January 2 . 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
200 
To bo worked up with a little water into a paste, and kept 
in a bottle; it is dissolved in water to about,,the thickness of 
milk, and applied with a brush to the article to be preserved. 
Goadby’s Solution. 
Alum . 2oz. 
Bay-salt. 4oz. 
Water. 1 quart. 
Sea-water is preferable, and when used should be boiled. 
Historical Notes on the Introduction of various 
Plants into the Agriculture and Horticulture of 
Tuscany : a summary of a work entitled Cenni storici 
sulla intraduzione di varie piaate neWagrieultura cd orti- 
cultura Toscana. By Dr. Antonio Targioni - Tozetti. 
Florence, 1850. — (From the Horticultural Society's 
Journal.) 
(Continued from page 212.) 
Apples have been believed by some to have been introduced 
into Italy from Media, and that the Falisci, or inhabitants 
of Montefiascone, were the first to plant them in rows. But 
this must apply to some particular variety, not to the species, 
which we have already stated to be indigenous, but very 
early cultivated. Pliny enumerates twenty-three varieties, 
which appear still more difficult to identify with ours than 
the pears. Among the few that modern authors have 
recognised, the Appiani of the Romans are supposed to be 
the Apple or Appiole of the modern Italians, tho Appia 
pyriformis to be the Appiolona lunga, the Syriaca ruberrima 
to be the red Calvetto, &c. In more modern Tuscany, 
Micheli, in his above-mentioned manuscript, describes fifty- 
six sorts under the Medici princes, fifty-two of which are 
figured by Castello. 
The Quince (Pyrus cydonia), also a European plant and 
indigenous in Italy, has given rise to much fewer varieties, 
although equally in cultivation since the days of the ancient 
Greeks and Romans. Pliny enumerates five only, including, 
probably, the three principal ones of more modern days, 
described by Matthioli in the sixteenth century, viz.: 1, the 
common large apple-shaped quince, melo cologna of the 
Italians, the best and highest flavoured variety, which is the 
mala aurea, and tho mala cana lanugine of Virgil, and mala 
cotonea of Pliny, said by him to have been introduced from 
Crete in the days of Galen; 2, the pear-shaped quince or 
pera cotogna, called by Dioscorides, Galen, and Pliny 
Struthiuvi, which attains to a larger size than any of the 
others; and 0, the Milviana of Pliny, called in Mattbioli's 
days bastard quince, probably our wild indigenous variety. 
The two former, especially the first, may have been originally 
raised in Palestine, where quinces are common, and were 
appreciated for their odour in very ancient days, as appears 
by their mention in the Bible. The golden apples of the 
garden of the Hesperides have by some been supposed to 
be quinces, whilst others have with more plausibility referred 
them to the orange. On the other hand, tho nuptial apple 
prescribed by Solon was evidently the quince and not the 
lemon. Quinces are at tho present clay much prized by the 
peasantry, in some parts of the south of Europe, for perfum¬ 
ing their stores of linen, independent of their consumption 
for culinary and confectionary purposes. 
The Medlar (Mespilus gcrmanica) is common in the 
woods of Italy and Sicily, and tho assertion of Pliny that it 
did not exist in Italy at tho time of Cato must be erroneous. 
Theophrastus calls it selaneios, as does Dioscorides, who 
also gives it the names otmcspilon and cpimclida, and says that 
it is a native of Italy. It extends over a great part of 
Europe, and is cultivated in Italy, though more sparingly 
I and less appreciated than in Germany and England. 
Besides the common one the Italians have a larger variety, 
and a small one without stones. 
We fully concur with Prof. Targioni in his conviction 
that the wild Cherry (Prunus cerasus), common in the 
woods of Italy and other parts of Europe and Asia, is the 
mother plant of all the kinds of that fruit now in cultiva¬ 
tion, in opposition to many modern botanists, who follow Do 
Candolle in distinguishing four species, Cerasus avium, C. 
