KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 139 
is the “ Orange Court/' a long room with many large windows 
where the trees were sheltered for the winter. 
This is one of the first instances of their importation, but 
orange and lemon trees were great rarities in this country, 
until many years later. Lord Carew, referred to in these 
letters, is said to have had the first trees. On Sunday, 
August 19th, 1604, James I. gave a banquet at Whitehall to 
the Constable of Castile. “ The first thing the King did was 
to send the Constable a melon and half a dozen of oranges on 
a very green branch, telling him that they were the fruit of 
Spain transplanted to England. . . “ The Ambassador then 
divided the melon with their Majesties.” 1 
James I. made an attempt to promote mulberry-culture, with 
a view to establishing a silk industry. He imported the trees 
from France. They had been introduced from Italy into 
Provence about a hundred years previously, and during the 
reign of Henri IV. (1589-1610) into the Orleans district. King 
James in November, 1609, sent a circular-letter to the Lords- 
Lieutenant of all the counties of England, ordering them to 
make public the announcement that in the March following 
a thousand mulberry-trees would be delivered at each county 
town, and all who were able were persuaded and required to 
buy them, at the rate of three farthings the plant, or six 
shillings the hundred. He also had a treatise on the cultivation 
of mulberries published. The King set the example by having 
four acres planted with mulberry-trees, near the palace of 
Westminster. The large sum of £935 was the cost of walling 
in the area, and levelling the ground and planting the trees. 2 
Among the MSS. at Hatfield there is the draft dated 1606 of 
a patent for the importation of mulberry-trees : the Patentee 
was to bring in “ only the white mulberry and such as shall 
be plants of themselves, and not slips of others, and of one 
year’s growth.” Each year he was to bring at least a million, 
which he should cause to be planted and preserved, and he 
was not to take above a penny for each plant. Cecil, in 
furtherance of the King’s scheme, himself brought five hundred 
1 Translation of a Spanish MS. in the British Museum, printed in 
England as Seen by Foreigners, by Brenchley Rye. 
2 Issue Rolls, James I., by Devon. 
