developed, others quite ripe; but that no one eats it, and that it is only used to protect clothing from moths. He says the Parthians eat the seed for perfuming the mouth, and adds, it is the only plant boasted of in Media; and vain attempts had been made to transport it thence to Italy. This description, which appears as if drawn from Theophrastus, would imply that the citron was, at that point of time, but a foreign production known only by name; but many other passages from Pliny teach us that this fruit had been carried from Persia to Rome, where it served in medicine, chiefly as an antidote to poison, and was in common use as a perfume for apparel, and protection from moths.

This naturalist reports that they found in the tomb of King Numa books of papyrus, which were uninjured, though entombed for five hundred and thirty-five years, and that the preservation was attributed to the virtue of the citron.

Such was the use of this fruit among the Romans for two centuries, and it was not until the time of Plutarch that they began to use it as food. We know not whether it was eaten raw, or made into confections with honey, which was so greatly used among the Romans.

Neither Plutarch, Atheneus, or Apicius instruct us upon this point. The first two tell us that it was regarded as delicious food, but are silent respecting the manner of eating it; and Apicius, who devotes a chapter to it, in his Treatise on Cooking, contents himself by telling us in very few words the method of conserving it, without saying whether it was eaten, although he gives in another chapter a recipe for making a roseate wine with its leaves.

All these writers speak of it always as an exotic fruit, and not until a long time after was it naturalized in Italy.

We do not know whether the rigor of our climate, which, in olden time, was colder than now, retarded the naturalization of this beautiful tree, or whether we should attribute the delay to the difficulty of transporting it so far, in the centuries when communication was so difficult and the useful arts so little cultivated.

The first of these conjectures would seem the least likely, but finds in history more foundation than the second. Communication was, indeed, more difficult in those days, when navigation, then in its infancy, lacked the mariner's compass, and the manners and prejudices of the more isolated peoples raised barriers among themselves that civilization and philosophy have since overthrown. But we also know that the luxurious demands of the world's conquerors had penetrated to the most remote regions, and that nothing was spared which could augment the delights of the effeminate Caesars.

Pliny tells us that attempts had been made to transport the citron in earthern vases, perforated to give air to the roots. This attempt, which the length of the voyage may have defeated, would have been more successful if, instead of plants, they had carried well-ripened fruit, of which they might have sowed the seeds. But we cannot suppose that the Romans, excelling as they did in agriculture, were ignorant or neglectful (if it had been practicable) of a means so simple and natural for placing in their gardens a fruit so precious. There must, then, have been a

greater obstacle to surmount, and this doubtless was the climate.

It would be easy to demonstrate by convincing arguments that many European countries have experienced in the revolution of centuries marked alterations in the temperature of their climate. The cultivation of the earth, the cutting of trees, and drying of marshes, would producè, naturally, this effect, but it is not necessary to recur to these physical discussions in order to establish a fact of which history gives us certain proof.

Virgil, in his Georgics, says that in his time it was necessary to cover the sheep in the Roman field in order to prevent their perishing in winter.

Pliny, the younger, in describing a field which he owned in Tuscany, said that the cold was so severe there that they could not cultivate the olive, the myrtle, or other delicate trees.

Horace asserts that the streets of Rome were full of ice and snow, and that in rigorous winters the rivers, and even the rapid waters, were covered by ice.

Juvenal pictures for us the superstitious female breaking the ice to make the ablutions (a religious ceremony).

Strabo reports that the vine made little growth in the parts of France bordering on the ocean; and that if it grew at all in such places it never bore fruit.

Finally, a vast number of passages to be found in old writings prove to us in an incontestable mannner that the climate of Italy and France was, in those long past times, much colder than it is now. This was surely the obstacle which hindered the ancients from acclimating in Europe the citron, whose fruit was perfectly well known to the Romans, and was to them an article of luxury.

But its cultivation would extend into Asia Minor. The citron tree, originally from Media, where the warın, damp climate favored its continual vegetation, was already cultivated in Persia in the time of Theophrastus, and could have been easily propagated in other provinces of this Empire.

Herodotus records that Nebuchadnezzar caused the famous gardens of Babylon to be constructed in compliment to his wife, who was accustomed to the delightful climate of Media. Nothing could be more natural than that upon this occa sion the citron be carried to Babylon, whence it could be spread in the neighboring provinces. At the time of Dioscorides it was, without doubt, acclimated in Cilicia. This physician speaks of it in a way to make us think it was naturalized in the district where he lived. He calls it Pomme de Media or cedromeles, and says that the Latins named it citron.

Once cultivated in Cilicia, the citron would, naturally, soon be in Palestine, which at that point touched Persia, and had so many relations with that vast country.

