596 THE ORANGE FAMILY. 



green with a winged stalk, flowers red externally, fruit pale-yellow, 

 with a juicy and very acid pulp. Unlike the other kinds of citrons, 

 the lemon on the Continent is generally raised from seed, and hence 

 the great difference in quality of the fruit obtained in the shops. 



The Citron (C. Medica, L.) : Leaves oblong, flowers purple exter- 

 nally ; fruit yellow, large, warted, and furrowed ; rind spongy and 

 thick, very fragrant ; pulp subacid. Supposed to be the Median or 

 Persian apple of the Greeks. As an ornamental tree, it is one of the 

 best of the genus Citrus. A delicate sweetmeat is prepared from the 

 rind of the fruit, and the juice with sugar and water forms lemonade, 

 and is used to flavour punch and negus, like that of the lemon. The 

 Madras citron is the largest and best variety, and has been grown to 

 an enormous size, both in England and Scotland. 



Propagation and Culture. All the kinds will root by cuttings, either 

 of the young wood partially ripened, planted in sand in spring, and 

 covered with a bell-glass ; or of ripe wood put in in autumn, kept 

 cool through the winter, and placed on heat when they begin to grow 

 in the spring. Grafting and budding, however, are the usual and 

 best modes of propagation, and the stocks may either be raised from 

 seeds or cuttings; citron and shaddock stocks are esteemed the strongest, 

 and those of the Seville orange the hardiest. For ornament the 

 plants are generally grown in pots or boxes ; but for fruit and also for 

 ornament, when the luxuriance of the tree is an object, they will 

 thrive best when planted in free soil in a house devoted to them ; 

 or against a flued or conservative wall, to be covered with glass in the 

 winter season. At Beddington they were planted against a wall, and 

 protected by a temporary structure ; and in the Duke of Argyll's 

 garden at Whitton, where, Miller informs us, the citron was grown as 

 large and as perfectly ripe as it is in Italy or Spain, the trees were 

 trained against a flued south wall, over which glass covers were put 

 when the weather began to be cold. The finest oranges and lemons 

 in Paris, some years ago, were grown against a wall like peach-trees ; 

 and in various parts of Devonshire all the kinds are grown against the 

 open garden walls, and protected during winter, not by glass, but 

 by wooden shutters. In the south of Devonshire, at Luscombe, orange- 

 trees have withstood the winter in the open air upwards of a hundred 

 years, and produced large and fine fruit. All the kinds of Citrus 

 require a loamy soil, richly manured, well drained at bottom, and 

 rendered pervious to water, by the soil being unsifted and mixed with 

 fragments of freestone. When grown in pots or boxes a richer soil, 

 better drained, is required than when the trees are planted in a border. 

 Being evergreens, and the sap in consequence circulating during the 

 winter, the soil, even in mid- winter, ought never to be allowed to Be- 

 come so dry as might be the case .were the trees deciduous. When 

 any of the sorts are grown for their fruit for the table, the best mode 

 is to grow them against a wall or trellis, either under glass throughout 

 the year, or against a wall to which sashes can be fitted during the 

 winter months. They may also be grown as standards in a span-roofed 



