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.