544 INTRODUCTION OF ORANOE TREES INTO ENGLAND. 
otliers that are supernumerary and ill placed. But if, on the con- 
trary, the maturation of the pending crop of fruit be the main 
desideratum, the gardener should take off every leaf that shall hap- 
pen to shade a full-grown fruit, hy which means the maturing pro- 
cess may be considerably promoted and accelerated. 
April 6, 1832. 
G. I. T. 
FLORICULTURE. 
ARTICLE v.— OBSERVATIONS ON THE TIME OF THE INTRODUC- 
TION OF THE ORANGE TREE INTO ENGLAND, AND THE 
PLANTING IT IN THE OPEN GROUND.— Bv J. T. 
Gentlemen, 
It is not quite certain at what time the orange tree was first culti- 
vated in England, the Ilorttis Kewcnses places it before 1629; but 
there is a general tradition that it was introduced during the reign of 
Elizabeth, which would place it at least before 1603, the ^^ear in 
which she died. Among the earliest, if not the very earliest orange 
trees cultivated in this country were those planted by Sir Francis 
Carevv, at his seat at Beddington, in Sun-ey ; of which Lyson gives 
the following account : — 
"When Sir Francis Carew became possessed of the inheritance 
of his ancestors, which had been forfeited by his father's 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 countries. The first orange trees 
seen in England are said to have been planted by liim. Aubrey 
says they w-ere brought from Italy by Sir Francis Carew ; but the 
Editor of the 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 Throkmorton : the 
trees Avere planted in the open ground, and were preserved in the 
winter by a moveable shed; they flourished for about a centm-y and 
a half, being destroyed by the hard frost of 1739 — 40."* 
The account given of these same trees in the celebrated Peter 
* Lyson's Environs of London, vol. i. page 5(>. 
