cultivating in England. By Mr. John Lindley. 81 



English peasant at the present day, the Currant, the Goose- 

 berry, and the Raspberry, are the only kinds which are not 

 natives of a milder climate than our own. Every one knows 

 that the cultivated Apple and Pear were introduced from 

 Italy ; and of the rest, the greater part were brought originally 

 from the confines of the very countries where many of the 

 fruits I am about to describe grow spontaneously. The natives 

 too of the hotter regions of the world are too indolent to 

 improve the riches they enjoy ; but are contented with re- 

 ceiving them from the hand of nature, without an effort 

 at ameliorating them. And this, I conceive, is an additi- 

 onal motive to stimulate the European to exertion ; because 

 it presents him with the prospect of possessing, through 

 the arts of cultivation, as great a superiority in Tropical 

 fruits generally, as he has already acquired in those to which 

 he has taken the trouble of directing his attention. 



In the succeeding observations I have not deemed it neces- 

 sary to confine myself rigidly within the limits of the Tropics ; 

 but I have occasionally over-stepped them for the purpose 

 of noticing the fruits of places which, although of a lower 

 temperature than the inter-tropical countries, are yet so much 

 hotter than our own, that considerable artificial heat is neces- 

 sary for the cultivation of their productions here. Nuciferous 

 trees, however, and Palms are universally omitted; the former, 

 because they would more properly form part of a different 

 memoir ; and the latter, because they are not likely to bear 

 their fruit in a country where so much artificial protection is 

 indispensible. These considerations have also induced me 

 to omit the Bread-fruit, which, in fact, is an object of domes- 

 tic economy rather than a luxury for the table. 



vol. v. M 



