The Florida agriculturist., 1884-12-03
CHAPTER IN.

CHAPTER W.
ART. -TrdnsmiGrotion OF H,e Street.
fraited Orange Tree-Copjccture upoa
the times Of this erent.
During q long time the adventurers
were led onlyby the spirit OF commerce;
but finally there was allied to desire of
gain the taste for discoveries, and that
passion for plants and foreign arts which
have enriched Europe with the secret of
glass-making and silk stuff manufac
tures with ranunculuses, lilies, Arabian
jasmine, and many other flowers, brought
into our gardens i'll the course of the fif-
teenth century. every one knows the
great progress in the study of plants
made in Europe during the fifteenth cen
tury. We have but to consult the learned
work OF Sprengel, upon the history of
plants which passed from Asia into Eu-
rope at this epoch. shall confine my
self to citing here one fact, little known,
which goes to show the passion OF the
people of the Occident for the vegetation
OF the Orient. We read in a little ltal-
ian treatise on flowers, printed in Tus-
cany toward the close of the sixteenth
century, that the jasmine OF Arabia
(Ryctanthes Sdmbdc, H., carried from
the East to the Medicis. was cultiva-
ted in the gardens OF the Villa CASTILLO,
at Florence, where it was guarded jeal-
ously as a plant peculiar to this pleasure
house. In truth, the plant has not long
been elsewhere than i'll those gardens.
Probably it passed finally by either com
plaisance or fraud, i'll special gardens,
and the Genoese, who first acclimated it
in Liguria, have since spread it through
Europe. 1t is still from the seedsmen
of Nervi that are procured all the plants
cultivated in the rest OF I.ig1riay in Pied
mont, in Lombardy, and in France.
This plant is called in the treatise Jas
min dtt Gime (GclseNise@ del dfdme) a
name still preserved in Tuscany. The
Genoese call it gemetjd, probably cor
ruption OF Cline. 1t is impossible for me
to learn the origin of this @anae.
With such taste for plants, and hav-
ing so intimate and active relations with
Asia, they saw, doubtless, the sweet
fruited orange tree; and the abundance,
as well as superiority of its fruit, would
arouse the desire to enrich with it the
European gardens. 1t WAS surely no
longer necessary to penetrate into China
or the archipelago of Sooloo to find it. 1t
is probable that this plant was spread
over India by reason of the progress
there made in agriculture and the arts.
This progress was, necessarily, the effect
of the trade which commerce with Eu-
rope had opened to the Industry of this
country.
Passed from country to country, the
sweet orange would take the place OF the
bigarade in those fine elimates where
that had been first transported, and
would offer its delicious fruit to the peo-
,ple of Hindoostan, the fertile valleys of
Persia, Hyrcania, and perhaps of Syria.
From these places, already better
known, the Europeans would transport
it to the southern portions OF the Occi-
dent.
The analogy existing between the
sweet orange and bigsrade, raight assuse
these navigators of the possibility of
Maturalizing it in. .theircountry-;; while the
superior quality of its fruit would tempt
their appetites, as we'll as their desire of
gain. GF .tGF.
Riit who among these adwenturers was
in best condition to project and exc
cutie this enterprise? e EF4 q Tff
The Genoese and the %enetians,
among Europeans, had tAen the closest
reIahiafas with those coGRtries, and the
tlouaishing state of their marine Offered
more facility for executing this transport.
2 But the Nenetians had Net in their la
coons. a.elimate suited to the culture OF
the aennnai. They could mot, therefore,
see in thi fruit an object of speculation,
whilst on the contrary, the Genoese an
habited a district already asvered with
these trees whose fruit had become a
very important article of trade, employ
ing their agriculture, and feeding theis
manufacturing and commercial industry
THE Genoese found in the cultpre OF the
sgrumi somaee of industry assd gain.
Tasev ENCOURAGED agriculture by extend
ing the consn&aption of its products,
nOirfishing their commerce by increasing
the trade in sugar. which they brought
directiy from Asia. and sustained their
confecftoners, who furnished then the
greater part OF EurOpe.)
The yenetians, it is true, had obtained
more indulgence and favor in the marts
Of Egypt, and the influence with the Sui
tan that their gold, their wares, and their
marine had given them, made them al
most nastersof the Red sea trade.
The l;enoese, who were driven of by