Chapter VII. 



FRUITS COMMON TO TEMPERATE AND TROPICAL CLI- 

 MATES. THE ORANGE GBNUS. 



We are about to take a general and rapid view of the 

 fruits which are indigenous to other climates. Many 

 of these are scarcely known in this country except 

 as curiosities ; while others are partially cultivated as 

 objects of luxury. Particular fruits, which are 

 scarcely ever seen here in their natural state, such as 

 the date and the banana, supply largely to the neces- 

 sities of great masses of mankind ; and they are 

 thus intimately connected with their moral and social 

 condition. Of the more luxurious fruits, such as the 

 mango and the durion, it is probable that, in the 

 course of time, we may obtain possession of them in 

 the same way that we possess the pine-apple, — that 

 is, by the judicious application of artificial heat. Sir 

 Joseph Banks thought that improvements in the art 

 •of forcing fruits would render this period not at all 

 ■distant. He says, " It does not require the gift of 

 prophecy to foretell, that ere long the akee and the 

 avocado pear of the West Indies ; the flat peach, the 

 mandarine orange, and the litchi of China; the 

 mango, the mangostan, and the durion of the East 

 Indies ; and possibly other valuable (tropical) fruits, 

 will be frequent at the tables of opulent persons ; 

 and some of them, perhaps, in less than half a cen- 

 tury, be offered for sale on every market-day in 

 €ovent-Garden*." 



* Hort. Trans., vol. i. 



