Mr. J. Hardy on the Antiquity of some Border Pears. 203 



Csesalpinus in 1583*. According to Dalechamp (1587), the 

 " Poire Bergamot " represents the Falernian Pear of Pliny 

 (Lib. xv., cap. 16, vel 15), so called from the drink which it 

 affords, so abundant is its juice. Ruellius, a French author, 

 who was born at Soissons in 1494 and died 1537, affords us 

 valuable information. Very much to be commended, says 

 he, are the " Bergamota," which began to be raised in my 

 time, excelling both in their savour and their moisture-f. 

 Here we have another direct testimony to their recent in- 

 troduction into France,and P. Stephens in his " Seminarium" 

 corroborates his statement in almost identical terms'!. Rab- 

 elais, born 1483, died 1553, recommends them. Conrad 

 Gesner, in his " Horti Germanise," 1561, introduces it on the 

 authority of George iEmilius, Doctor of Theology, and pastor 

 of the church of Stolberg. Gesner was personally ignorant 

 of the " Pirus Bergamotte."§ " The Burgomot Peare" occurs 

 in Gerard, who wrote in 1597 (my edition is 1633). Par- 

 kinson, 1629, gives the Bergamot a chief place in his orchard. 

 John Bauhin, who died in 1613, refers to its being trans- 

 planted from the French borders into Mumpelgard, and he 

 had also slips of it imported from Lorraine ||. As he knew 

 much about Pears, and has collected whatever preceding 

 authors wrote about them, it is evident that the Bergamot 

 was only then pushing its way over civilized Europe. S. 

 Paulli, who wrote in 1667, relates that both this and the 

 Bon Chretien were to be found in the gardens of the mag- 

 nates of Germany, as well as of the King of Denmark^. 

 The conclusion from these statements is, that both these 

 Pears came into vogue towards the end of the sixteenth 

 century, shortly before the Reformation, and in some coun- 

 tries subsequent to that era. 



Val. de Bomare has a somewhat apocryphal story about 

 the Bergamot Pear and the Bergamot Citron. He says that 

 the essence of Cedra or Bergamote, so odoriferous, and so 

 esteemed in perfumes, is drawn from a species of Italian 

 Citron, named Bergamote, of which they say the origin 

 came from a certain Italian of Bergamo being advised to 

 graft a branch of Citron upon the trunk of a Bergamot 



* " De Plantis," p. 144. 



f Ruellius, ubi sup. 



% Paris, 1540, p. 69. 



| Appended to " Valerii Oordi Annotationes," p. 273. 



|1 " Hist. Plant.," i., p. 45. 



^f " Quadripartitium Botanicum," p. 126. 



Al 



