ORANGE TREES.
The first orange trees seen in England, are said to have been planted by Sir Francis Carew, at Beddington, in Surrey. Sir Francis died in 1607, aged 81. Aubrey says they were brought from Italy by Sir Francis, but the editors of the Biographia Britannica speaking from a tradition preserved in the family, tell us that they were raised by him from the seeds of the first oranges which were imported into England by Sir Walter Raleigh, who had married his niece. The trees were planted in the open ground, and were preserved in the winter by a moveable shed. They flourished about a century and a half, being destroyed by the hard frost in 1739-40.
In the transactions of the Linnæan Society there are some notices relating to the progress of botany in England, written by the late eminentnaturalist, Peter Collinson. Speaking of the orange trees at Beddington be says—“In the reign of queen Elizabeth the first orange and lemon trees were introduced into England by two curious gentlemen, one of them Sir Nicholas Carew, at Beddington. They were planted in the natural ground, but against every winter an artificial covering was raised for their protection. I have seen them some years ago[58]in great perfection. But this apparatus going to decay, without due consideration a green-house of brick work was built all round them, and left on the top uncovered in the summer. I visited them a year or two after in their new habitation, and to my great concern found some dyeing, and all declining; for although there were windows on the south side, they did not thrive in their confinement; but being kept damp, with the rains, and wanting a free, airy, full sun, all the growing months of summer, they languished, and at last all died.
“A better fate has attended the other fine parcel of orange trees, &c. brought over at the same time, by Sir Robert Mansell, at Margam in South Wales. My nephew counted 80 trees of citrons, limes, burgamots, Seville and China orange-trees, planted in great cases all ranged in a row before the green-house. This is the finest sight of its kind in England. He had thecuriosity to measure one of them. A China orange measured in the extent of its branches fourteen feet. A Seville orange-tree was fourteen feet high, the case included, and the stem twenty one inches round. A China orange-tree twenty two inches and a half in girt.
“I visited the orangery at Margam, in the year 1766, in company with Mr. Lewis Thomas, a very sensible and attentive man, who told me that the orange-trees, &c. in that garden were intended as a present from the king of Spain to the king of Denmark; and that the vessel in which they were shipped, being taken in the channel, the trees were made a present of to Sir Robert Mansell.”