The Florida agriculturist., 1884-11-12
CHAPTER IN.

CHAPTER ".
ART. IV.-Nature of the Orange Tree
among the Arabs and Europeans of the
Middle Ages-Sreet Orange unknoaCn at
this Dissertations upon the Ma
tire Country of the Different Species of
Citrus, and their TrGnsmigrdtiOn.
The investigation of which we have
given the result would seem to fix defin-
itely the history of the orange tree. But
how much was | surprised when an ex-
animation of all the facts 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 l shall
presently give proofs, awakened in my
mind numberless suspicious and conjec-
lures, forcing me to renewed observa-
tions and examinations, referring always
to the theory of species and their inn
provement by culture.
| at first suspected that the bigarade
tree might be the wild stock of the or
ange, which the Arabs, having propaga-
ted by seed, had afterwards allowed to
become debased and to return to its natu-
raj state.
But, i'll proportion as have obtained
results by my own experiments, my
coniectures have been changed; and
find myself forced to seek in historical
facts the solution of this problem.
These researches, indeed, have bro't
me results which agree perfectly with
physiological principles drawn from my
experiments; and l have had the salts
faction of seeing these two parts of my
work leaning the one upon the other re-
ciprocally, and mutually lending them
selves to explain phenomena which they
seem topresent.
| shall now begin to show the data
which have convinced me that the or
ange 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.
These proofs, already very numerous
before my arrival in Paris, have been
greatly strengthened by new observa-
'tionS, for which ] am indebted to the
politeness of M. de Sacy.
The Arabs carried the lemon and or
range trees first into Arabia, and from
that country they propagated them in
places where they had established their
dominion. But the most ancient agri-
cultural monuments remaining to us Of
this conquering people present only bit
ter oranges.
The Alcazar of Seville is, perhaps, the
Oldest of those magnificent palaces pre-
served with so much care by the Span
iards as an honorable witness to the glo-
ries and dangers of their ancestors. 1t
dates from the twelfth century; and an
Arabic inscription, now to be seen upon
one of its portals, and OF which NJ.
1, clo
the date of its construction as the year
1881. That which remains the most in
tact of this antique monument is large
grove at the end of the garden. This
grove is stocked with trees, showing ex-
treme old age, and all are of sour fruit.
The territory around Seveille, 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 the Y, printed in 1923.
Doubtless the Caliphs of Spain, who
were very particular in the embellish-
ment OF their gardens, would have pre-
ferred 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 very remote time.
Witness the woods of orange trees re-
marked 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 Al
varez teaches us in his narration of the
voyage he made to Ethiopia in 1920; and
Ferraris, too, who relies upon the au-
thority of the relations by missionaries.
In EthiopiG solo, coltU pr0pemodum nutto.
ndsei pontG citreG rGrG ea qutden1, sed gis-
cadr laagnitudinis ct prpcipui soporisj
Uurdntia zero dcri tdatom sdpOri drgutO
Uberius prCcenire. Fen. W. AZ.
But we have testimony still more pre-
else and determined, +, in Arabian works
, wh ora thiS 1nla nf ic rnpntiOOpd