215 
BOOK XIV. 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FRUIT TREES. 
CHAPS. 1 & 2. (1.) THE N ATTIRE OF THE TINE. ITS MODE OF 
FKUCTIFICATION. 
Those whicli have been hitherto mentioned, are, nearly all 
of them, exotic trees, which it is impossible to rear in any 
other than their native soil, and which are not to be naturalized 
in strange countries.^ It is now for us to speak of the more 
ordinary kinds, of all of which Italy may be looked upon 
as more particularly the parent.^ Those who are well ac- 
quainted with the subject, must only bear in mind that for 
the present we content ourselves with merely stating the 
different varieties of these trees, and not the mode of cultivating 
them, although there is no doubt that the characteristics of a 
tree depend very considerably upon its cultivation. At this 
fact* I cannot sufficiently express my astonishment, that of 
some trees all memory has utterly perished, and that the 
very names of some, of which we find various authors making 
mention, have wholly disappeared.^ And yet who does not 
readily admit that now, when intercommunications have been 
opened between all parts of the world, thanks to the majestic 
sway of the Eoman empire, civilization and the arts of life 
have made a rapid progress, owing to the interchange of com- 
modities and the common enjoyment by all of the blessings of 
peace, while at the same time a multitude of objects which 
^ This must be understood with considerable modification — many- of 
the tropical trees and plants have been naturalized, and those of America 
more particularly, in Europe. 
2 He is probably wrong in looking upon the vine as indigenous to Italy. 
It was known in very early times in Egypt and Greece, and it is now 
generally considered that it is indigenous throughout the tract that 
stretches to the south, from the the mountains of Mazandiran on the Cas- 
pian to the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Sea, and eastward 
through Khorassan and Cabul to the base of the Himalayas. 
2 The art of printing, Fee remarks, utterly precludes the recurrence of 
such a fact as tlijs. 
