ORANGF. 269 



Oranges were known in this country in the time of 

 Henry the Eighth, but I find no account of the orange- 

 tree being cultivated in England prior to Queen Eliza- 

 beth's reign. The Seville orange-tree appears to have 

 been first planted the year before the East India Company 

 was incorporated, and two years previous to the return 

 of Sir Francis Drake, our first circumnavigator. It is 

 said to have been introduced by Sir Francis Carew, and 

 first planted at his seat at Beddington in Surrey. Evelyn 

 says, in his Diary, 27th September 1658, " I went to 

 Beddington, (Surry,) that ancient seat of the Carews, 

 famous for the first-orange gardens in England, being 

 now overgrown trees planted in y e ground, and secured 

 in winter with a wooden tabernacle and stoves." In Sep- 

 tember 1700, the same author notes, that he again visited 

 Beddington, and that " the orange- trees, which had then 

 been standing 120 years, large and goodly trees, and 

 laden with fruit, were now in decay, the estate being 

 fallen to a child under age, and kept only by a servant 

 or two from utter dilapidation." This would make the 

 introduction of orange-trees to this country about the 

 year 1580. 



These trees were entirely killed by the great frost in 

 1 739-40. They had been enclosed by a permanent build- 

 ing only the year before, and it is supposed that the 

 dampness of the new building, or the want of a sufficient 

 air and light, might have assisted in destroying these vene- 

 rable trees, which, according to the account of Mr. Henry 

 Day, the gardener, were about fourteen feet high, and 

 the girth of the stem twenty-nine inches, with branches 

 that spread from ten to twelve feet each way. 



Lord Bacon, mentions the housing of orange and 

 lemon-trees in this country to keep them in the winter, 

 fle also states, that if the seeds of oranges be sown in 

 April, they produce an agreeable salad. 



