a man to work it, &c. or they would work it for me; but,
from every information I could obtain, I found that my peaches would
not more than pay the carriage to the stills and hardly that; and after
selling them to the owners of the stills, they would not give me so
much for my fruit, as would pay me for my trouble; nor will peaches pay
the farmer, to be given to the hogs, if they be not so situated that
the hogs can run where they are; and that happened not to be my case.
As a striking instance of the little profit of stills, Mr. O'Donnel,
at Canton, had planted an orchard, of great extent, of red peaches,
for the purpose of making peach-brandy. The red peach is reckoned much
superior to any other for brandy. Although Mr. O'Donnel's orchard had
grown to bear in great perfection and he had a still and the other
necessary apparatus, the profit proved so small, that he suffered
the whole to go waste, and his pigs consumed the produce; and, in
the winter, rooted up all those fine peach trees, and planted the
ground with Indian corn, having previously manured the land with dung
from Baltimore for the purpose of an orchard. Now this gentleman had
some hundreds of acres of woodlands unimproved in this plantation;
therefore, the cause could not be for want of land.
My fine turnips, Indian corn, potatoes, &c. were in the field by the
orchard without any fence. Indeed hogs are not allowed to run at large
within five miles of Baltimore, by an act of assembly; and mine were
too valuable to risk such a misfortune; and especially as I was a great
hog-shooter myself, it would have been fine diversion for any of my
neighbours to have shot one of my fifty-dollar pigs. Seeing that these
plants would not succeed, all that remained was to fatten my own hogs
with them. I had but seven hogs; and they would have employed a man
with horse and cart half a day to feed them; for, after a short time,
they will only eat the best peaches, and refuse the others as a man
would. I found this plan would not answer; and the consequence was,
that, after every trial and exertion, they rotted on the ground. Now
my farm was so situated that the great road through the heart of the
country went through it, five or six stage-coaches, and great numbers
of other carriages of all kinds. In all probability some of my own
countrymen as merchants (for there begin to be many of these gentlemen
to settle their accounts with the American merchants, and I suppose
they will increase) seeing this waste committed, would, on returning
to England, relate their story in this way--That when at the tavern
at Baltimore on the same day, the fruit-people were asking eleven
pence apiece for peaches. An Englishman says to himself, 'What idle
fools those Americans are! and I think all the English, when they get
to America, are as bad: but, when I get there, I will set them the
example.' But when there, he finds himself much disappointed, and does
not know how it is that he does not increase in riches, while neither
himself nor his family enjoys any comfort. He at last finds out that
the Americans are not a set of fools as he once thought: and, as he
must have a name for them, perhaps he calls them rogues; which, if Lord
Chesterfield was right in his observation, pleases a man the best of
the two.
When I took this farm, I had not a doubt, that, by some extraordinary
exertion, I should be able to make something handsome from peaches,
and so near Baltimore. Before I took the farm, when I enquired how
peaches sold in the market, perhaps they would tell me eleven pence
apiece, and eleven pence a peck on the same day. That used to stagger
me very much: but it is so: and the man who offers you a fine Newington
peach for eleven pence or a five-penny bit, sells but few each day; and
lives, although very poorly, at a very great expence; consequently his
profit must be great on each article. The man who sells the peaches at
eleven pence each, will not grow rich by his business, any more than
the grower. Then we come to the calculation of my profit at four pence
per peck, which is the best and greatest price. Could the scheme be
put in execution, it will, generally speaking, require two men and one
horse and cart each day, to pick thirty pecks and carry them to market;
and thirty pecks are more than any white man can sell one day with
another. A black man is much better for this business than a white man;
although they are in general ignorant, they are impudent: thirty pecks
of peaches, at four pence per peck, is just ten shillings per day for
peaches; and the two men's wages are worth, at that season of the year,
one dollar per day each, and one pint of whiskey, which will be sixteen
shillings for the men: the cart and horse are worth one dollar and a
half per day; but you could not hire it for less than two dollars.
Now the expences on this business are one pound seven shillings and
three pence per day, and the produce is ten shillings. But as I sold
them, I made profit each day on thirty pecks of peaches two shillings
and nine pence: the reader may plainly see that there could not be
any thing done better. This shews in this part of the work where I am
on the Eastern Shore, one hundred miles and upwards from market, that
the reader will be convinced the cherries and peaches pay the best for
hogs."
