215 



BOOK XIV. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FRUIT TREES. 



CHATS. 1 & 2. (1.) THE NATURE OF THE TINE. ITS MODE OP 



FRUCTIFICATION. 



Those which have been hitherto mentioned, are, nearly all 

 of them, exotic trees, which it is impossible to rear in any 

 other than their native soil, and which are not to be naturalized 

 in strange countries. 1 It is now for us to speak of the more 

 ordinary kinds, of all of which Italy may be looked upon 

 as more particularly the parent. 2 Those who are well ac- 

 quainted with the subject, must only bear in mind that for 

 the present we content ourselves with merely stating the 

 different varieties of these trees, and not the mode of cultivating 

 them, although there is no doubt that the characteristics of a 

 tree depend very considerably upon its cultivation. At this 

 fact I cannot sufficiently express my astonishment, that of 

 some trees all memory has utterly perished, and that the 

 very names of some, of which we find various authors making 

 mention, have wholly disappeared. 3 And yet who does not 

 readily admit that now, when intercommunications have been 

 opened between all parts of the world, thanks to the majestic 

 sway of the Eoman empire, civilization and the arts of life 

 have made a rapid progress, owing to the interchange of com- 

 modities and the common enjoyment by all of the blessings of 

 peace, while at the same time a multitude of objects which 



1 This must be understood with considerable modification — many- of 

 the tropical trees and plants have been naturalized, and those of America 

 more particularly, in Europe. 



2 He is probably wrong in looking upon the vine as indigenous to Italy. 

 It was known in very earty times in Egypt and Greece, and it is now 

 generally considered that it is indigenous throughout the tract that 

 stretches to the south, from the the mountains of Mazandiran on the Cas- 

 pian to the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Sea, and eastward 

 through Khorassan and Cabul to the base of the Himalayas. 



3 The art of printing, Fee remarks, utterly precludes the recurrence of 

 such a fact as thjs. 



