APPENDIX. 



GALLESIO ON THE ORANGE. 



fN his valuable and standard work on " The 

 Citrus Family," which I have already quoted 

 from several times in the preceding pages, Gallesio 

 gives the following highly interesting account of 

 the origin of the orange and its introduction into 

 Europe : 



The orange and lemon tree were unknown to 

 the Romans ; therefore they could only have been 

 indigenous in a country where this great people 

 had never penetrated. We all know the vast ex- 

 tent of this empire, yet commercial relations ex- 

 tend themselves always far beyond political bounds. 

 If these trees had been cultivated in places open 

 to the traffic of the Romans, these fruits would 

 have become at once the delight of the tables of 

 Rome, given up to luxury. They could not, 

 then, have been cultivated at this perk>d, except in 

 the remote parts of India, beyond the Ganges. 

 The north of Europe and of Asia, it is true, were 

 equally unknown to the Romans, but their climates 

 were not at all suited to these plants. The interior 

 and west coasts of Africa, although in great part 

 deserts, and destitute of the moisture necessary to 