We have already said that as soon as the Hebrews knew of the tree, they devoted it to their Feast of Tabernacles, in which their law ordered them to carry the fruit of the finest tree; and we see by the Samaritan medals, reported by Otius, that this usage was very ancient.

Although it could not have been cultivated in Palestine at that time, it is to be believed that the Hebrews hastened to naturalize in their own

to be plucked for preserving they should be taken from the tree, with bough and leaf, in a night when there is no moon, and placed separately, the one from the other, so they do not touch. Some persons put each one into a vase by itself, scal the vases with plaster, and leave them in a dark place; others save them in saw dust from cedar wood, or in such straw as is used to thatch the trees in winter."

Progress thus marked could not but be the result of a long course of years; therefore we must date the introduction of the citron tree into Italy from a period more than a century before Palladius.

Historians are not agreed upon the time in which Palladius flourished. *

The monks of St. Maur, in the history of French literature, insist that the writer of the book bearing the name Palladius was a son of Esuperantius, prefect of the Gauls, a native of Poictiers, of whom Rutilius speaks in his Itinerary, and who lived in the fifth century. Others have attributed the book to a Palladius who wrote in the reign of Tiberius. I at first thought that the opinion of the learned Benedictines should be set aside, because the writer upon the citron taught us that he himself had possessions in Naples and Sardinia; but, after a little reflection, I see that it is easy to reconcile their opinion with this fact.

The Roman conquests had made of the world but a single family; it was then not impossible for an inhabitant of Poietiers to have domains in Sardinia and Naples. Moreover, I have observed that Palladius often speaks of Apulia, who wrote, according to Vossius, about the year 218, under the Emperor Macrinus; he would, then, be posterior to this philosopher. This fact might place our agricultural writer in the third century of the Christian era, but as his name does not occur in any writings of that time, and as his Latin savors of the decay of taste, I readily believe that he is the Palladius of Poictiers who lived in the fifth century, according to the authors of the literary history of France.

In adopting this conjecture, otherwise well founded, we shall fix the transmigration of the citron into Italy between the third and fourth century of our era. But many other proofs confirm me in this opinion.

Florentinus, a Greek writer on agriculture of the third century, speaks of the citron as a tree cultivated not only in warm districts, but also in climates where it needed shelter.

In his tenth book he expresses himself thus of the citron: "The citron-tree should be planted near walls so as to be protected on the north. In winter it is necessary to cover it with mounds of straw and the vines of gourds. Rich persons who live in magnificence and luxury plant the citron under porticos open to the south, based upon walls, and they water it abundantly. In summer they open the portico so that the sun can penetrate it to enliven and warm these plants. They cover them at the approach of winter."

The citron, then, was already in Greece at the time of Florentinus, an ornament in the pleasuregardens of the great. Why should it not have been in Rome and in Naples, where the riches and effeminacy of the court and princes had concentrated splendor and extravagance; also in

Sardinia and in Sicily where the mildness of the climate was so favorable to its culture? The relations of these countries-neighbors and united under one government-were then so intimate and so multiplied that it was not possible for the citron, already valued at Rome, to be cultivated in the gardens of Greece, and not in the delightful fields of Sicily, of the Campagna of Rome, and of Tusculum.

We must think it probable, then, that this plant, already in Asia Minor and Palestine at the time of Dioscorides and Josephus, passed into Italy about the third century, and that in the time of Palladius it was grown not only in parts of Italy, whose climate would allow it to grow in the open air, but also in districts less warm, where the luxury and magnificence of Roman grandees built country houses, embellished by art, at great expense.

I would not dare to assert that the citron was at this time cultivated in Liguria and Provence. These districts, which owe so little to nature and so much to industry, had not begun to flourish until after the barbaric invasions.

Maritime commerce created the greater number of the small cities, ornamenting since many centuries the steep rocks of Liguria; they date, for the most part, after the eighth century, and their agriculture, which resulted from their com mercial success, did not begin to prosper until the ninth century of our era.

Liguria was in her greatest vigor at the tenth century, but she was so small at the time of which we have been speaking that we cannot believe an exotic plant was cultivated there which would denote a certain degree of civilization not to be found in Liguria at that time.

The culture of this tree made backward steps in the part of Italy where the climate had not permitted it to become naturalized.

The barbarians, who effaced all traces of luxury in overturning the delightful houses of the rich Romans, would destroy this vegetable wherever it exacted care and expense for its existence, but it might still prosper in the isles of the Archipelago, in Sicily, in Sardinia, and in a large part of the Kingdom of Naples, countries remaining under the dominion of the Greeks, and where political catastrophes had not power to exercise their ravages upon its culture, it being there no longer a tree of luxury, but a naturalized plant, existing by the cares of Nature.

