MR, 0. CORDER ON SAFFRON. 
Greece, Asia Minor, and perhaps Persia; hut it has been so long 
under cultivation in the East, that its primitive home is somewhat 
doubtful. Saffron, either as a medicine, condiment, perfume, or 
dye, has been highly prized by mankind from a very remote period, 
and has played an important part in the history of commerce. 
Under the Hebrew name Carcom, which is supposed to be the 
word for Crocus, the plant is alluded to by Solomon in the 
Canticles, as also by Homer, Hippocrates, Theocritus, Virgil, and 
others. The last-named speaks of the Saffron of Mount Tmolus, as 
also that of Coryca in Cilicia, and of Sicily, both of which localities 
are mentioned by Dioscorides and Pliny. Saffron was an article 
of traffic in the Ped Sea in the first century, and the author of tlie 
Poriplus states that it was exported from Egypt to Southern 
Arabia. 
It was cultivated at Derbend and Ispalian in Persia in the 
tenth century, from whence it is not improbable that the plant 
was carried to China, for, according to the Chinese, it came thither 
from the country of the IMahomedans. Chinese writers have 
recorded that under the Yuen dynasty, from 1280 to 13G8, it 
became the custom to mix Sa fa lang with food. 
It is shown that Saffron was cultivated in Spain about the year 
9G1 ; from thence it was introduced into German}^, Franco, and 
Italy about the time of the earlier crusades. About that period it 
was one of the productions of Cyprus, with which island Franco 
was then, through the Princess of Lasignan, particularly related. 
During the middle ages, and, indeed, up to the present time to a 
limited degree, it has been cultivated in Tuscany ; its cultivation 
in Sicily has also been continued to our own times. The Saffron 
Crocus is said to have been introduced into England in the reign 
of Edward III., in 1327. Two centuries later, English Saffron 
was even exported to the Continent; for in a price list of the 
spices, etc., sold by the apothecaries in the north of France (15G5), 
three sorts of Saffron are noted, of which Safren d’Angleterro is 
the most valuable. It was evidently produced in considerable 
quantities, for in 1G82 wo find in the tarif of the Apotheke of 
Ceele, in Hanover, Crocus uusiviacus ni>timus and Crocus communis 
anfiUcus. In the beginning of the last century (1723 — 28), the 
cultivation of Saffron was carried on in what is described by a 
contemporary writer as “ all that large tract of ground that lies 
