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The orange appeared in Italy under the name of orenges, which the people modified according to the pronunciations of the different sections, into arangio, naranzo, aranza, aranzo, citrone, cetrangolo, melarancio, melangolo, arancio. One meets successively all these names in works of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, such as those of Hugo Falcandus, Nicolas Specialis, Blondus Flavius, Sir Brunetto Latini, Ciriffo Calvaneo, Bencivenni, Bocaccio, Giustiniani, Leandro Alberti, and several others.

The Provencals also received this tree under the name of orenges, and have changed it from time to time in different provinces, into arangi, airange, orenge, and finally orange. (See Glossary of the Roman Language, by Roquefort.)

During several centuries the Latin authors found themselves embarassed in designating this fruit, which had no name in that language. The first who spoke of it used a phrase indicating its characteristics, accompanying it with the popu lar name of arangi, latinized into orenges, arangias, arantium.

Thus, Jacques de Vitry, who calls the oranges poma citrina, adds, The Arabs call them Drenges." And Nicolas Specialis designated them as pommes aigres (acripomorum arbores), observing that the people call them arangias. These have been followed by Blondus Flavius and many others.

Matheus Silvaticus first gave to the orange the name of citrangulum, and this denomination seems to have been followed for a long time by physicians and translators of Arabic works, who have very generally adopted it for rendering the Arab word, narindj.

Thus, citrangulum was received for more than a century in the language of science; finally, little by little, were adopted the vulgar, Latinized names in use among other writers, such as authors of chronicles, etc.; and they have written

but what is this he calls medici: Evidently it must be the

orange.

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successively, arangium, arancium, arantium, anarantium, nerantium, aurantium, pomum aureum. The Greeks followed in the same steps; they have either Grecianized the name of narenge, which was in use among Syrian Arabs, or they received it from the Crusaders from the Holy Land, and have adopted it in their language, calling it nerantzion.*

These have, however, always been considered vulgar names, and, in general, the better Latin writers have made use of the generic name, citrus, for designating the Agrumi.

This usage, followed by most of the writers on history and chorography, often occasions uncertainty and difficulty in researches concerning the beginning of this culture in the different countries where these trees have been introduced.t

* In the islands of the Archipelago they call the orange, in common language, nerica.

Etymologists of all nations have sought for the origin of the names citrus, limon and aurantium. Persuaded that these trees had been known by Greeks and Romans, they have expected to find them only in the languages of these two peoples; and this assumption has given birth to all conjectures concerning the origin of these words. We do not propose to examine separately each of the etymologies offered; it suffices for combating them that we present the result of our research and observation. We are forced to admit that the citron was known very

anciently by the Greeks; but they have never designated it as other than Median apple (pomme de Medie).

The word citrus did not pass into their language until the second century of the Roman Empire, and in adopting it they gave it a national termination (kitrion), just as the Latins did upon receiving from them the name of pomme de Medie (mala medica). One cannot raise a doubt concerning this fact, attested by Dioscorides, who tells us that only among the Latins did the word citrus designate apple of Media; and by Phrisnicus Arabius-a Sophist, and cotemporary with the Emperor Commodus-who says positively that in his time the Greeks had adopted this first word as an ancient synonym (mala medica, quæ nunc citra appellantur).

It is, then, certain, from these two authors, that first, the Greeks received the word citrus a long time after having known the citron-tree; secondly, that we can not find itsetymology in their language; thirdly, it cannot belong to the language of the country where the citron was indigenous, for in that case the Greeks would have received it with the tree, and given it to the Latins instead of getting it from them.

Alberti, in his voyage to Italy in 1528, uses the Italian names of aranci, cedri, limoni, etc.; but Giustiniani, who in 1500 wrote the History of Genoa, in Italian, savoring of the patois of his country, uses names analogous to those used by Hondio, long after. Il territorio di S. Remo (saidnym of the name received from the Greeks. he), e tutto pieno di citroni, limoni, cedri, e aranzi,

We have seen that the Latins themselves for a long time knew the citron only as Apple of Media (mala medica). They gave it the name of citrus long after, and as a syno

We easily recognize in these, the four species, now called bigarade, lemon, citron, and orange. But writers were slow to adopt them into living or dead languages, Greek or Latin; and there have been rigid purists, who liked better to form new words drawn from the ancient name of citrus, of which these species were regarded as modifications, rather than to use these foreign words, thought to be barbarisms. Thus were, created the Latin words, citrangulus, citrulus, cetronus, and the Italian names citrangoli, cetroni, melangoli, ete.

