Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/464

 442 P E A P E A PEABODY, GEORGE (1795-1869), philanthropist, was descended from an old yeoman family of Hertfordshire, England, named Pabody or Pebody, who, six generations before his birth, had emigrated to New England. He was born at Danvers (now Peabody), Massachusetts, 18th February 1795. The only regular education he received was at the district school, and when only eleven years of age he became apprentice at a grocery store. At the end of four years he became assistant to his brother, who kept a dry goods shop, and a year afterwards, on the shop being burned, to his uncle, who had a business in George Town, District of Columbia. After serving as a volunteer at Fort Warburton in the short war between Great Britain and the United States in 1812, he became partner with Elisha Riggs in a dry goods store, Riggs furnishing the capital, while Peabody had the practical management. As bagman he travelled through the western wilds of New York and Pennsylvania and the plantations of Maryland and Vir ginia. Through his energy and skill the business increased with astounding rapidity, and on the retirement of Riggs about 1830 Peabody found himself at the head of one of the largest mercantile concerns in the world. About 1837 he established himself in London as merchant and money-broker at Wanford Court, City, and in 1843 he withdrew from the concern in America. It is, however, as a sagacious and generous philanthropist that Peabody has made his name a household word. While holding aloof from the strife of politics in the United States, he was ready to give his native country the benefit of his business skill and the aid of his wealth in its financial difficulties. The number of his great benefactions to public objects is too great for bare mention here. It must suffice to name among the more important a gift of 25,000 for educational purposes at Danvers; of 100,000 to found and endow an institution for science in Baltimore, a sum afterwards increased by a second donation of 100,000 ; of various sums to Harvard University ; and of 350,000 for the erection of dwelling-houses for the work ing-classes in London, which sum was increased by his will to half a million. If this last benefaction has failed to produce the good results anticipated, this has been due to causes for which Peabody was not responsible, and which do not at all detract from the wise beneficence of the gift. He received from the Queen the offer of a baronetcy, but declined it. In 1867 the United States Congress awarded him a special vote of thanks for his many large gifts to public institutions in America. He died at Eaton Square, London, 14th November 1869. PEACH. By Bentham and Hooker the peach is in cluded under the genus Prunus (Prunus persicri), and its resemblance to the plum is indeed obvious ; others have classed it with the almond, Amygdalus; while others again have considered it sufficiently distinct to constitute a genus of its own under the name Persica. In general terms the peach may be said to be a medium- sized tree, with lanceolate, stipulate leaves, borne on long, slender, relatively unbranched shoots, and with the flowers arranged singly, or in groups of two or more, at intervals along the shoots. The flowers have a hollow tube at the base bearing at its free edge five sepals, an equal number of petals, usually concave or spoon-shaped, pink or white, and a great number of stamens. The pistil consists of a single carpel with its ovary, style, stigma, and solitary ovule or twin ovules. This carpel is, in the first instance, free within the flower-tube, but, as growth goes on, the flower- tube and the carpel become fused together into one mass, the flesh of the peach, the inner layers of the carpel be coming woody to form the stone, while the ovule ripens into the kernel or seed. This is exactly the structure of the plum or apricot, and differs from that of the almond, which is identical in the first instance, only in the circum stance that the fleshy part of the latter eventually becomes dry and leathery and cracks open along a line called the suture. The nectarine is a variation from the peach, mainly characterized by the circumstance that, while the skin of the ripe fruit is downy in the peach, it is shining and destitute of hairs in the nectarine. That there is no essential difference between the two is, however, shown by the facts that the seeds of the peach will produce nectarines, and vice versa, and that it is not very uncommon, though still exceptional, to see peaches and nectarines on the same branch, and fruits which combine in themselves the characteristics of both nectarines and peaches. The blossoms of the peach are formed the autumn previous to their expansion, and this fact, together with the peculiarities of their form and position, requires to be borne in mind by the gardener in his pruning and training operations, as mentioned in HORTICULTURE (vol. xii. pp. 272, 273). The only point of practical interest requiring mention here is the very singular fact attested by all peach-growers, that, while certain peaches are liable to the attacks of a para sitic fungus known as mildew, others are not, showing a difference in constitution analogous to that observed in the case of human beings, some of whom will readily succumb to particular diseases, while others seem proof against their attacks. In the case of the peach this peculiarity is in some way connected with the presence of small glandular outgrowths on the stalk, or at the base of the leaf. Some peaches have globular, others reniform glands, others none at all, and these latter trees are much more subject to mil dew than are those provided with glands. The history of the peach, almond, and nectarine is interesting and important as regards the question of the origin of species and the production and perpetuation of varieties. As to the origin of the peach two views are held, that of Alphonse de Candolle, who attributes all cultivated varieties to a distinct species, probably of Chinese origin, and that adopted by many naturalists, but more especially by Darwin, who looks upon the peach as a modification of the almond. The importance of the subject demands that a summary of the principal facts and inferences bearing on this ques tion should be given. In the first place, the peach as we now know it has been nowhere recognized in the wild state. In the few instances where it is said to have been found wild the probabilities are that the tree was an escape from cultivation. Aitchison, how ever, gathered in the Hazardarakht ravine in Afghanistan a form with different-shaped fruit from that of the almond, being larger and flatter. &quot;The surface of the fruit,&quot; he observes, &quot;resembles that of the peach in texture and colour ; and the nut is quite distinct from that of 419 [the wild almond]. The whole shrub resembles more what one might consider a wild form of the peach than that of the almond.&quot; It is admitted, however, by all competent botan ists that the almond is wild in the hotter and drier parts of the Mediterranean and Levantine regions. Aitchison also mentions the almond as wild in some parts of Afghanistan, where it is known to the natives as &quot;bedam,&quot; the same word that they apply to the cultivated almond. The branches of the tree are carried by the priests in religious ceremonies. It is not known as a wild plant in China or Japan. As to the nectarine, of its origin as a variation from the peach there is abundant evidence, as has already been mentioned ; it is only requisite to add the very important fact that the seeds of the nectarine, even when that nectarine has been produced by bud- variation from a peach, will generally produce nectarines, or, as gardeners say, &quot;come true.&quot; Darwin brings together the records of several cases, not only of gradations between peaches and nectarines, but also of intermediate forms between the peach and the almond. So far as we know, however, no case has yet been recorded of a peach or a nectarine producing an almond, or vice versa, although if all have had a com mon origin such an event might be expected. Thus the botanical evidence seems to indicate that the wild almond is the source of cultivated almonds, peaches, and nectarines, and consequently that the peach was introduced from Asia Minor or Persia, whence the name Persica given to the peach ; and Aitchison s discovery in Afghanistan of a form which reminded him of a wild peach lends additional force to this view. On the other hand, Alphonse de Candolle, from philological and other considerations, considers the peach to be of Chinese origin.