The long time behavior of solutions is one of important problems in the study of partial differential equations. To a great degree, the properties of solutions will depend on those of initial values. In this paper, the analyticity and persistence properties of solutions to the Cauchy problem of the Fornberg-Whitham equation are considered respectively when the initial values are analytic or decaying. It is shown that the solutions of this equation are analytic in both variables, globally in space and locally in time. The solutions uniformly have the same decay property at any later time when the initial datum decays at infinity.