Januahy 16. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
309 
A long chapter is devoted by Prof. Targioni to tlie Agrumi, 
that is to the oranges, lemons, citrous, and others belonging 
to the genus Citrus of the family of Anrantiaceic. They 
have long been objects of great interest to the Italians, and 
the subject of many valuable works, being extensively culti¬ 
vated for profit wherever the climate will admit of it, and j 
for ornament or curiosity in public or private gardens in the 
more northern parts of the Peninsula, where they still require j 
protection in winter. They are all of Eastern origin, and j 
mostly introduced into Europe in comparatively modern days, 
but of very ancient and general cultivation in Asia. The 
varieties known are very numerous and difficult to reduce 
accurately to their species, on the limits of which botanists 
are much divided in opinion. Those who have bestowed the 
most pains in the investigation of Indian botany, and in 
whose judgment we should place the most confidence, have 
come to the conclusion that the citron, the orange, the 
lemon, the lime, and their numerous varieties now in cir¬ 
culation, are all derived from one botanical species, Citrus 
rncdica, indigenous to, and still found wild in, the mountains 
of East India. Others, it is true, tell us that the citron, the 
orange, and the lime, are to be found as distinct types in 
different valleys, even in the wild states; but these observa¬ 
tions do not appear to have been made with that accuracy 
and critical caution which would be necessary in the case of 
trees so long and so generally cultivated. 
With regal'd to the Shaddock (Citrus decumana), it is 
almost universally admitted as a distinct species, although 
at present only known in a state of cultivation. It must be 
admitted also, that it appears to present more constant 
characters than most of the others in the pubescence of its 
young shoots, and in the size of its flowers, besides the 
differences in the fruit; but Dr. Buchanan Hamilton, who is 
of great authority on such matters, and some others, are 
inclined to believe that this also may have originated in the 
Citrus medica. This point requires much farther investiga¬ 
tion, and a better knowledge of the floras of South-eastern 
Asia, before we can come to any plausible conclusion. 
Prof. Targioni gives copious details of the introduction into 
Tuscany and other parts of Italy, of many of tho varieties 
there cultivated, for which we must refer to the work iself. 
It may suffice, for our present purpose, to extract a few notes 
on some of the more important races or species according 
as they may be considered. Among them all the earliest 
known was the citron. It is not, however, that fruit nor any 
other citrus, according to Prof. Targioni, that we read of in 
the Bible under the name of Hadar as is asserted by some, 
nor yet is it anywhere alluded to by Homer. The first 
mention we have of it is in a comedy of Antipliaues, quoted 
by Athenseus, in which it is said that the seeds of the citron 
had then recently been sent by the King of Persia as a 
present to the Greeks. Theophrastus is the first who de¬ 
scribes it; he tells us that the fruit was not eaten, but solely 
prized for its odour and as a means of keeping the moths 
off woollen clothing. Among tho Romans we find an 
allusion to the citron in Virgil’s Georgies, but it does not 
appear to have been then introduced into Italy, for Columella, 
long after Virgil's death, made no mention of it, and Pliny, 
in his paraphrase as it were of the passage of Theophrastus, 
adds that it had been endeavoured to transport plants of the 
citron which he calls malus medica or mains assyria into 
Italy, but without effect, as it would only grow in Media and 
Persia. Palladius, however, in the fifth century, gives many 
details of the modes of propagating and cultivating this 
tree, which lie says he had carried on with success on his 
Sardinian and Neapolitan possessions. It was therefore, in 
all probability, in the course of the third or fourth centuries 
that the citron was introduced and established in Italy. 
The mass of evidence collected by Prof. Targioni seems 
to show that oranges were first brought from India into 
Arabia in the ninth century, that they were unknown in 
Europe, or at any rate in Italy in the eleventh, but were 
shortly afterwards carried westward by the Moors. They 
were in cultivation at Seville towards the end of the twelfth 
century, and at Palermo in the thirteenth, and probably 
also in Italy, for it is said that St. Dominic planted an 
orange for the convent of S. Sabina in Rome, in the year 
1200. In the course of the same thirteenth century, the 
crusaders found citrons, oranges, and lemons very abundant 
in Palestine ; and, in the following fourteenth, both oranges 
and lemons became common in several parts of Italy. It 
appears, however, that the original importation of lemons 
from Tndia into Arabia and Syria occurred about a century 
later than that of oranges. 
