History of Fruits. 1 1 



countries which always marks a highly civilized com- 

 munity, and which has already filled our gardens and 

 conservatories with the loveliest flowers and the greenest 

 leaves played forth by nature. 



Two very interesting questions here present them- 

 selves. Whence did England derive, in the first instance, 

 the fruits not indigenous we now cultivate? and from 

 what countries do we receive the imported ones ? The 

 history of all the very ancient fruits, such as the fig, the 

 grape, the walnut, and the citron, and of some even of 

 the comparatively modern ones, such as the orange, 

 presents in many of the particulars the complexion of a 

 romance, so curious is the blending of truth and fable. 

 Dating, like the history of the cereals, and of language, 

 from the earliest ages of which we have knowledge, over 

 some of the most interesting portions there hangs a veil 

 that will be lifted only when men behold the face of Isis. 

 It is practicable, nevertheless, to trace what may be 

 termed the middle history, or that which runs abreast of 

 the diffusion of Christianity. As regards our own island, 

 fruit-culture may be referred, for its beginning, to the 

 Romans, that wonderful people to whom primitive Britain 

 was indebted for its first lessons in the useful arts, as 

 road-making and architecture. The Roman governors 

 and other magnates, of whose handsome and well- 

 appointed villas vestiges still exist, brought into this 

 country the earliest practice of horticulture. It was the 

 Romans who introduced " greens " and the onion, and 

 among fruit-trees, the chestnut and the vine, probably 



