CULTIVATED PLANTS. 159 



ation of varieties by grafting, have been celebrated by poets from 

 the time of Ovid, and continue to the present day. Pliny enumerates 

 thirty-nine different pears known to the Romans, several of them 

 being also mentioned by Virgil, Cato, Columella, Juvenal, 

 Macrobius, &c. Fee has endeavoured to identify some of them 

 with modern French varieties, and Gallesio with Italian ones, as in 

 the following examples : — 



Plinian Names. Supposed Corresponding Modern Names 



Ameriua serotina . . . San Tommaso. 



Lactea Porle or Blanquette. 



Dolabelliana Winter Bon-Chretien. 



Falerna succosa .... Bei'gamot. 

 Favoriana rubra .... Large muscat. 

 Superba parva .... Little muscat. 



Hordearia Common muscat. 



Mustea A variety of Bou-Chr<5tien. 



Pieena or picentina. . . Spina. 

 Pompeiana mammosa. . Campana. 



Viridis Spadona vemina, considered by Gallesio as 



a most ancient Italian Pear. 



Myrapia Guignoline. 



Volema Another Bon-Chr^tieu. 



In Tuscany, under the Medici, we find, in a manuscript list by 

 Micheli of the fruits served up in the course of the year at the 

 table of the Grand Duke Cosmo III., an enumeration of two 

 hundred and nine different varieties of pears, and another 

 manuscript of that time raises the number to two hundred and 

 thirty-two. Among them grafts of the Dorice pear of Portugal 

 were introduced by the same Grand Duke, at a cost of one 

 hundred golden doubloons, whence it received the name of Pera 

 cento doppie, by which it is still known, as well as by that of the 

 Ducal pear. 



Ajyples have been believed by some to have been introduced 

 into Italy from Media, and that the Falisci, or inhabitants of 

 Montefiascone, were the first to plant them in rows. But this 

 must apply to some particular variety, not to the species, which 

 we have already stated to be indigenous, but very early cultivated. 

 Pliny enumerates twenty-three varieties, which appear still more 

 difficult to identify with ours than the pears. Among the few 

 that modern authors have recognised, the Appiani of the Ptomans 

 are supposed to be the Apple or Appiole of modern Italians, the 

 Appia piriformis to be the Appiolona lunga, the Syriaca ruherrima 

 to be the red Calvetto, &c. In more modern Tuscany, Micheli, in 

 his above-mentioned manuscript, describes fifty-six sorts under the 

 Medici princes, fifty-two of which are figured by Castello. 