ADAPTABILITY AND VARIABILITY IN THE PEACH
In the preceding pages our narrative has flitted from continent to
continent and country to country in a belt encircling the earth. Few
other fruits are found under such varied conditions and over such
extended areas. We have seen that peaches are found wild and cultivated
over much of Japan; as far north as Vladivostock in Korea; once a
wild inhabitant of some part of China it is now cultivated in nearly
every section of that vast empire where agriculture is an industry;
the trees are so abundant and so much at home in the orchards and
forests of the Turkestans and Persia as to have given rise to the
belief that they have always grown there. While not so common as in
Asia, yet peaches thrive in all of southern Europe and readily submit
to artificial culture in pots and on walls in northern European
latitudes. Coming to America with the first Spaniards, the peach found
such congenial surroundings that it spread rapidly, freely and widely,
leading botanists three centuries later to call it a native. In the
fruit-areas of the United States, after two centuries of cultivation,
though sometimes a luxury and the crop often a speculation, the peach
is so perennially plentiful that it is to be found, fresh, canned or
evaporated, in every home in the land and the species is represented in
American pomologies by over 1000 sorts which have originated in this
country.
However, in tracing the history of the peach from China to America,
we have not wholly shown the range of adaptability of this fruit.
The peach has become adapted to the clear skies, strong light, long
seasons and hot climate of northern Africa, where, under modified
cultural treatment, it is a common fruit in Egypt[143] and the other
states bordering on the Mediterranean. It thrives on the islands in the
Mediterranean and on those of the North Temperate zone almost to the
tropics in the Atlantic and the Pacific, as the Azores, Canaries, West
Indies and Hawaiian group. As long ago as 1649 the Azores were famous
for peaches and Colonel Norwood, author of _A Voyage to Virginia_,[144]
in a gustatory reminiscence tells us that they were of so good quality
that he "did not fail to visit and revisit them in the dead of night to
satisfy a ravenous appetite nature has too prodigally given me for that
species." In the sub-tropic climate of Guadeloupe Islands, French West
Indies, there is a peach peculiar to the region differing in shape,
flavor and in heat-resisting qualities from the common run of this
fruit.[145]
The Aryan race has taken the peach across the equator in the pathways
of discovery, conquest and civilization, and made it a favorite fruit
in the gardens and orchards of the South Temperate as well as in
those of the North Temperate zone. In the colonies of South Africa
the peach seems to be as common as any deciduous fruit, native sorts
being planted with those from Europe and America. Of the Transvaal
Yellow Peach, R. A. Davis, horticulturist of the colony, says:[146]
"Generally speaking, it is the fruit most commonly grown in the
Transvaal, and it may safely be said that where it will not grow no
other peach stands much chance of thriving. The writer has seen them
flourishing by the side of the railroad amongst granite boulders, the
result of a chance pit thrown from the window of a railway carriage. It
is also extensively grown as a hedge around homesteads, having been
planted after the primitive method of turning a furrow where the hedge
was wanted and simply dropping the seeds in after the plough. It is
commonly recognised that the peach hedge should duly appear and bear
fruit in two years from planting the seed. The writer has also seen
them growing by the side of water-furrows and dams, with the whole of
the roots on one side of the tree at least immersed in water."
The Spaniards, no doubt, planted the peach in parts of South America
soon after the discovery of the continent and it now runs wild on
both coasts. Thus, Darwin in his famous voyage found the islands at
the mouth of the Parana River, Argentina, "thickly clothed with peach
and orange trees carried there by the waters of the river."[147] Many
references to wild peaches on the Pacific Coast may be found, as
interesting as any being one from Bertero who says that on Robinson
Crusoe's island, Juan Fernandez,[148] "The peach is so abundant
that one can scarcely form an idea of the quantity of fruit that
it bears. They are in general of good quality despite the state of
wildness." According to Oakenfull,[149] in Brazil, "Of all the fruits
introduced from abroad, the peach has made itself more at home than
any." Wight[150] reports the peach and nectarine in Argentina, Chile,
Peru and Bolivia under cultivation and as escapes from cultivation
in seemingly all degrees of evolution. The peach-drying industry is
important in the province of Coquimbo, Chile. According to Lounsbury
the peach is the most common fruit-tree in Argentina. He says:[151]
"It grows almost everywhere most luxuriantly, bears heavily and as yet
no very serious insect or fungus pest for it has become widespread.