In France, they have pushed this purism of language so far as preserving to the lemon in ordinary language the name of citron; and have adopted the words limonade and limonadier, because those who sold this drink came into France during the ministry of Cardinal Mazarin, and knew no other than their Italian names.

Of this we have proof in an injunction to the limonadiers, reported by Delamar in his Treatise of Police, where, speaking of these merchants, he says: Qui liquor em ex citreis expressum vendit, poculorum, citreorum, propola,....bk 1, p. 204.

No doubt these citrei were lemons, but this name was considered a vulgar word, and, writing in Latin, one thought he could not use another word than citri, which was regarded as the only technical term. It is in following these principles that the word citron has continued to be used for lemon, in the ordinary language of France.

* Mat. Sil., Pandecta Medicinæ, p. 58.

This was not, however, a new word in the Latin tongue; it had been used a long time, and we find it in nearly all the writings of the pure age of literature; but it was not devoted to the designation of the citron-tree, as they knew nothing of it. It was applied to the African tree which furnished the precious tables spoken of elsewhere.

This would seem to indicate that the name originated in the country from whence they came; for the tree of which they made the planks must have had a name among the natives, and the merchants who sold these to the Romans could not but call them by that name. Therefore, it necessarily passed into the language of the conquerors, just as the names of most of the American and Asiatic plants have passed with the plant, or the fruit, into our modern languages.

This conjecture is so natural that it seems to me to require no proof. It is more difficult to explain how this name was applied to the citron-tree.

Ancient writers furnish no passage which can throw light upon this obscure point; but they offer some conjectures well founded. The Romans had very vague ideas of the tree called African citrus, and also of the citronier; they thought of them merely as precious plants furnishing them luxurious objects.

In the infancy of botany, when they had but very impe fect notions of objects, it was easy to confound them, and to persuade themselves that a tree who 3 wood was o va!uable ought to produce fruit of eat price.

Many circumstances favored this false opinion. T Citrus of Africa had for some time furnished very boar

The use of it as seasoning for food, brought from Palestine to Liguria, to Provence, and to Sicily, penetrated to the interior of Italy and France.

The taste for confections was propagated in Europe with the introduction of sugar, and this delicate food became at once a necessary article to men in easy circumstances, and a luxury upon all tables. It was, above all, as confections, that the Agrumi entered into commerce; and we see by the records of Savona that they were sent into cold parts of Italy, where people were very greedy for them.

ful planks, yet little by little became very scarce, and it was said that this cutting the wood had thinned these trees upon Mount Ancorarius, and that they only grew at the base of Mount Atlas. About this time were brought the first citrons from Asia to Rome. The Romans had no proper name for these fruits, while they had one belong ing to the tree which furnished the tables. They found that even the Greeks only knew these fruits by a paraphrase indicating the country whence they came. Nothing more natural than from esteem to give to them the name of a tree of which they were beginning to have only a remembrance, and whose rarity and price seemed to ally it to the newly-imported fruit.

This is founded only on probabilities, but is, nevertheless, more admissible than the conjectures of the etymologists. Those persons desirous to know these should consult Macrobe, in the third book of Saturnales, chapter 19; Athenee, book 3; Phanias Eresius, Isidorus, Ferraris, the Lexicons, and the Etymolog. Magn.

It will suffice here to observe that the word citrum has also been given by the Latins to a kind of gourd, probably on account of its clear, yellow color, which distinguishes it. From this word has come citrullus, whence probably has been derived citrouille, which in France is given to a kind of gourd. We have but to consult Apicius, who gives the mode of seasoning it, in his treatise upon cooking.

The words citrinus and citrina, as epithets, were in use for a great number of fruits, after they had been adopted to express the clear, yellow color peculiar to the citron. (Pliny, Nat. Hist.) The etymology of the words limon and aurantium has been equally sought after in the Greek and Latin languages.

Some have traced back the word limon to a Greek word for meadow or prairie, because of the analogy thought to exist between the lemon tree and a meadow in their continued verdure.

