CULTURE OF THE GENUS CITRUS. 
89 
before the time of Virgil and Pliny ; but 
the Lemon was not cultivated in Britain 
till 1648, when it was grown in Oxford 
Botanic Garden. The C. aurantium , or 
Orange, is cultivated in our conservatories 
to great perfection. It is not quite certain 
at what time the Orange tree was first cul- 
tivated in England. The “ Hortus Kew- 
ensis” places it before 1629; but there is 
general tradition that it was introduced 
during the reign of Elizabeth, which would 
place it at least before 1603, the year in 
which she died. Among the earliest, if 
not the very earliest. Orange trees culti- 
vated in this country were those planted 
by Sir Francis Carew, at his seat at Bed- 
dington, in Surrey, of which Lyson gives 
the following account : 
“ When Sir Francis Carew became pos- 
sessed of the inheritance of his ancestors, a, Flower, showing tbe division of the stamens into 
which had been forfeited by his father’s three bundles 5 b » section of the fruit. 
attainder, he rebuilt the mansion-house in a very magnificent manner, and laid out 
the gardens, which he planted with choice fruit-trees, in the cultivation of which 
he took great delight, and spared no expense in procuring them from foreign coun- 
tries. The first Orange trees seen in England are said to have been planted by 
him. Aubrey says they were brought from Italy by Sir Francis Carew; but the 
editor of the f Biographia,’ speaking from tradition preserved in the family, tells 
us they were raised from seeds of the first oranges which were imported into 
England by Sir Walter Raleigh, who married his niece, the daughter of Sir 
Nicholas Thockmorton. The trees were planted in the open ground, and were 
preserved in the winter by a moveable shed : they flourished for about a century 
and a half, being destroyed by the hard frost of 1739-40.” 
In the account given of these same trees in the celebrated Peter Collinson’s MS 
notes, in his copy of “ Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary,” which were published by 
A. B. Lambert, Esq., in the “Linnean Society’s Transactions,” Vol. X., there is 
some difference, and, I think, some errors corrected in the foregoing account of 
Lyson’s. Mr. Collinson’s note is as follows: — 
“ From my nephew Thomas Collinson’s Journal of his Travels, 1754.—In the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth, anno , the first Orange and Lemon trees were 
introduced into England by two curious gentlemen ; one of them Sir Nicholas 
Carew, at Beddington, near Croydon, Surrey. These Orange trees were planted 
in the natural ground. Against winter an artificial covering was raised for their 
protection. I have seen them some years ago in great perfection ; but this appara- 
