62 CITKUS AURANTIUM. 



the Provpnce roso, tlio tuhoroso, and countless other flo\v(>rs. hiciul their sweets 

 with tiiat of the orauL^e ; anil amidst all the richness ol" tlii'se peiiinnes, the pesti- 

 lent airs of the tropics, and even the A-iVocco of southern Italy and Sicily, are alto- 

 gether unknown. 



In Italv, the oranii*^ irroves accompany the chain of the Apennines round the 

 wliole gulf of (ienoa, and untd, ni)on the conlines of the ))lain ol 'J'uscany, they 

 subside in elevation, and bend more toward the Adriatic ; althoudi, furtlier to 

 the soutli, the climate and vegetation of Tuscany cannot be compared to those 

 of tiie little valleys of Provence and Liguria. espivially the latter. About Flor- 

 ence, there are still orange-trees in the gardens; hut there are none of those aro- 

 matic groves and plantations which are found further to the west. Mr. Spence, 

 who passed some winters in Florence, states that the cold is so great there, that 

 skatina: is sometimes practised occasionally four months of the year, and the 

 thermometer repeatedly stands at 21 to 2G F., at 8 A. M. J-lastward of 

 Tuscany, though further soiUh, the country is even less adapted to the 

 production of the orange; the sea-coast is barren, the interior is dreary, and 

 over the whole, the " pestilent malaria" creeps, forbidding man to approach, 

 even for the cultivation of the fields. In the gardens at Rome, however, 

 notwithstanding the thermometer ranges from 2 to 4 F., lower, during the 

 winter, than at Nice, the orange-tree flourishes, and attains its usual size. 

 At the convent of Santa Sabina, in Rome, there is a tree of this species thirty- 

 one feet high, which is reputed to be upwards of six hundred years of age. After 

 the gulf of Gaeta is passed, and the shelter of the niore elevated mountains in 

 the kingdom of Naples is obtained, the orange groves again make their appear- 

 ance, and particularly abound along the western shore of Calabria, and in the 

 vicinity of Messina and Palermo, in the island of Sicily. 



The precise period at which the orange was introduced into Britain, is not 

 with certainty known ; but it is supposed that it was brought from Portugal, by 

 Sir Walter Raleigh, towards the end of the XVIth century. The trees were 

 planted near a wall in the open air, at Beddington, in Surry, with a movable 

 cover, to protect them from the inclemency of winter. They flowered, and bore 

 fruit, and, at the beginning of the XVIIIth century, they had attained the 

 height of eighteen feet, with a diameter of nine inches, and the spread of the 

 branches of the largest one, was twelve feet in one direction, and nine feet in the 

 other. In 1738, they were surrounded by a permanent enclosure, like a green- 

 house, and were destroyed by a great frost in the winter following. 



Parkinson, in his "Practise of Plants," published in 1629, gives some curious 

 directions for the preservation of orange-trees, from which, one would be led to 

 infer that the trees at Beddington, with their ample protection of a movable 

 covering in winter, had not been in existence at that time. " The orange-tree," 

 says he, " hath abiden, with some extraordinary branching and budding of it, 

 when as neither citron nor lemon-trees would, by any means, be preserved for 

 any long time. Some keepe them in square boxes, and lift them to and fro by 

 iron hooks on the sides, or cause them to be rolled on trundles or small wheels 

 under them, to place them in an house, or close galerie, for the winter time ; 

 others plant them against a bricke wall in the ground, and defend them by a 

 shed of boardes, covered with seare-cloth, in the winter ; and by the warmth of 

 a stove, or such other thing, give them some comfort in the colder times ; but no 

 tent or mean provision will preserve them." 



Towards the end of the XVIIth and in the early part of the XVIIIth cen- 

 turies, the orange-tree was a very fashionable article of growth, in conserva- 

 tories, in France, as well as in Britain. The plants were mostly procured from 

 Genoa, with stems generally from four to six feet in height ; they were planted 

 m large boxes, and were set out during summer, to decorate the walks near the 