Tho shaddock is believed to have followed a different 
route in its migration into Europe. Most abundantly culti¬ 
vated in, and possibly indigenous to, the south-eastern 
extremity of the Asiatic continent, it is said to have been 
carried from thence to the West Indies, and from Jamaica 
and Barbadoes to England early in the eighteenth century. 
It was, however, certainly previously known in Italy, for it is 
described and figured by Ferrari, in 1 (MU, as having been sent 
from Genoa to the garden of Carlo Cadeuas, near Naples. 
There is no record of its first introduction to Genoa, whether 
from the East or the West. 
Innumerable varieties of citrons are cultivated at Florence, 
where they have ever been great favourites as objects of 
curiosity as much as for their flowers and fruits. Among 
them is a very singular one called bizzarria, raised by 
hybridising and cross-grafting, in which the same tree pro¬ 
duces oranges, lemons, and citrons, often on the same branch, 
and sometimes combined into one fruit, a curious case 
analogous to that of the well-known hybrid by grafting 
between the Cytisns laburnum and C. purpureus. 
(2b be continued.) 
HOW LONDON IS SUPPLIED WITH MEAT, 
POULTRY, VEGETABLES, AND MILK. 
(Continued from page 291.) 
The foreign supply last year of cattle, sheep, pigs, and 
calves, was more than a seventh of the entire number sent 
to London. The Daily Bill of Entries at the Custom House 
furnishes us with a valuable indication of the fields from 
which we have already received, and may, in future, expect 
to receive still further additions of what Englishmen greatly 
covet—good beef and mutton at a moderate price. The 
arrivals by steam in the port of London in 1853 were as 
follows :— 
Oxen. 
Sheep. 
Calves. 
Pigs. 
Total. 
From Holland .... 
40,538 
172,730 
24,280 
9,370 
246,918 
,, Denmark.... 
9,487 
7,515 
60 
17,062 
,, Hanseatic Towns . 
4,366 
37,443 
1 
632 
42,442 
,, Belgium .... 
449 
12,006 
1,244 
13,699 
,, France. 
105 
284 
135 
129 
593 
,, Portugal . . . , 
100 
100 
,, Spain. 
17 
.. 
• • 
17 
,, Russia. 
3 
3 
Total . . . t 
55,065 
229,918 
25,720 
10,131 
320,834 
Holland, Denmark, and the Hanseatic Towns, it will be 
seen, were the principal contributors. A more striking 
example of the influence of the legislation of one country in 
modifying the occupations of the people of another could 
not be cited, than the manner in which Sir Robert Peel’s 
tariff revolutionized the character of Danish and Dutch 
farming. Before L844, the pastures of the two countries, 
more especially the rich marshes of Holland, were almost 
exclusively devoted to dairy purposes : the abolition of the 
duty on live stock in that year quickly introduced a new 
state of things. The farmers began to breed stock, and 
consequently turnips and mangel-wurzel have been creeping 
over fields, where once the dairy-maid carried the milking- 
pail, ns gradually as one landscape succeeds another in the 
Polytechnic dissolving views. We get now from both 
countries excellent beef, especially from Jutland, whose 
lowing herds used formerly to go to Hamburgh—and who 
has not heard of the famous Hambro’ beef? We may expect 
in time to receive still finer meat from this quarter, for the 
Danes have been sedulously improving their breed, and 
agriculturists, who saw the beasts which were sent over to 
the last Baker-street show, admitted that they were in every 
respect equal to our own sliort-homs. Tt is gratifying to 
note how ready the world is to follow our lead in the matter 
of stock-breeding. Bulls are bought up at fabulous prices 
by foreigners, and especially by our cousins on the other side 