I duracina, C. Juliana, and C. caproniana, or even go far 
beyond him in their multiplication. The species is also 
evidently indigenous, notwithstanding Pliny’s statement that 
there were no cherries in Italy, before the victory obtained 
over Mithridates by Lucullus, who was the first to bring 
cherries to Rome in the year of Rome 080, and that within 
one hundred and twenty years after that, they were spread 
over the empire as far as Britain. This statement gave 
rise to the tale that cherries came originally from Cerasunte, 
now Zefano, and were therefore called cerasus by the Latins. 
Lucullus may, however, have first imported the cultivated 
varieties, which the Romans may not have recognised as 
identical with the wild cherry. In Greece, cherries were 
certainly known long before his time, for Diphilus Siphnius, I 
according to Athenseus, mentions them under the govern- | 
ment of Lysimachus, one of the dukes of Alexander the 
Great. 
Among the numerous varieties of cherries of modern days, 
Pliny records only eight, of which the Juliana, according to 
Matthioli and Micheli, is the acquuiola of modem Italy, and 
the ceciliana according to Micheli and Gallesio, is the 
viscialona, believed to have been brought from Arabia to 
Spain, and thence to Rome. The varieties known in modern 
Tuscany are chiefly due to the exertions of the Grand 
Dukes of the Medici family. Micheli, in the catalogue 
already quoted, enumerates forty-seven sorts, and Castello 
has figured ninety-three. The double-flowering variety was 
first introduced into the gardens of Florence by Giuseppe 
Benincasa Fiammingo, curator, under Francis I. of Medicis, 
of the botanic garden then called delle Static, afterwards dci 
Semplici. 
The cherry-tree, especially of the Bigarreau variety, grows 
to a very large size; one is recorded on the shores of the 
gulf of Nicomedia, of which the circumference of the trunk 
was four-and-a balf braccie (about nine feet), and Prof. 
Targioni himself had one cut down in his own podere, 
which was beginning to decay, and had a trunk of eight 
feet in ciroumference. 
The Plum (Prunus domestics) is said by Prof. Targioni, | 
after the generality of systematic botanists, to be indigenous I 
to the woods of Italy, and an expression is quoted of Pliny’s j 
to the same effect, “ sed pruna sylvestria ubique nasci certum 
est." But these pruna sylvestria must have been the Sloe 
(Prunus spinosa). Our garden plums appear, from the 
investigations of our Indian botanists, to be varieties pro¬ 
duced by long cultivation of the Prunus insititia, a species 
common in the mountains of Asia, from the Caucasus to j 
the Eastern Himalaya, but which we have no authentic 
evidence of being a native of Europe. In all the more ' 
accurate European floras, the P. domestica insititia are 
cither omitted, or inserted as doubtful natives or escaped I 
from cultivation; or if, in some instances, positive native 
stations are given for the P. insititia, it is generally some 
variety of the P. spinosa that has been mistaken for it. 
Several varieties of the garden plum were introduced by 
tho ancient Romans from tho East, as we are informed by 
Pliny, since the days of Cato, who was born two hundred 
and thirty-two years before the Christian era. Such was, 
for instance, the damson or damascene plum, corrupted into 
moscine by the Italians, which came from Damascus in Syria, 
and was very early cultivated by the Romans. This was 
probably the early or summer damson, not known in Tuscany 
in the time of Micheli; but another similar variety, much 
cultivated in Liguria, tho autumn or winter damson was 
brought there from the East by the Genoese returning from 
the Crusades. Muratori says that the Italian name for the 
plum, Susinc, was derived from Susa in Persia, whence it 
hud been introduced into Italy. But the most ancient Latin 
name was prunus, and with the Greeks coccymcla. 
Pliny enumerates eleven varieties of plums, amongst which 
the cerina, mentioned also by Virgil and Ovid, is, according 
to Fee, tl le Mirabelle; the purpurea is said to be themyrobolan, 
which, however, cannot be the case, if the latter be, as is 
supposed, of American origin; and the damascena is tho 
summer damson. In Tuscany a considerable number are 
enumerated as very common, by Matthioli, in the sixteenth 
century. At a later period, Father Agostino del Riccio 
mentions several as new since he was young, and amongst 
them the myrobolans, said to be natives of North America. 
Canon Lorenzo Panciatichi gives the name of eighteen sorts, 
as common in the seventeenth century; and Micheli has 