The second appears to be formed of the word aureum, and some have thought aurantium was but a corruption of malum auratum, which has been regarded as a synonym of the malum hesperidum of the ancients.

All these views have been displayed by a great number of authors, chiefly by Ferraris, in his Hesperides; by Saumaise, in his Notes upon Solinus, p. 955; by Octave Ferrari, in his Origines Lingua Italico; by Menage, in his Etymological Dictionary of the French language; and by the authors of the Dictionary of Trevoux.

The facts that we have collected upon the history of these plants convince us that these names belong neither to the Greek or Latin tongues. These, as well as all modern languages, received them from the Arabians, who took them from the Malay and Hindoo. It is, in truth, under the names of lemon and naregan, that these trees are to-day known in India. We are assured of this by all travellers and botanists who have described the plants of that country, bur chiefly by Gilchrist, a learned Englishman, who, in his Dictionary of English-Hindoo, printed at Calentta, points out the word narendj as belonging to the Hindostanee.

It was, then, from the languages of India that they must have passed into the Persian and Arabic, where they were modified according to the genius of pronunciation.

Those names which by their form must have originated in the Arab tongue, have an uncertain orthography, varying in different authors of that nation. From the Arabic they passed into our modern languages, submitting to some alterations, Latinized and Grecianized by the writers in these two tongues. Thus, of narendy has been made the Latin word airangi, afterwards changed to arangi, arangium, arantium, aurantium. Thus, too, have the French formed their words, arangi, airange, orenge, orange; the Italians the words arangio, aranzo, naranzo, arancio, and the Spaniards the word narana. The word lymoun has been taken with the change.

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e enose have always provided for the greeṛ part of hope, were, in the thirteenth century, one of the most highly-prized of the articles of luxu

After having cultivated these species for the use made of their fruits, they soon cultivated them as ornaments for the gardens.

The monks began to fill with these trees the courts of their monasteries, in climates suited to their continual growth, and soon one found no convent not surrounded by them. Indeed, the courts and gardens of these houses show us now trees of great age; and it is said that the old tree, of which we see now a rejeton in the court of the convent of St. Sabina, at Rome, was planted by St. Dominic, about the year 1200.*

This fact has no other foundation than tradition; but this tradition, preserved for many centuries, not only among the monks of the convent, but also among the clergy of Rome, is reported by Augustin Gallo, who, in 1559, speaks of this orange as a tree existing since time immemorial.

If we refuse to attribute its planting to St. Dominic, we must at least refer it to a period soon after, that is, to the end of the thirteenth century, at the latest.

Nicolas Specialis, in the passage cited on another page, in describing the havoc made by the besiegers in the suburbs of Palermo, regrets the destruction of orangers, or trees of sour apples (pommes aigres), which he regards as rare plants, embellishing the pleasure-house of Cubba.

Blondus Flavius, a writer of the middle of the following century, speaks of the orange on the coast of Amalfi (a city of Naples, Tr.) as a new plant, which as yet had no name in scientific he extols the valleys of Rapallo and San Remo, language (Blond. Flav., Ital. Illust., p. 420), and in Liguria, for the culture of the citrus, a rare ry. Jean Musso, who, in 1388, wrote a history of pleasurehouses, in describing the manners of his time, says they commenced dinner with confectum zuchari, and that most men in easy circumstances provided it as a thing in common use: Tenent bonas confectiones in domibus corum de zucharo et de melle. This is confirmed by all the authors of that period; and we find in the records of Savona, in 1468, the Commune sent as a present to its ambassador at Milan, citrons and lemons. Profructibus missis Mediolanum videlicet limonibus confectis et citris. Liv. d'admin, H.

*The orange tree that one sees in the court of the convent of St. Sabina. at Rome, is doubtless of a very aucient date. An old tradition says that it was planted by St. Dominic. This was a well-established opinion in 1530, and Augustine Gallo, who wrote abont that time, speaks of it as a fact very sure. The Father Ferraris saw and described this tree in 1660, and Tanara, about forty years later, did the same.

This plant exists to-day, and grows in a kind of nook or hollow, whose locality agrees precisely with that described by Ferraris. It was carefully tended by the monks of St. Dominic, who regarded it as planted by their founder, and distributed its fruit to the sick as miraculous. There was also a rule among the monks to present of it to the cardinals and Pope, when they should come on Ash-Wednesday to visit this church.

