044 INTRODUCTION OF ORANGE TREES INTO ENGLAND. 
Others that are supernumeraryKanJ ill placed. But if, on the con¬ 
trary, the maturation of the pepding crop of fruit he the main 
desideratum, the gardener should take off every leaf that shall hap¬ 
pen to shade a full-grown fruit, by which means the maturing pro¬ 
cess may be considerably promoted and accelerated. 
April 6, 1832. 
G. I. T. 
FLORICULTURE. 
AUTICLE V.—OBSERVATIONS ON THE TIME OF THE INTRODUC¬ 
TION OF THEORANGE 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 Hortus Kewenses 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 year in 
which she died. Among the earliest, if not the very earliest orange 
trees cultivated in this country were those planted by Sir Francis 
Carew, at his seat at Beddington, in Surrey ; of which Lysoii 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 jorocuring them from foreign countries. 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 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 
man'ied his niece, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throkmorton : 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.”* 
'Fhc account given of these same trees in the celebrated Peter 
* Lyson’s Environs of London, vol. i. page 5fi. 
