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: