128 



The Golden-fruited Orange Tree. 



Vol. XL 



trees are commonly propagated by cuttings 

 or layers, arriving, in seven years after 

 planting, to good bearing, and in time spread 

 out with the majestic luxuriance of chesnut 

 trees. Each tree, a few years after, upon 

 an average, annually produces from twelve 

 thousand to sixteen thousand oranges, and 

 one instance is recorded of a single tree 

 producing twenty-six thousand fruits in a 

 year! 



The amount of oranges and lemons usu- 

 ally exported from the Azores in a year, is 

 upwards of one hundred and twenty thou- 

 sand boxes, and seventy or eighty vessels 

 are sometimes seen lying in the roads, wait- 

 ing to take their cargoes. Besides these, a 

 large quantity of the sweet lemon is culti- 

 vated for home consumption, which are pro- 

 duced by grafting the sour lemon on the 

 orange. This fruit is tasteless and vapid, 

 though esteemed salutary and refreshing. 



In Algarve in Portugal, and in Andalusia 

 in Spain, there are trees of great size ; and 

 extensive orchards of oranges have formed 

 the principal revenue of the monks for se- 

 veral centuries. In Cordova, the seat of 

 Moorish grandeur and luxury, there are or- 

 ange trees still remaining, which are sup- 

 posed to have been planted as early as the 

 Xlth century; and in the craggy mountains 

 of that province, which are covered with 

 gardens and vineyards, and forests abound- 

 ing in fruit, the air is perfumed with the 

 flowers of the orange, and carries back the 

 imagination to the days of the Moorish poets 

 and historians, when the land they conquered 

 was adorned with all the refinements of their 

 taste and intelligence, and the luxuries of 

 the east were fully realized. 



The orange is said to have been intro- 

 duced into Portugal by Camoens. In apos- 

 trophizing on a little grove that waved upon 

 an open casement, that poet was heard to 

 say, " Yes, I have made a bower for the ho- 

 ney-bee, hung with golden lamps." 



In France, the orange country is chiefly 

 Provence, or that part which lies to the 

 eastward of the Rhone ; and plantations or 

 groves of oranges are the most abundant 

 and the most beautiful, on the banks of the 

 Var, and especially in the environs of Nice, 

 where the varieties are very numerous, and 

 come to great perfection. According to 

 Risso, there was a tree in that neighbour- 

 hood, in 1789, which generally bore up- 

 wards of five thousand oranges, and was 

 more than fifty feet in height, with a trunk 

 60 large that it required two men to embrace 

 it. Here, the Provence rose, the tuberose, 

 and countless other flowers, blend their 

 sweets with that of the orange; and amidst 

 all the richness of these perfumes, the pes- 



tilent airs of the tropics, and even the siroc- 

 co of southern Italy and Sicily, are altoge- 

 ther unknown. 



In Italy, the orange groves accompany 

 the chain of the Apennines round the whole 

 gulf of Genoa, and until, upon the confines 

 of the plain of Tuscany, they subside in ele- 

 vation, and bend more toward the Adriatic ; 

 although, further to the south, the climate 

 and vegetation of Tuscany cannot be com- 

 pared to those of the little valleys of Pro- 

 vence and Liguria, especially the latter. 

 About Florence there are still orange trees 

 in the gardens ; but there are none of those 

 aromatic groves and plantations which are 

 found further to the west. Mr. Spence, 

 who passed some winters in Florence, states 

 that the cold is so great there, that skating 

 is sometimes practised occasionally four 

 months of the year, and the thermometer 

 repeatedly stands at 24° to 26° F., at 8 A. M. 

 Eastward of Tuscany, though further south, 

 the country is even less adapted to the pro- 

 duction of the orange ; the sea-coast is bar- 

 ren, the interior is dreary, and over the 

 whole, the " pestilent malaria" creeps, for- 

 bidding man to approach, even for the culti- 

 vation of the fields. In the gardens at 

 Rome, however, notwithstanding the ther- 

 mometer ranges from 2° to 4° F., lower, 

 during the winter, than at Nice, the orange 

 tree flourishes, and attains its usual size. 

 At the convent of Santa Sabina, in Rome, 

 there is a tree of this species thirty-one feet 

 high, which is reputed to be upwards of six 

 hundred years of age. After the gulf of 

 Gaeta is passed, and the shelter of the more 

 elevated mountains in the kingdom of Na- 

 ples is obtained, the orange groves again 

 make their appearance, and particularly 

 abound along the western siiore of Calabria, 

 and m the vicinity of Messina and Palermo, 

 in the island of Sicily. 



The precise period at which the orange 

 was introduced into Britain, is not with cer- 

 tainty known; but it is supposed that it was 

 brought from Portugal by Sir Walter Ra- 

 leigh, towards the end of the XVIth centu- 

 ry. The trees were planted near a wall in 

 the open air, at Beddington, in Surry, with 

 a movable cover, to protect them from the 

 inclemency of winter. They flowered, and 

 bore fruit, and at the beginning of the 

 XVIIlih century, they had attained the 

 height of eighteen feet, with a diameter of 

 nine inches, and the spread of the branches 

 of the largest one was twelve feet in one 

 direction, and nine feet in the other. In 

 1738, they were surrounded by a permanent 

 enclosure, like a green-house, and were de- 

 stroyed by a great frost in the winter fol- 

 lowing. 