It was, then, from these countries that the Ligurians took the citron in the ninth or tenth centuries, since at that time they covered the Mediterranean with their vessels and began to contend with the Venetians for the commerce of the East.

In 1003 we find the citron much cultivated at Salerno, from whence a prince of the country sent it as a gift to some Norman lords who had delivered him from the Saracens. And we know that Liguria, which has always had commercial relations with the coast of Naples, has, for many centuries, provided the Jews of Italy, France, and Germany with citrons.

The Riviera di Salo, since so celebrated for this culture, had not begun to know of the citron until several centuries after. Still later, it was extended to Mentone and Hyeres, and not until the fifteenth century has it been grown in the colder parts of Europe.

ART. II.-Investigations concerning Lemon and Orange Trees-Unknown to the Ancients-Improperly confounded with the Apple of Hesperides-Acclimated recently in Africa-Opinions concerning their Origin.

were

When the lemon and orange trees brought into Europe, the citron had been naturalized several centuries, but as this event occurred in times of ignorance and barbarism, it has remained buried in the shade which covers the history of that period.

When the study of science and of literature began to revive and to diffuse light in Europe, these two species of plants were no longer new; they had become so multiplied that no traces of their transmigration remained. Because of this, most writers have confounded their history with that of the citron, and have thought that they, like the citron, had been known in Italy since the first centuries of the Roman empire.

The fable of the Hesperides has helped to confirm this error. The golden color of the orange, and even its name, have aided this confusion of the fruits in the mind, which was also very congenial to the taste for the marvellous reigning at that period. Thus has this fruit been accepted by all the world as the golden apple of the daughter of Atlas.

In vain have linguists said that the Greek word translated apple could as well be rendered flock, and that the fable refers to the sheep with golden fleece carried off by Hercules. In vain has it also been said that the golden apples of the poets might be coins, which, by their color, assisted this allegory; the most celebrated crit. ics have persisted in believing them to be oranges.

The Hesperides were placed by some geographers in an African island, thought to be no other than the Fortunate isles (Canaries), now covered by a great quantity of oranges; and by others, upon the west coast of Africa, whose warm climate is specially suited to the culture of this tree; all this gave rise to the belief that, in their voyages on this coast, the Egyptians and Greeks, having found orange groves, had from this invented the fable of Hercules and the enchanted gardens of the Hesperides.

It is easy to show the folly of this opinion. The fable speaks of Hercules stealing golden apples in this wonderful garden, yet makes no mention of a tree as delicious for shade as it is agreeable by the perfume of its flowers.

the coasts he had visited, and that which Scyllias wrote of the gardens of the Hesperides, we shall find no mention in either of this tree, although Scyllias has described exactly all that he found. The Hesperides, according to Strabon, were in an island of Libyia (Georg, 2d bk., p. 84), and Scyllias describes the garden (in Periplo, p. 46). Is it to be presumed that these writers had seen it and were not impressed by the sight, as were travellers who preceded them? I have noticed the same silence among the first voyagers who, under Prince Henry, of Portugal, discovered ali this const. I have attentively read the narrations of Alvise da Cadamosto, the history of Barros, the voyage of Vasco de Gama, and many others, and have not found a passage which could refer to the orange this side the Cape of Good Hope.

Notwithstanding, these travellers have not forgotten to speak of those they saw in Ethiopia, or country of Pretre Jean. They remark at Madeira the tree which they call cedre, also the lotus, already mentioned by Scyllias. They tell us the shores of the Cape de Verd and neighboring isles are pleasantly ornamented by trees always green, which they do not describe, but which we know were not oranges.

I have thought for a moment that the orange was originally in the Canaries, when Louis da Cadamosto, in his voyage in Guinea, written in 1463, speaks in a seemingly truthful manner of this tree being well known in those islands; but I have remarked that not a word is said of it in the history of the discovery and conquest of the Canaries, written in 1402 by M. Jean de Bethencourt, in which, however, he speaks of palms and other trees. Consequently, I believe that from Spain and Portugal the orange passed into these islands, where, in sixty years, it had certainly multiplied and become known.

Leon, the African, who wrote at the end of the fifteenth century the description of the interior of this country, even to beyond Mount Atlas, where now there are so many oranges among the palm trees, found none, except in the Kingdom of Cano (ancient Canopus, near Egypt), and we know that this district must have had for a long time commercial relations with the Arabs, who had already introduced the orange tree into Egypt and upon the coasts of the Mediterranean.

We should, then, conclude that to the Arabs Western Africa is indebted for this plant, which would thrive there as well as at Madeira and the Canaries, where it had been cultivated since 1463. Before this era it was known only at Morocco, where the Arabs had carried it, and its culture extended scarcely beyond that country, which had been for a long time acquainted with Eu rope.