The actual condition of this tree is, however, too vigorous to admit of our thinking this was always the same stem. It is to be supposed that the present orange tree is but a sprout from the old plant, which, no doubt, was cut off in the frost of 1709. What helps this conjecture is the fact that in the time of Ferraris the tree was in a state of extreme old age. It is true this writer said it had at its foot a sprout or rejeton, which promised its renewal, but this is not that sprout, for it must have submitted to the frost of which we have spoken.

The present stem has a diameter of ten inches. It is divided into two branches, well covered, which, in 1806, according to the assertions of the monks, yielded 2,000

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tree in Italy. Cujus ager (San Remo), these are his words, est citri, palmaquæ, arborum in Italia rarissimarum, ferax. (Blond. Flav., Ital. Illust., p. 296.)

Lastly, Pierre de Crescenzi, Senator of Bologna, who wrote in 1300 a treatise on agriculture, speaks only of the citron tree. We find in his expressions no hint of lemon or orange.

The culture of these trees, then, had been begun, in the fourteenth century, only in a few places, but was extended in proportion as arts and luxury advanced the civilization of Europe. The orange was from the first valued not alone for the beauty of its foliage and quality of its fruit, of which the juice was used in medicine, but also for the aroma of its flowers, of which essences were made.*

Pharmacists have employed with success the juice of lemon in making medicines.+

The orange-tree must have been taken to Provence about the time it entered Liguria. It is to be presumed that the city of Hyeres, so celebrated for the softness of its climate and the fertility of its soil, received it from the Crusaders, because from this port the expeditions to the Holy Land took their departure.

We see, indeed, that it was greatly multiplied there, and in 1566 the plantations of oranges within its territory were so extensive and wellgrown as to present the aspect of a forest.‡

The territory of Nice, so advantageously placed between Liguria and Provence, would necessarily receive from its neighbors a tree so suited to the softness of its climate, sheltered by the Alps, and to the nature of its soil, fertilized by abundant waters. It appears that the culture had already greatly extended towards the mid

*From the moment the orange was known, it was used in medicine; Avicenna appears to be the first who used it in making his syrup of Alkadere, of which he was the inventor. The Damascene (in Antidotario) began to draw oil from it, and from its seed. (Oleum de citrangulis, et oleum de citrangulorum seminibus. Silv., p. 58.) But nothing was so desirable as the perfumes made of its flowers they surpass in sweetness those of the other species. Medicine and perfumery have made, and still make, great consumption of these flowers.

The lemon has been employed also in medicine. Silvaticus regards it as an excellent remedy against worms, and says the mothers of Piedmont and Nice made great use of it for the children. He commends the virtues of its

skin and of the syrup from its juice for the nausea of preg nant women, and the pestilential fevers.

But the most common use of this fruit was as a season

ing for food; this usage existed in Palestine in the time of Jacques de Vitry (See Hist. Orient., p. 170). It had reached Sicily in the time of Hugo Falcandus; and Silvaticus teaches us that this use of the lemon was all over Italy. (See Mat. Silv., Pand. Med., fol. 125.)

It appears that not until some time after did they begin This drink originated among the Orientals. It passed into Italy about the middle of the fourteenth century, and into France not until the time of Cardinal Mazarin. (See At this time drinking-shops were opened in Paris, where the public found refreshments composed of sugared water and lemon juice.

to make the drink known as limonade.

Menage, Dict. Etymol.).

These merchants were called limonadiers, from the drink they sold. They were united as a body of tradesmen in 1678. In the regulations of police, the name of limonadiers is also applied to the coffee-sellers.

We read in an ancient book, entitled "Collection of words, during the voyage of King Charles IX., now reigning, accompanied by things worthy of memory, &c., by Abel Jovan, printed at Toulouse in 1566," the following passage: "The king made his entry said day into the city of Hyeres.. Around this city there is so great an abundance of oranges and palms and pears and other trees, which bear cotton, that they are like a forest."

dle of the fourteenth century, as we find in the History of Dauphiny that the Dauphin Humbert, returning from Naples in 1336, bought at Nice twenty plants of orange trees. (Hist. of Dauphiny, bk. 2, p. 271.)

From Naples and Sicily the orange and lemon trees must have been carried into the Roman States, into Sardinia and Corsica and to Malta.

