PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 279 



layasj^it often becomes naturalized, as for instance, in 

 the centre of France.^ 



This shrub was unknown in Greece and Italy, for it 

 is proper to colder countries. From the variety of the 

 names in all the languages, even in those anterior to the 

 Aryans, of the north of Europe, it is clear that this fruit 

 was very early sought after, and its cultivation was pro- 

 bably begun- before the Middle Ages. J. Bauhin * says it 

 was planted in gardens in France and Italy, but most 

 sixteenth-century authors do not mention it. In the 

 Histoire de la, Vie Privee des Frangais,hj Le Grand 

 d'Aussy, published in 1872, vol. i. p. 232, the following 

 curious passage occurs : " The black currant has been 

 cultivated ' hardly forty years, and it owes its reputa- 

 tion to a pamphlet entitled Gvltwre du Cassis, in which 

 the author attributed to this shrub all the virtues it is 

 possible to imagine." Further on (vol. iii. p. 80), the 

 author mentions the frequent use, since the publication of 

 the pamphlet in question, of a liqueur made- from the 

 black currant. Bosc, who is always accurate in his articles 

 in the IHctionnaire d'Agiriculture, vaeniions this fashion 

 under the head Currant, but he is careful to add, "It 

 has been very long in cultivation for its fruit, which has 

 a peculiar odour agreeable to some, disagreeable to others, 

 and which is held' to be stomachic and diuretic." It is 

 also used in the manufacture of the liqueurs known as 

 ratafia de Cassis.* ' : 



Olive— Oiea Europea, Linnaeus. 



The wild olive, called in botanical books the variety 



' Ledebonr, M. Boss., p. 200 j Maximowicz, Primitics M. Amur., p. 

 119 ; Clarke, in Hooker, M. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 411. 



* Boreaa, More du. Centre de la Fra/ttce,. edit. 3, p. 262. 

 ' Banhin, Hist. Plant, ii. p. 99, 



* This name Cassis is onrions. Littr^ says thfit it seems to have been 

 introdnoed late into the language, and that he does not know its origin^ 

 I have not met with it in botanical works earlier than the middle of the 

 seventeenth century. My manuscript collection of common names, among 

 more than forty names for this species in different languages or dialects 

 has not one which resembles it. Buohoa, in his Dictionnaire desPlantes, 

 1770, 1. p. 289, calls the plant the Oossts or Oassetier des Poitevins. The 

 old French name was Poivrieror groseillier noir. Larousse's dictionary 

 says that good liquears were made at Cassis in Provence. Can this be 

 the origin of the name ? 



