ITS CULTUKE IN CALIFOENIA. 



5 



fruits nature had favored the climates of 

 Asia. 



It was at this time that Europe enriched 

 its orchards by many of these trees, and 

 that the French* princes carried into their 

 country the damson, the St. Catharine (a 

 pear), the apricot from Alexandria, and 

 other species indigenous to those regions. 

 Sicilians, Genoese and Provengals trans- 

 ported to Palermo, St. Remo and Hyeres 

 lemon and orange trees. Jaques de Vitry, 

 a historian of the thirteenth century, who 

 had been in Palestine with the Crusaders, 

 and who accordingly speaks ex cathedra, 

 has this to say of the subject: " Besides 

 many trees cultiyated in Italy, Genoa, 

 France and other parts of Europe, we find 

 here (in Palestine) species peculiar to the 

 country, and of which some are sterile 

 and others bear fruit. Here are trees bear- 

 ing very beautiful apples — the color of cit- 

 ron—upon which is distictly seen the mark 

 of a man's tooth. This has given them 

 the common name of pomme cVAdam 

 >( Adam's apple); others produced sour 

 fruit, of a disagreeable taste, which are 

 called limons. Their juice is used for sea- 

 soning food, because it is cool, pricks the 

 palate, and provokes appetite. * * * 

 There is a species of cedar called cedre 

 maritime, whose plant is small but pro- 

 ductive, giving very fine fruits as large as 

 a man's head. Some call them citrons, or 

 pommes citrons. These fruits are formed 

 of a triple substance, and have three dif- 

 ferent tastes. The first is warm, the sec- 

 ond is temperate, the last is cold. Some 

 say that this is the fruit of which God 

 commanded in Leviticus: ' Take you the 

 first day of the year the fruit of the finest 

 tree.' We see in this country another 

 species of citrine apples, borne by small 

 trees, and of which the cool part is less of 

 a disagreeable and acid taste; these the 

 natives call orenges.^^ 



From Naples and Sicily the orange and 

 lemon trees must have been carried into 

 the Roman States, into Sardinia and Cor- 

 sica and to Malta. The islands of the 

 Archipelago first received them, because, 

 belonging in great part to the Genoese and 

 Venetians, it is probable they were the in- 

 termediate points whence the Crusaders 

 of Genoa and Venice transported the 

 plants to their homes. 



The use of the lemon as seasoning for 

 food, brought from Palestine to Liguria, 

 to Provence and to Sicily, penetrated to 

 the interior of Italy and France. The 

 taste for confections was propagated in 

 Europe with the introduction of sugar, 

 and this delicate food became at once a 

 necessary article to men in easy circum- 

 stances, and a luxury upon all tables. It 

 was above all as confections that the Ag- 

 rumi (lemons) entered into commerce, 

 and we see by the records of Savona that 

 they were sent into cold parts of Italy, 

 where people were very greedy for them. 



After haying cultivated these species 

 for the use made of their fruits, they soon 

 cultivated them as ornaments for the gar- 

 den. The monks began to fill with these 

 trees the courts of their monasteries, in 

 climates suited to their continual growth, 

 and soon one found no convent not sur- 

 rounded by them. Indeed, the courts and 

 gardens of these houses show us now trees 

 of great age, and it is said that the old 

 tree, of which we now see a register in the 

 court of the convent of St. Sabina at 

 Rome, was planted by St. Dominick about 

 the year 1200. This fact has no other 

 foundation than tradition, but this tradi- 

 tion, preserved for many centuries, not 

 only among the monks of the convent, 

 but also among the clei'gy of Rome, is re- 

 ported by Augustin Gallo, who, in 1559, 

 speaks of this orange as a tree existing 

 since time immemorial. If we refuse to 

 credit its planting to St. Dominick, we must 

 at least refer it to a period soon after — that 

 is, to the end of the thirteenth century, at 

 the latest. 



In their spread among the most civile 

 ized peoples of the earth the orange and 

 lemon finally penetrated into the colder 

 latitudes, and perhaps we owe to the desire 

 of enjoying their flowers and fruit the in- 

 vention of hot-houses, afterwards called in 

 France orangeries. This agricultural lux- 

 ury was unknown in Europe before the 

 introduction of the citron tree. In the 

 fourteenth century people had begun to 

 erect buildings designed to create for ex- 

 otic plants an artificial climate. But at 

 the beginning of the fifteenth century 

 orangeries passed from king's gardens to 

 those of the people, chiefly in countries 

 where they were not compelled to heat 



