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OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



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317 



the Orange most known in the English gardens are, in addi- 

 tion to the Seville and China, already named, 1 . The willow- 

 leaved or Turkey Orange ; 2. the yellow and white-striped 

 leaved; 3. the curled-leaved; 4. the horned Orange; 5. the 

 double-flowering; 6. the hermaphrodite ; 7. the dwarf, or 

 nutmeg Orange. The horned Orange divides into parts, 

 spreading out in form of horns ; this and the distorted Orange 

 are preserved merely for variety, not being so beautiful as 

 the common sort. The leaves of the dwarf Orange are very 

 small, and grow in clusters ; the joints of the branches are 

 very near each other; the flowers grow very close together, 

 and appear like a nosegay, the branches being covered with 

 them ; this, when in flower, is proper to be placed for orna- 

 ment in a room or gallery, which it will perfume with its 

 flowers ; but it requires care, and is sejdom in health. The 

 first China Orange, says Evelyn, that appeared in Europe, 

 was sent for a present to the old Conde Mellor, then prime 

 minister to the king of Portugal ; but of that whole case 

 which came to Lisbon, there was but one only plant which 

 escaped the being so spoiled and tainted, that with great 

 care it hardly recovered to be since become the parent of all 

 those flourishing trees of that name cultivated by our gar- 

 deners, though not without sensibly degenerating. Receiving 

 this account, adds our famous planter, from the illustrious 

 son of the Conde, I thought fit to record it as an instance 

 of what industry may produce in less than half an age. 

 South America and the West Indies have been furnished from 

 Spain and Portugal with this fruit, so salutary and agreeable 

 to the palates of the people, and so congenial to those hot 

 climates. Mr. Miller informs us, that he sent two small trees 

 of the true Seville Orange to Jamaica, where this sort was 

 then unknown, and that from these many other trees were 

 budded, which produced plenty of fruit, some of which was 

 sent to England, and, although they were long on their 

 passage, yet they were greatly superior to any of the fruit 

 imported from Spain and Portugal, affording three times the 

 quantity of juice. The Orange-tree has been cultivated in 

 England ever since the year 1629, and the first shifts made 

 to preserve it may not be uninteresting to the reader. " The 

 Orange-tree," says Parkinson, " hath abiden with some extra- 

 ordinary looking and tending of it, when as neither Citron or 

 Lemon-trees would by any means be preserved any long time; 

 some keep them in great square boxes, and lift them to and 

 fro by iron hooks on the sides, or cause them to be rolled 

 by trundles, or small wheels under them, to place them in an 

 open house, or close gallery, for the wintertime ; others plant 

 them against a brick wall in the ground, and defend them by 

 a shed of boards, covered over with sear-cloth in the winter, 

 and by the warmth of a stove, or other such thing, give them 

 comfort in the colder times ; but no tent or mean provision 

 will preserve them." But notwithstanding what Parkinson 

 here advances, bishop Gibson, in his additions to Camden's 

 Britannia, probably from Aubrey, says, that the Orange-trees 

 at Beddington in Surry, introduced from Italy by a knight 

 of the noble family of the Carews, were the first that were 

 brought into England ; that they were planted in the open 

 ground, under a moveable covert during the winter months ; 

 and that they had been growing there more than a hundred 

 years, that is, before 1595 ; the first edition of Camden, by 

 bishop Gibson, being printed in 1695. The editors of the 

 Biographia Britannica, article Raleigh, reciting a tradition 

 preserved in that family, tells us, that these Orange-trees were 

 raised by sir Francis Care w from the seeds of the first Oranges, 

 which were imported into England by sir Walter Raleigh, 

 who had married his niece, the daughter of sir Nicholas 

 Throckmorton ; but this is improbable, since the plants 

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raised from these seeds would have required to be inoculated, 

 in order to produce fruit, and rt is therefore more likely that 

 they were plants brought from Italy. Professor Bradley 

 reports, that they always bore fruit in great perfection, that 

 they grew on the south side of a wall, not nailed against it, 

 but at full liberty to spread. And by the account of Mr. 

 Henry Day, the gardener, they were fourteen feet high ; the 

 girt of the stem twenty -nine inches ; and the spreading of the 

 branches one way nine feet, and twelve feet another ; these 

 trees were all killed by the great frost of 1739-40. They had 

 been inclosed the year before by a permanent building, after 

 the manner of a green-house ; so that it is uncertain whether 

 the dampness of new walls, and the want of so much air 

 and light as tho trees had been accustomed to, might not have 

 destroyed them, if the frost had not happened. The Orange 

 has long maintained a very respectable place in the materia 

 medica. The sort principally employed in medicine is the 

 Seville Orange, the juice of which is well known to be a 

 grateful acid liquor, which, by allaying heat, quenching thirst, 

 aud promoting various excretions, proves of considerable 

 use in febrile and inflammatory disorders : it is also consi- 

 dered as a powerful antiseptic, and of great efficacy in pre- 

 venting and curing the scurvy : the juice of the China or 

 common Orange possesses the same qualities in an inferior 

 degree. The acid of Oranges, by uniting with the bile, is 

 said to take off its bitterness ; and hence Dr. Cullen thinks 

 it probable, that acid fruits taken in, are often useful in obvi- 

 ating the disorders that might arise from the redundancy of 

 bile, and perhaps from the acrid quality of it ; he adds, on 

 the other hand, however, if the acids be in greater quantity 

 than can be properly corrected by the bile present, they seem 

 by some union with that fluid, to acquire a purgative quality 

 that gives a diarrhoaa, and the colic pains that are ready to 

 accompany the operation of every purgative. Not only the 

 juice, but the rind or peel, of the Seville Orange, is of consi- 

 derable medical efficacy ; since, besides its use as a stomachic, 

 it has been much celebrated in intermittent fevers ; and in 

 testimony of its efficacy in the most obstinate agues, we find 

 several authorities cited by professor Murray : it has also 

 been experienced as a powerful remedy in menorrhagia, and 

 in immoderate uterine evacuations; and for its good effects 

 in these disorders, we have not only the assertions of foreign 

 physicians, but also those of Drs. Whyttand Hamilton. It 

 gives out its taste and flavour readily to water, is useful in all 

 flatulencies, in whatever form it be given, and also sits better 

 on the stomach than most other corroborants. The leaves of 

 the Orange are not without their virtues, and have, like the 

 flowers, been particularly celebrated in convulsive disorders, 

 and successfully given in the dose of a drachm at a time, in 

 nervous and hysterical cases. Propagation and Culture of 

 the Citron, Lemon, and Orange. Where the trees are to be 

 raised for stocks to bud Oranges, some Citron seeds, duly 

 ripened, should be procured, because their stocks are pre- 

 ferable to any other, not only for quick growth, but as they 

 will take buds of either Orange, Lemon, or Citron ; and 

 next to these are the Seville Orange seeds. The best seeds 

 are from rotten fruits, which may be easily obtained in the 

 spring of the year. Prepare a good hot-bed of tanner's 

 bark, which is preferable to horse-dung, and when this 

 bed is in a moderate heat, sow your seeds in pots of good 

 rich earth, and plunge them into the hot-bed, observing 

 to give them water frequently, and raise the glasses in the 

 great heat of the day, to give a sufficiency of air, lest the 

 seeds should be injured by too much heat : the seeds will 

 soon come up, and if the young plants be not stinted either 

 of proper heat or moisture, they will be fit to transplant into 

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