nsider Iran, or, as
our fathers knew it, Persia. Here is a field that, possibly because of
previous plunderings, is not now the most fruitful of our sources of
plant and animal discovery, yet it is an eye-opener, and will do very
well as a type of similar test-plots throughout the world.

Here is a short list of only a few of the plants which have been
developed for centuries, and were reported in the last century as
growing in Persia--many, no doubt, descended from stocks which once grew
in the famous hanging gardens of Babylon: apples, pears, filberts
muskmelons, watermelons, grapes, peaches, plums, nectarines. And of
flowers, these: marigold, chrysanthemum, hollyhock, narcissus, tulip,
tuberose, aster, wallflower, dalia, white lily, hyacinth, violet,
larkspur, pink and finally, the famous rose of Persia, from whence comes
the attar of roses for which Persia is still famous. It would seem that
someone must have possessed a knowledge of plant propagation in Persia
centuries ago.

Several of these products have had their influence upon the history and
poetry of the world. It will be remembered by most high school students
that when the Caesars and big shots of Rome and Greece wished to create
a big splash in the social ponds of their day, they sent, at enormous
expense, for melons and dates from Persia. Melons, in particular, seemed
to be the high spot in those Lucullan feasts, and, in this connection it
is well to remember that Lucullus, himself, as commanding general of a
Roman legion, had long lived in Persia and had, no doubt, acquired a
taste for Persian delicacies. His princely estates near Rome, no doubt,
grew rare plants from Asia Minor and were very likely tended by the
skilled Aryan, early Accadian or Semitic gardeners of Persia. These
slaves were probably descended from and were heir to the trade secrets
of some of the very builders of that seventh wonder of the world, the
hanging gardens of Babylon. Except for those forgotten workers from
Persia, one may well wonder whether, today, our Rocky Ford, Ohio Sugar,
or Hearts-of-Gold muskmelon delicacies would exist at all.

An interesting side-light may be found in the history of the peach.
Originally this fruit was in all probability a poisonous variety of
almond. What wizard, or succession of wizards, was it who created a
peach from a pest--an asset from a liability? Persian, probably. Whoever
did it, it constitutes one of the outstanding miracles of plant
br