THE ORANGE. 335 



of the head of the largest one was twelve feet the 

 one way and nine the other. There had always been 

 a wall on the north side of them to screen them from 

 the cold of that quarter, but they were at such a dis- 

 tance from the wall as to have room to spread, and 

 plenty of air and light. In 1738 they were sur- 

 rounded by a permanent inclosure, like a greenhouse. 

 They were all destroyed by the great frost of the 

 following winter; but whether wholly Bowing to the 

 frost, or partly to the confinement and damp of the 

 permanent inclosure, cannot now be ascertained. 



John Parkinson, apothecary, of London, one of 

 the most voluminous of our early writers on plants, 

 who published his l Practise of Plants' in 1629, 

 gives some curious directions for the preservation of 

 orange-trees, from which one would be led to con- 

 clude that the trees at Beddington, with their ample 

 protection of a moveable covering in winter, had not 

 been in existence then. " The orange-tree," says 

 he, " hath abiden, with some extraordinary branching 

 and budding of it, when as neither citron nor lemon- 

 trees would by any means be preserved for any long 

 time. Some keepe them in square boxes, and lift 

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

 them to be rowled on trundels or small wheels under 

 them, to place them in an house, or close galerie, for 

 the winter time: others plant them against a bricke 

 wall in the ground, and defend them by a shed of 

 boardes, covered with seare-cloth in the winter; and 

 by the wagnth of a stove, or such other thing, give 

 them some comfort in the colder times : but no tent 

 or meane provision will preserve them." The orange 

 trees at Versailles are, during the winter, wheeled into 

 warm places under the terrace; and the same plan is 

 to be pursued with respect to some fine orange-trees 

 at Windsor, which have been lately presented to his 

 Majesty by the King of France. At Hampton 