The islands of the Archipelago perhaps first received them, because, belonging in great part to the Genoese and Venetians, it is probable they were the intermediate points whence the Crusaders of Genoa and Venice transported the plants to their homes. From these isles the trees have afterwards spread into the delightful coast of Salo on the shores of Lake Garda, where, in Gallo's time (1559), they were regarded as acclimated from time immemorial.

Finally, the orange and the lemon penetrated into the colder latitudes, and perhaps one owes to the desire of enjoying their flowers and fruit, the invention of hot-houses, afterwards called orangeries. (The name of orangerie is a modern word in the French language. Olivier de Serre does not use it-he calls this kind of inclosure orange-houses, p. 633. The Italian language has no word responding precisely to orangery. We find in some modern authors, equivalent words, such as aranciera, cedroniera, citroniera. FONTANA, Dizionario rustico, bk. 1, p. 74. But the ancient writers styled these places for preserving these trees by the phrase, stanzone per i cedri. In Tuscany and the Roman States, they call them rimesse; in other places they are known under the name of serre (inclosure). Matioli says, that in his time they cultivated the oranges in Italy, on the shores of the sea, and of the most famous lakes, as well as in the gardens of the interior, but he says nothing of the places for sheltering them. Gallo speaks of rooms designed to receive the boxes of orange-trees, which were very numerous at Brescia, but he does not designate them by any particular name. The Latin writers also used a periphrase. Ferraris calls an orangery, tectum hibernum. Others call it cella citraria.)

This agricultural luxury was unknown in Europe before the introduction of the citrontree. We find not the least trace of it either in Greek or Latin writers.

It is true that from the time of the Emperor Tiberius, in Rome they inclosed melons in certain portable boxes of wood, which were exposed to the sun in winter, to make the fruit grow out of season. These inclosures were secured from the effects of cold by sashes or frames, and received the sun's rays through diaphanous stones (specularia), which held the place of our glass. But it seems they used no fire for heating them, and that they merely inclosed thus, indigenous plants, of which they wished to force the fruiting out of season, it being a speculation of the cultivator rather than a luxu rious ornament for embellishing the gardens. (PLINY, bk. 19, chap. 5, p. 336, and COLUMELL, bk. 2, chap. 3, p. 42.) It is after the introduction of the citron tree into Europe that we begin to find, among the ancients, examples of artificial coverings and shelters against cold.

Palladius is the first who speaks of these coverings, but only as appropriate for the citron,

and gives no description of them. Florentin, who wrote, probably, after him, describes them at more length; and it seems by his expressions that in his time the citron was covered in the bad scason by wooden roofs, which could be withdrawn when there was no occasion to defend them from cold, and which, also, could be arranged to secure for them the rays of the sun. (FLORENT., bk. 10, chap. 7, p. 219.)

This agricultural luxury, which began to appear about the time of Palladius and Florentin, must have been entirely destroyed in Italy by the invasion of the barbarians. I have remarked that Pierre de Crescenti, who wrote a treatise on agriculture in 1300, while treating of the citron, speaks only of walls to defend it from the north, and of some covers of straw. Brunsius and Antonius, quoted by Sprengel, have thought to find in the Statutes of Charlemagne indications of a hot-house. I have closely examined the article cited by those writers, (in Comment. de reb. Franc. orient, bk. 2, p. 902, etc.), but have not found a word that could make me believe this means of preserving delicate plants was employed at that period.

I have even remarked that in these ordinances many plants are named, which Charlemange wished to have in his fields, but no word to be construed into ordering a shelter for any, unless the fig and almond.

It is astonishing that having spoken in detail of all the parts of the house, of laboring utensils the most ordinary-and even of those of housekeeping-he forgot an object of such great luxury as a hot-house.

But in proportion as civilization and commerce increased riches and extravagance, the fruit of this tree became more sought for, and at the same time, more common: whilst, above all, the properties' of the new species just introduced extended its use in medicine, in agreeable drinks, and as a luxury of the table.

At first they were, in cold countries, only a foreign production, procured from the South; but afterwards the people began to covet from the more happy climates the ornament of these trees, and to wish, above all, to embellish with them their gardens.