Solid blocks of thousands of trees are not uncommon about Buenos
Ayres. Most of the choice varieties of Europe and America have been
introduced." The culture of this fruit in South America falls short
of that in North America only because of the lack of advancement in
horticulture--the one continent is a century behind the other in this
field of agriculture.
In temperate Oceanica the peach plays as important a part in
horticulture as any other of the deciduous tree-fruits. In early days
in New Zealand, "vast groves of peaches existed, sometimes, as in the
Waikato, extending for miles, where magnificently grown trees cropped
without limit."[152] Both the peach and nectarine are grown in the
horticultural regions of the island. Wherever the fruits of temperate
climates are cultivated in Australia, there may the peach be found. If
one may judge from the attention given this fruit in the agricultural
literature of New Zealand and Australia, it holds the same high place
in the horticulture of these islands in the Pacific that it has in
Europe and America.
The types of peaches are almost as diverse as the regions in which the
fruit is an inhabitant. The 2181 varieties described in _The Peaches of
New York_ attest the variability of the species in America and Europe,
many of our sorts having come from the Old World. This great number of
kinds can be distinguished by reason of differences in skin, flesh,
flavor, aroma, stone and season, the attributes of which have been
mentioned several times in foregoing paragraphs. The structure of leaf
and tree offers as many more taxonomic characters. It is interesting to
note the extreme forms in fruit and tree the peach has taken on in its
centuries of world-wide wanderings.
Round, flat, beaked, free or clingstone peaches with smooth or downy
skins and red, yellow or white flesh, sweet, sour or bitter, in all
combinations, and each often modified by soil and climate, are known
to American growers of this fruit. But there are many peaches with
less well-known characters. Thus, a peach in China bears fruits as
heavy as one pound apiece with extraordinary keeping and shipping
qualities;[153] another Chinese peach of the Honey type has a tree
with a maximum height of only seven or eight feet;[154] growing in
the same locality, Poliping, China, is a variety with extraordinarily
long leaves;[155] the _Paak wat to_ peach from China is a white-stoned
sort;[156] a variety in the French West Indies has fruits that peel
easily and withstand a continuous temperature in ripening season of
76 to 90 degrees;[157] from Kashgar comes a peach that will keep for
several months;[158] in Chinese Turkestan there is a nectarine "said
to keep for several weeks after fully ripe;"[159] even more remarkable
is the Feitcheng peach which ripens in late September and can be kept,
if wrapped in paper, until February;[160] as remarkable as any is the
Transvaal Yellow of South Africa which we have seen in a foregoing
paragraph grows "amongst granite boulders," "as a hedge around
homesteads" and "beside water furrows and dams, the roots of one side
of the tree immersed in water;" the Fragrant Peach and the Firm Peach
from China are not yet known in America;[161] another Chinese peach is
a dwarf, "grown in pots indoors, which fruits at a height of fifteen
inches and bears peaches on the main trunk though the stem be scarcely
larger than a lead pencil."[162] Most of the examples named are from
China but others can be found in every distinct region in which peaches
have long been grown.
Every well-marked geographical region in which the peach is grown
comes, sooner or later, to have a type of varieties of its own; yet
the universal stamp of the peach--of cultivated _Prunus persica_--is
on them all. These facts imply two important things. First, the peach
is an exceedingly flexible fruit, capable of being moulded to fit many
conditions of environment; and, under cultivation, training, feeding
and culture in unlike regions, soils and climates, may still be greatly
improved and the improvements all intensified and augmented by crossing
and selecting. Second, the peach, a gift to the world from China, has
seemingly, in its centuries of cultivation by the Orientals, taken on
sufficient immutability to make it one of the most stable of species,
especially in its fruits. The many races and thousands of varieties
are all best put in one species; many varieties come true to seed;
and peaches from seed seldom "revert" to worthless forms as so many
seedling fruits habitually do. Cultivated plants, as all who work with
them know, differ widely in variability. Some, as corn, the cucurbits,
and grapes and plums with their many species, are so variable as to
be almost unmanageable in attempts to improve them; others, as the
cereals, are quite too immutable for the best work of the breeder.