If, in Homer's time, there had been oranges upon this coast, they must have multiplied infinitely, and would not have escaped the observation of our navigators, who would have placed the fact in their narrations; but it was reserved for Europe to enrich with this tree those happy climates where the ancients had placed the fortunate isles and the delightful gardens of the daughters of Atlas.

medica. It is impossible to apply to it the descriptions made of this tree by Theophrastus, Virgil, Pliny, and the most part of those who have copied them; and if this opinion has some seeming foundation, in regard to the lemon, it is entirely inadmissible for the orange. The more judicious writers have seen the falsity of it, but have imagined another hypothesis no better founded.

It was an old prejudice, generally received among cultivators, that in grafting successfully one species upon another, either new species were obtained, or extraordinary fruit, which resembled at the same time two species. They attribute to this operation, which they consider very difficult of success, the varieties produced by fertilization, and of which they did not know the origin.

This opinion was also adopted by the Arabs. Abd-Allatif tells us that in Egypt it was believed "that the banana tree came originally from the mingling of the colocasie and the stone of the date, and to produce this composite vegetable it is necessary to bury a date-stone in the interior of a colocasie, and thus to plant it."

Prosper Alpin reports the same opinion in another manner, and instructs us concerning the belief that was held in this country relative to the sycamore (ficus sycomorus. L.), which was regarded as the product of a graft of fig tree upon the mulberry. He said that some pretend that the banana (musa paradisiaca. L.) was the product of a graft of sugar-cane upon the colocasie (arum colocasia. L.). See the translation of Abd-Allatif, by M. de Sacy, pp. 28 and 105.

This prejudice or opinion applies chiefly to sterile varieties of plants, and the cultivated banana is of this number; it is a genuine monster, due to fecundation, and in which the fruit is improved at the expense of the seed. We know that its type exists in India, and there multiplies by seed. It is not cultivated in gardens, because its fruit is not as good as that of the sterile variety.

The old writers are full of methods relative to these operations, and of ridiculous recipes to sweeten fruits of a disagreeable taste, or to change their color. Some have applied these fancies to the orange, and many authors have thought that this tree owed its origin to the citron grafted upon the pomegranate or the mulberry, and that the sweetness of these fruits was but the effect of careful culture received in our gardens.

I might report a great number of passages proving how much this opinion was believed. I will, however, limit myself to the following:

of Agriculture," by Mitterpacher, vol. 2, p. 201, to be convinced of this.

We have already, in the early part of this book, shown how this opinion is without foundation. It is based upon no well known fact, and a thousand experiences unite to disprove it. However, ignorance of the true cause of these varieties and extraordinary productions, has credited it, and with the necessity for assigning a cause for a phenomenon recognized as really existing, this system was received even by physicians and naturalists.

These principles have also been applied to the lemon, which some have thought was the result of culture and extraordinary grafts. I have already demonstrated that this plant cannot owe its existence to fecundation, since it has features peculiar to itself, which are constantly reproduced by seed, and which make it known as a mother species. There only remains for me to prove that it was not known to the ancients, either under the generic name of mala medica, or any other appellation.

The Persian apples described by Theophrastus and Pliny bear all the characteristics which belong to the citron, and we do not see that any old writer has observed that there existed two kinds. This could not have escaped Palladius, Florentinus, Constantine, Galen, or Dioscorides, who, either as writers on agriculture, or as physicians, ought to have appreciated the difference between the lemon and citron, in their relation to agriculture, as well as to medicine. Therefore their silence should be considered, in good criticism, as not only a negative proof, but as positive data; while the exclusive mention they have made of the properties of this species of fruit, without presenting any of those which could belong to the lemon, suffices to give to our conjecture the character of certainty.

Pliny's Natural History speaks of two plants seeming to the casual glance to have points of resemblance with the citrus-one is the citre of Africa, the other the thyam.

The following occurs as a foot-note in the original:

Among the writers who have spoken of the tables of citre (citrea mensa, Petron.) of which the ancients made so great account, some have thought that they were of the wood of the cit ron, others, of the juniper, the arbor-vitæ, the savin, the acacia, or the almug of Scripture. (1st Kings, 10, 12.)

But nothing else than the identity of name and exorbitant price of these tables among the Romans could have given rise to these two opinions, equally unfounded.

It is very true that the word citrus has been indifferently employed by the Latins, to designate the African citre, (citrus lybica, Varron ; citrus atlantica, Martial; and the citron tree of Media, citrus medica.)

This opinion still exists in the mind of many cultivators with respect to the red-fruited orange and the bizarrerie, and all plants which offer singular varieties. One has but to read the notes to the Italian translation of the "Elements