NOVEMBER. 345 



the Apple, the Peach, &c, are brought to a maturity and a high 

 saccharine quality by great pains, labour, and long cultivation, with a 

 suitable soil and climate ; and thence old names and sorts become 

 extinct, and new ones prevail. 



The best stocks for working the Orange on, I have found by 

 experience to be those of the Spanish Lemon. I have been informed 

 by persons of high respectability, who have resided at Malta, that the 

 best Oranges there are grafted on the Pomegranate. I have tried this 

 in my Orangery, but I never could get them to grow. I believe it is 

 a mere fiction to say that the Orange unites with the Pomegranate : 

 indeed I have been well informed that Sir Joseph Banks ascertained 

 that the blood-red Orange of Malta has its peculiarity from the nature 

 of the soil, on a part of that island where scoria abounds, and red 

 ochre : these causes have given to the Orange of Malta the colour which 

 distinguishes it as the blood-red Orange, and it does not proceed, as has 

 been reported, from being worked on the citron. Of Citri I reckon five 

 species: — 1, the Orange (Aurantium) ; 2, the Citron; 3, the Lime ; 

 4, the Lemon ; 5, the Shaddock. Their respective varieties consist of 

 hybrids innumerable, many of which intermix. Some of the species, 

 we learn, were well known in Europe, and cultivated ; one has its 

 name from Spain ; but whether it is indigenous, or was introduced 

 there from Africa by the Moors, I am not able to tell, or from whence 

 it came, — I mean the Seville or bitter Orange. There is a great variety 

 of Oranges now in the London market, and other markets of Europe, 

 differing very little (except two or three of them) from each other ; yet 

 an experienced dealer can tell you from which country they came. 

 The Saint Michael's are the best. The modern Lemon, I think, differs 

 much from what was sold in my younger days ; it is more mixed with 

 the perfumed hard citron, and, in my opinion, is improved in its acid, 

 though it has not so much juice. It is, I believe, the Lisbon Lemon, 

 and is cultivated at the Azores and in Australia ; it is a good keeping 

 Lemon. The Lime and Shaddock are tropical plants, or best suited to 

 a tropical climate, being common in the East and West Indies. At the 

 Cape of Good Hope, in South America, the Brazils, and new South 

 Wales, the China Orange is extensively cultivated. At Rio Janeiro 

 I have seen them very large, and they are there very sweet, but not of 

 so lively a taste as at Sydney ; the heat of the climate seems to injure 

 the acidous flavour. It is very curious that the Portugal Lemon should 

 lose its fine acid in America, and become so extremely bitter, that it is 

 useless as a Lemon ; while the Lime there possesses a fine sharp acid. 

 When in South America, I was told that they had not a good Lemon 

 in any part of America. Colonel Paterson, on his voyage to Sydney, 

 in 1799, touched at Saint Salvador, at the time the Oranges were ripe, 

 and he told me they were the best he had ever met with. He 

 succeeded in taking six of the plants to Sydney, and in 1801 presented 

 me with three of them ; they were the originals of those now in my 

 Orangery. I have obtained some good varieties from them by working 

 on the stocks of the Spanish Lemon, and again other varieties from 

 the seeds of these worked trees ; more varieties may be gained by 

 working the China Orange on the stocks of the Seville. The Lime does 