Iu temperate climes they began to cultivate them in vases, depositing them during winter in caves; and in the cold latitudes the necessity of struggling against nature, gave the idea of constructing apartments which could be heated at pleasure by fire, and which would shelter the plants from the rigor of the season.

It is difficult to fix the date at which they be gan to build edifices for protection of oranges. The oldest trace of it that I have been able to find is furnished by a passage in the History of Dauphiny, dated 1336, (we find in this History, printed at Geneva in 1722, an extract from an account of expenses made by Humbert, the Dauphin, in his voyage of Naples in 1336. In the expenses for the return we see the sum of ten tarins-the tarin was the thirtieth part of an ounce of Naples-for the purchase of twenty orange plants. Item pro arboribus viginti de plantis arangiorum ad plantandum taren. X. Hist. of Dauph., bk. 2, p. 276). This, it is true, offers few circumstantial details for fixing the fact that the princes of Dauphiny had really, at

that time, an orangery; but as this historian tells us that Humbert bought at Nice twenty roots of oranges for a plantation (ad plantandum), it is to be supposed that he had in his palace at Vienna, a place designed to preserve them in the winter; for without this precaution, they certainly would have perished in the rigorous climate of Dauphiny. (In southwest part of France.-Tr).

This luxury must have passed immediately into the capital of France, and though I have not yet found in history indications of these establishments before 1500, it is very probable that they were known there about the middle of the fourteenth century.

The celebrated tree, preserved still in the orangery at Versailles, under the name of Francis First, or Grand Bourbon, was taken from the Constable of Bourbon, in the seizure made of his goods in 1523. And this prince, who, it is said, possessed it for eighty years, could not have kept it except in an orangery. (The orange tree at Versailles, known as Francois Premier, is the most beautiful tree that I have seen in a box. It is twenty feet high, and extends its branches to a circumference of forty feet. Spite of that I scarcely believe that this fine stalk dates from the fourteenth century. It is too vigorous, and the skin is too smooth, to be able to count so many years. It is probable that in so long a course of time it has been cut, and that the pres ent tree is a sprout from the old root. This might have occurred after the frost of 1709, which penetrated even into sheltered places. One circumstance gives foundation to this conjecture This tree is composed of two stalks, which both come out of the earth, and have a common stock. This is never the way the tree grows by nature, still less in a state of culture, and from roots held in vases. I have mostly remarked it in the greater number of trees growing upon a stump which had been razeed at the level of the ground In such case one is forced to leave two suckers, because the sap, being very abundant, could not develop itself in one shoot. It would experience a sort of reaction which would suffocate the stump and make it perish. This is a well known fact in the South, where we cultivate largely the orange, and where the trees of double stems are generally recognized as rejetons, or suckers from old roots.)

After all these data, we are authorized to think that in the fourteenth century they had begun already to erect buildings designed to create for exotic plants an artificial climate. But at the beginning of the fifteenth century orangeries passed from kings' gardens to those of the people; chiefly in countries where they were not compelled to heat them by fire, as in Brescia, Romagna, and Tuscany. (See Matioli, who says that in his day the orange was cultivated in Italy, in all the gardens of the interior, where certainly it could not live, unless in orangeries. Diosc. c. 132. We also find in Sprengel's History of Botany, that in this country there were at that time many botanical gardens where they cultivated exotic plants; a circumstance which presupposes the necessity of hot-houses.)

About the middle of the seventeenth century this luxury was very general, and we see distinguished by their magnificence and grandeur,

the orangeries of the Farnese family at Parma, į this conquering people present only bitter orof the Cardinals Xantes, Aldobrandini, and Pio, anges. at Rome, of the Elector Palatin at Heidelberg, (Oliv. de Ser., p. 633) of Louis Thirteenth in France; and even at Ghent, in Belgium, that of M. de Hellibusi, who imported plants from Genoa, and carried his establishment to the last degree of magnificence. (See Ferraris, p. 150, where he describes the orangery of M. de Hellibusi at Ghent, and that of Louis Thirteenth at Paris. The latter has been replaced by that of Versailles, of which the magnificence renders it perhaps the finest monument of this kind to be found in Europe.)

We now see orangeries in all the civilized parts of Europe, it being an embellishment necessary to all country-seats and houses of pleas

ure.

the

ART. IV.-Nature of the Orange Tree among Arabs and Europeans of the Middle AgesSweet Orange Unknown at this Epoch-Observa tions upon the Native Country of the Different Species of Citrus, and their Transmigration.

