Note 67 — Chapter I · HISTORY OF THE PEACH

M. Cibot, a French missionary, writing nearly a century and a half ago in his memoirs concerning the Chinese (II:280-293. 1784), gives the following account of peaches with which he was familiar in China at that time:—

"Peaches are distinguished by size and color, the shape and earliness of their fruit. There are some whose flesh is white, some greenish, some a delicate yellow, some a yellow orange and some marble; some are round, some oval, some lengthened to a point like a crow's beak. Peaches are heard of weighing two pounds or even more. The largest ones I have seen were scarcely three and a half inches in length and diameter; as to earliness, in the middle provinces there are peaches almost as soon as cherries. It is still more astonishing that some varieties do not ripen here till October, and that there is a secret by which they can be kept till January, just as fresh, just as beautiful, and just as delicious as if right off the tree."