GALLESIO'S TREATISE ON THE CITRUS FAMILY. 



them that one might have sweet oranges without 

 recourse to the graft. 



I have, at Finale, a country-seat, where, in 

 1718, my grandfather planted a great number of 

 orange trees. The plants, all grafted, were fur- 

 nished, according to custom, by the nurserymen 

 of Nervi. Placed in these gardens, they made 

 prodigious increase, so that every one was aston- 

 ished, and imputed this rapid growth to the 

 t'resh earth brought to form these artificial gar- 

 dens, or to the happy exposure of the field, and 

 the abundance of water ornamenting and fertil- 

 izing the place. 



Peculiar circumstances, which I propose to 

 speak of in the second part of this work, secured 

 them from the frosts occurring in that century 

 (notably, that murderous freeze of 1763,) until 

 1782, w'hen they were frozen to the stumps. Cut 

 close to the earth, they grew in the spring vigor- 

 ously, and the sprouts, known to be free, were 

 raised without being grafted. 



Unfortunately, a large number perished by the 

 frost of 1799. Yet several stalks escaped, and 

 each of them yielded, in 1806, as many as three 

 thousand oranges. 



Never before the frost did they bear so large 

 a number, owing to the fact that then nothing 

 was free but the foot. The branches grew from 

 the grafts, and did not develop as well as free 

 trees. I shall enlarge upon this fact in the chap- 

 ters wherein I treat of culture and of frosts. 



It is necessary to state that the rejetons (sprouts 

 from the roots) of a tree already adult bear fruit 

 at the end of three years, sometimes even sooner. 

 This has facilitated the observation just spoken of. 



It is not easy to forget or neglect a small 

 plant, leaving it (ingrafted during a sufficient 

 time for seeing it fruit, because it reaches this 

 point only after fifteen or twenty years, but a re- 

 jeton is, necessarily, left to grow and gain 

 strength for three or four years, before a choice 

 is made of the mos! suitable for grafting, and in 

 this interval the rejeton will certainly put forth 

 flowers, which set themselves very easily and 

 give fruit. It is precisely this which has brought 

 about the discovery in question. 



The observation respecting free trees, made for 

 the first time at Finale, drew the attention of all 

 the amateurs, and they formed immediately in 

 this country many nurseries of sweet orange 

 trees. After the frost of 1763 these plantations 

 were extended ; especially where old trees had 

 perished, the free trees were substituted. 



The success of these plantations justified at 

 once the method that was being tried. Not a 

 single one of these plants failed to bear sweet 

 fruit. 



There was the satisfaction also of seeing that 

 these free trees displayed a vigor in their vegeta- 

 10 



tion, and a rapid increase, such as had never been 

 seen in the old plantations. The gardens of Fi- 

 nale were soon filled with this new race, called 

 seed orange trees (arancio di grana), and little by 

 little it was also adopted in neighboring districts, 

 chiefly at Savona, at Pietra, and at Spezzia, 

 where they now raise only free trees. 



The orange trees of Finale are perhaps the 

 finest to be seen in Europe. Those of Sicily 

 bear very sweet fruit, but not a tree produces 

 more than twelve or fifteen hundred. The trees 

 of the Archipelago, of Salo, of Nice, and of Hy- 

 eres, yielded no more than those of Sicity. I 

 have seen those of Murcia, of Tariffa, and of Se- 

 ville. They seem to me to be no larger than 

 those at, Finale. 



The monks of Los Remediox, who have, per- 

 haps, the finest garden in Andalusia, assured me 

 that they have gathered from their trees as many 

 as 5,000 oranges each, but nowhere have I seen 

 as large fruit as in the neighborhood of the city 

 of Finale. 



The garden of M. Alizeri contains a hundred 

 sweet trees, the smallest of which gives from 

 twenty-five hundred to three thousand oranges. 

 More than half of them bear from three to four 

 thousand. 



One sees many of these trees in the garden 

 of M. Aicardi, from which have been plucked 

 six thousand oranges, and in M. Piaggia's garden 

 there is one, distinguished as having yielded 

 eight thousand. This beautiful tree grows to 

 the height of nine metres (nearly thirty feet). 

 Its branches, which form a globe, and descend 

 even to the ground, present a circumference of 

 thirty-four metres (more than one hundred and 

 eleven feet). The stem, still young and vigor- 

 ous, is nearly five feet in circumference. 



It is solely by this method (of free trees) that 

 the culture of the orange has been carried to a 

 degree of success rarely seen in exotic plants. 

 In less than sixty years this has advanced the 

 naturalization of the tree much more than gratt- 

 inir and other methods had done in the space of 

 several centuries, and offers an example of what 

 we should expect of all vegetation multiplied 

 by this means. 



It has not been without interest, this search to 

 ascertain by what steps this result has been 

 reached, and what circumstances had made it 

 known. 



This was the task I imposed upon myself, 

 and which, I think, I have "accomplished in this 

 chapter. 



I am happy if my investigations shall aid the 

 progress of agriculture, which is the most sub- 

 stantial source of wealth, and the basis of the 

 prosperity of nations. 



