HISTORY OF THE QUINCE. 15 
The Elder Pliny, with the fond instinct of the true 
pomologist, eloquently descants upon its valuable prop- 
erties, and paints the tree as it appeared about Rome, 
with its branches depending to the ground, jeweled with 
starry fruit. In fact, ‘‘ the clever criticisms of this early 
naturalist soon became lost amid his enchanting pane- 
gyrics.” Different varieties of the quince (more than we 
possess now), he tells us, were cultivated in profusion 
throughout Italy, ‘‘both for ornamental and useful in- 
tents.”’ Like the orange and lemon in our Northern States, 
it appears sometimes to have been grown in boxes, which 
*“were exposed for admiration in the ante-chambers of 
the great.” He extolled most highly its health-imparting 
and medicinal virtues, enlivening his classic descriptions 
with a warmth of enthusiasm which ‘‘must inevitably 
fill the modern admirer of the quince with enduring 
delight.” 
Professor Targioni, an Italian horticulturist, informs 
us, that at the present time the peasantry in some parts 
of Southern Europe highly prize the quince for perfuming 
their stores of linen, and that in the yet warmer lands it 
is still found as gratifying to the palate as to the nostrils. 
A recent traveler in Persia, after speaking of its use as 
a dessert, says it is yearly forwarded as presents to Bag- 
dad, where the highly perfumed odor is found so power- 
ful, that if there be but a single quince in a caravan, no 
one who accompanies it can remain unconscious of its 
presence. 
The Italian name of the quince, cotona or cotogna, is 
believed to be the origin of melocoton for a quince, as 
melocotogno is the Italian for a quince tree. The Spanish 
melocoton is a peach tree grafted on the quince, or the 
fruit of this, but memdrillo is the Spanish name of the 
quince, as malum cotoneum is the Latin for a quince- 
apple. The Portuguese name is marmelo, from which 
comes our marmalade, a most valuable form of pre- 