The peach is neither a stone wall nor shifting sand in the matter of
variability.
CHAPTER II
BOTANICAL AND HORTICULTURAL CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE PEACH
PLACE OF THE PEACH IN THE GENUS PRUNUS
The genus Prunus is without peer in the number of distinct,
natural, esculent products it furnishes man. Here belong the
stone-fruits--peaches, plums, cherries, almonds and apricots,
represented by some forty edible species, which, through long
domestication, have been broken up into not less than 5000
orchard-varieties, of which at least 3000 are now under cultivation.
Of the two-score cultivated species of this genus, _Prunus persica_,
the common peach, is easily the most remarkable when judged either by
the senses which make foods palatable and pleasant or by the criteria
that establish the commercial worth of a product. As virtues which
give the peach leading place among stone-fruits, we may specify: Wider
distribution and consequently commoner cultivation and a greater
number of varieties; larger size, greater beauty, pleasanter and more
diversified taste, and more culinary uses than other stone-fruits; and
greater productiveness, more rapid growth and earlier fruiting of the
trees than most of the species of the genus. The place of the peach
in the genus Prunus is thus easily established from a horticultural
point of view, but it is a much more difficult matter to make clear
its botanical standing among the species with which it is considered
botanically related.
The botanical relations of the several stone-fruits to each other have
been set forth in the foregoing books of this series on plums and
cherries, but, for the convenience of those who may not have these
treatises, a summary of the relationships of the species of Prunus is
presented. Besides, greater emphasis on several differences between
the peach and its congeners is needed. In particular, since some
notable naturalists have held that the peach is a modified almond, the
differences between these two fruits must be more clearly set forth.
Nearly every botanist who has done much towards classifying plants has
grouped the stone-fruits according to a plan of his own and there are,
therefore, many classification schemes and consequently a most confused
nomenclature for this genus. Happily, the pitfalls in synonomy dug by
botanists need not worry horticulturists; for each of the stone-fruits
constitutes a distinct horticultural group. In tree or fruit of peach,
plum, cherry, apricot, or almond, who could mistake one for another?
For horticultural purposes we accept as best one of the oldest and yet
one of the most commonly used classifications which places in one genus
all of the stone-fruits. What are the lines of cleavage between the
several stone-fruits of common cultivation?
Stone-fruits fall naturally into two distinct groups. In the first the
leaves are rolled in the buds--convolute. The plums and the apricots
belong to this section. In the buds of the other group the leaves are
folded lengthwise along the midrib--conduplicate. To this section
belong almonds, peaches and cherries. The two sections seem to be
united in this matter of disposition of leaves in the bud, it should
be said in passing, by a few species of American plums which are
conduplicate in vernation. The second section is further subdivided
by very marked differences in the fruits. The fruits of the peach
and almond are larger than those of the cherry, less juicy,--in the
case of the almond almost dry,--hirsute (except in the nectarine),
and are borne without stems; and the blossoms usually appear long
before the opening of the leaves. Cherry-fruits are always juicy,
usually glabrous, and are borne on more or less distinct stems; and
the blossoms appear with the leaves. Botanists who put these fruits in
one genus usually redivide according to the characters given so that
the plum and apricot stand in one sub-genus (Euprunus), the almond and
peach in another (Amygdalus), and the cherry in a third (Cerasus).
Differentiating more closely, we find that it is not so easy to
distinguish between the peach and the almond. The likenesses are so
many and so apparent that it is not to be wondered that Knight, whose
theory we have discussed on a foregoing page, came to the conclusion
that the peach is a modified almond, or that Darwin, with his belief
that plants came sooner or later to express their environmental
conditions, should be inclined to believe that the peach is an
evolution from the almond. It is easy to imagine that countless ages
ago--how long since is but an invitation to argue--the two species
merged into one. Offspring of the parent-species once established in
distinct soil and climatic conditions--the peach in China, the almond
in southwestern Asia--differentiation began and in time each region was
represented by a species of its own. Such an occurrence is but one of
the commonplaces of evolution; but Knight, Lindley and Darwin thought
they saw evidence that the separation came after the almond, the
supposed parent-species, had been domesticated, the steps being from
fleshy almond to bad clingstone, to good clingstone, to freestone,
to nectarine. The arguments against such a descent have been given
elsewhere.