The investigations of which we have just given the result would seem to fix definitely the history of the orange tree. But how much was I surprised when an examination of all the facts I have gathered upon this subject compelled me to see that the tree in question, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, was not the orange of sweet fruit, but the bigarade!

This observation, of which I shall presently give proofs, awakened in my mind numberless suspicions and conjectures, forcing me to renewed observations and examinations, referring always to the theory of species and their improvement by culture.

1 at first suspected that the bigarade tree might be the wild stock of the orange, which the Arabs, having propagated by seed, had afterwards allowed to become debased and to return to its natural state.

But, in proportion as I have obtained results by my own experiments, my conjectures have been changed; and I find myself forced to seek in historical facts the solution of this problem. These researches, indeed, have brought me to results which agree perfectly with physiological principles drawn from my experiments; and I have had the satisfaction of seeing these two parts of my work leaning the one upon the other reciprocally, and mutually lending themselves to explain phenomena which they seem to present.

I shall now begin to show the data which have convinced me that the orange tree carried by Arabs into Palestine, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain, thence to Sicily, to Liguria, and to Provence, was only the bigarade or sour-orange tree.

The Alcazar of Seville is, perhaps, the oldest of those magnificent palaces preserved with so much care by the Spaniards as an honorable witness to the glories and dangers of their ancestors. It dates from the twelfth century; and an Arabic inscription, now to be seen upon one of its portals, and of which M. Bruna has given me a translation, fixes the date of its construction as the year 1181. That which remains the most intact of this antique monument is a large orange grove at the end of the garden. This grove is. stocked with trees, showing extreme old age, and all are of sour fruit. The territory around Seville, though covered with orange trees, presents this species only in this grove, and can show no other plantation of so great age. We see, however, many orange gardens whose trees are very old. There is an exact description of such in the Voyage of M. Navagero, Venetian ambassador to Charles V., printed in 1523.

particular in the embellishment of their gardens, Doubtless the Caliphs of Spain, who were very would have preferred to this species the sweet orange, had it been known when this grove was planted.

Africa, the first theatre of Moorish conquests, exhibits also only this species, in places where it has been acclimated since a very remote time.

Witness the woods of orange trees remarked by Jean Leon, near Cano, south of Atlas, the only ones he found in these regions," and which," said he, "bear sour fruit."

Witness the oranges found in Ethiopia by the Portuguese when, they passed into India, and which were sour; also, as Alvarez teaches us in his narration of the voyage he made to Ethiopia in 1520; and Ferraris, too, who relies upon the authority of the relations by missionaries. In Ethiopia solo, cultu propemodum nullo, nasci poma citrea rara ea quidem, sed visenda magnitudinis et præcipui saporis; aurantia vero acri tantum sapori arguta uberius provenire.—FER., p. 47.

But we have testimony still more precise and determined, in Arabian works where this plant is mentioned.

The Damascene (Abd-ulfeda) and Avicenna speak of the orange only as a sour fruit, of which may be made syrups. Acetositatis citri......et acetositatis citranguli.

Ebn-Beitar, in his dictionary of simple remedies, makes of this fruit a description agreeing perfectly with what is said of it by those two "the orange writers just referred to. He says, tree is well known; its leaf is smooth, and of a encloses a sour juice similar to that of the citron. deep green; the fruit is round, and the interior The tree resembles strongly the citron tree; its flower is white and of a sweet odor." (Arabian MSS., No. 172.)

Massoudi, who is quoted by M. de Sacy in the These proofs, already very numerous before notes to his translation of Abd-Allatif, distinmy arrival in Paris, have been greatly strength-guishes the fruit from the citron only by its form, ened by new observations, for which I am indebted to the politeness of M. de Sacy.

The Arabs carried the lemon and orange trees first into Arabia, and from that country they propagated them in places where they had established their dominion. But the most ancient agricultural monuments remaining to us of

and calls it citron rond. And Ebn-Al Awam, in his agricultural book, says that the fruit of the orange tree is round, and that its juice has the acidity of the citron, from which it comes. (Spanish translation, bk 1, p. 320.) But it is not only in Arabia, in Africa, and in Spain, that the orange was known as a sour fruit. Italy pre

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