Note 100 — Chapter I · HISTORY OF THE PEACH (continued 2)

Kalm, Peter Travels into North America 3:127. 1771.

Peter Kalm is so often mentioned in the fruit-books published by this Station that readers are entitled to know something about him. Kalm was a Swede, born in 1715, died in 1779, who was sent by the Swedish government to travel in North America. He landed in 1748 and spent the next three years in travel in the settled parts of the New World devoting himself to the study of the plant and animal life, the natural phenomena, resources and agriculture of the Middle and Northern States and Canada. On his return to Sweden, Kalm published an account of his travels in America which was afterward translated into German and then into English. To him we are indebted for much valuable information in regard to the beginnings of agriculture and horticulture in the middle of the Eighteenth Century in America. Kalm was a student of Linnaeus and the great botanist perpetuated his memory by naming our beautiful mountain laurel, Kalmia.