The chief differences between the two species are to be found in the
matured fruits though, at first thought, it might appear that these are
not greater than those found in widely separated varieties of either of
the two species. The fruits of the peach and the almond are, however,
much more widely separated than any of the varieties of either species,
inasmuch as the differences are several and have to do with parts not
usually affected by cultivation and not the subject of selection by the
cultivator. Thus, the fruit of the peach is a delectable esculent; that
of the almond inedible; the flesh of the peach, the mesocarp, is soft,
fleshy, juicy; that of the almond thin, tough and leathery; the pit
of the peach must be removed while that of the almond drops naturally
from the hard flesh which splits at maturity. The differences between
the pits of the two species are quite as marked as in the flesh of the
fruit. The pit of the peach is deeply sculptured, pitted, and of a
bone-like consistency; that of the almond is nearly smooth and in most
varieties is much thinner and of softer texture. The differences in the
kernels are such as could easily be brought about by selection, some
peach-kernels being sweet and edible and some almond-kernels being too
bitter to be palatable.
Coming to the tree-characters we find that there are several which
differ sufficiently to give each of the two fruits distinct specific
rank. The winter aspect of the two trees is wholly different. The
almond resembles a young apple tree in color of bark more than it
does the peach and has, too, a head much like that of a broad-topped,
much-branched apple. In foliage the distant aspect is much the same,
but examined closely there are several distinctions that hold in
comparing the two species. The leaves of the peach are more broadly
lanceolate than those of the almond, coarsely serrate or crenate while
the margins of almond-leaves are finely serrate. The glands on the
leaf-stalk or leaf of the peach are globose, reniform or mixed; on the
almond, the glands are globose. The flowers in the two species are
similar but the time of flowering is markedly different. The color of
the petals in both varies from pale pink to deep pink with occasional
pure white forms; the flowers of true almonds are always large while
those of the peach are about equally divided between large and small.
The almond, in New York, is out of bloom before flowers of the peach
appear, the difference in blooming-time being from one to three weeks.
TREE- AND FRUIT-CHARACTERS OF THE PEACH
Fruit-growers must largely depend on printed descriptions for knowledge
of varieties. A well-made description of tree or fruit, to one
mentally equipped to interpret it, is second only to having the real
objects at hand. But the difficulty is that few excepting professional
pomologists know the characters of even the common fruits and their
relative importance. Before taking up either botanical or horticultural
descriptions of peaches, then, it is necessary to direct attention to
the characters of the peach, differences in which distinguish species
and varieties. Be it remembered in this study of the characters of the
peach, however, that, as fields and woods offer better facilities for
the botanist than the herbarium, so the peach-orchard is a fitter place
to study the characters of the peach than a printed page.
The single species of the peach in which we are greatly interested
has a very characteristic tree, the variations in which are, however,
less well marked than those of the tree of any other of our common
fruits. The peach-tree is distinguished by its low, roundish and never
pyramidal head. Of its gross characters, size is most important in
distinguishing varieties, the several more or less distinct types in
the species usually being separable by size alone. In considering size,
proper allowance must, of course, always be made for environment. There
are no true dwarfs among the varieties of _Prunus persica_ cultivated
in America.
Habit of growth is nearly as important as size of tree in determining
varieties. Thus, a variety may be round-topped, upright-spreading or
drooping in habit; the head may be open or dense; the branches long or
short, stout or slender; the trunks may be short or long, straight or
crooked, much branched or little branched. These habits of growth serve
not only to distinguish sorts but often determine whether the tree is
sufficiently manageable to make a good orchard-plant.
Hardiness is an important character both in classifying and in
determining the orchard-value of a variety. All peaches are tender to
cold as compared with other tree-fruits of temperate climates but there
is sufficient difference in varieties to permit the designations hardy,
half-hardy and tender. In the classificatory scheme in most common use
in America, that of Onderdonk and Price, variation in hardiness is the
chief determinant of groups.
All peaches come in bearing so early and bear so regularly that
varietal differences in these characters scarcely count in classifying,
but productiveness varies very characteristically in different
varieties. Environment and care greatly influence fruitfulness yet,
notwithstanding, the quantity of fruit borne is often a means of
identifying a variety and, of course, must always be considered by the
cultivator and the breeder.
Resistance to disease and insects is a taxonomic and an economic
character of much importance. Thus there are great variations among
varieties in resistance to peach-yellows, brown-rot and leaf-curl, the
three commonest diseases of this fruit in New York, as there is also
in resistance to San Jose scale, the worst insect-pest of the peach in
this region and to the peach-borer, the commonest. These examples are
multiplied in the discussions of varieties, pains having been taken in
the peach-orchards at this Station to determine the relative resistance
of all varieties to the pests of this region.
But little attention need be paid to the old bark on peach-trees,
since in all varieties it is much the same and is unimportant to the
cultivator. The bark of all varieties varies in color on different
soils and is always of a lighter hue in cold than in warm regions, in
dry than in wet situations.
The branches and branchlets of varieties are very characteristic. The
length, thickness, direction, rigidity and the branching angle are all
stable characters of varieties, changing but little with differences
in soil and climate. The length of the internode is important as is
also color, smoothness, amount of pubescence, size and appearance
of the lenticels, and the presence of excrescences,--though all are
exceedingly variable.
Both leaf-buds and fruit-buds are used in separating groups of
peaches but are too nearly alike in the several groups to be of aid
in distinguishing the varieties of any group. Fruit-buds are borne
in pairs on the wood of the previous year with a leaf-bud separating
the members of the pair. The only characters of buds worth noting are
size, shape, color and the angle at which the buds stand out from the
branches.
After the fruits, the leaves offer the best means of determining
groups and varieties of peaches. Leaves are variable, it is true, but
usually within limits quite easily set, since the conditions causing
the variations are easily discovered. The most usual ones are extremes
in soil, moisture, light, heat and the age of the wood upon which the
leaves are borne. Much care has been taken to illustrate as accurately
as possible the leaves of the varieties given color-plates in this
text, size and form being reproduced exactly and color as nearly as
color-plate printing permits.
Leaf-size and leaf-form are the first characters of the foliage
to study in determining varieties. The former varies somewhat in
accordance with the conditions named in the foregoing paragraph but the
shape of the leaf changes but little. Fortunately for the student of
varieties, leaves differ most in relative length and breadth so that
the shape may be accurately indicated by figures which are used in
most of the descriptions in _The Peaches of New York_. Comparisons of
the bases and the apices of leaves of different varieties often show
distinguishing marks.
The color of leaves in varieties is very constant for both surfaces.
The color of the foliage gives an aspect to peaches whereby a variety
may often be distinguished in its summer dress at considerable
distance. Unfortunately, the colors of leaves in the color-plates in
this book cannot be relied upon to give much help in studying this
character. Autumnal tints are uniformly the same in peaches and not to
be relied upon in classifying varieties.
Several other characters of the leaves must be studied by the
systematic pomologist. The leaves of some varieties are thinner than
those of others, hence thickness becomes a distinguishing character.
Venation of leaves--size and arrangement of veins--is important.
Pubescence of leaves cuts quite a figure in the descriptions of many
fruits but in the peach is of minor importance because the leaves are
not very hairy and the quantity and character of the pubescence is
exceedingly variable. Some varieties have relatively few leaves--others
many. The leaves of some varieties fall early--others relatively late.
The margins of peach-leaves offer valuable evidence in determining
varieties. They may be serrate or crenate, doubly or singly divided,
glandular or glandless. Both serrations and glands are best studied
in the middle of the sides of leaves, those at the base or apex often
being crowded or wanting.
Petioles differ in length, thickness, rigidity, pubescence and
color, so that this organ is often a substantial help in identifying
varieties. Some say the color of the petiole is correlated with that
of the fruit, as it certainly is in such extreme sorts as Snowball and
Indian Cling, but it is doubtful
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