Our viands

Michael is flattish, pale in colour, and destitute of pips, whereas that sold for it, is full of pips, and pale only because unripe. The orange requires abundance of heat and sun to bring it to perfection, and therefore cannot be cultivated success- fully in Northern Europe ; the trees may, indeed, be grown in tubs in greenhouses, and will produce fruit, but the fruit * 'The Food of Man, 'p. 79. GRAPES, FIGS, AND OAANGES 189 is not good. Even in the south of France and Northern Italy the orange is never met with in 'perfection, although the trees will grow luxuriantly in the open air, and bear abundant fruit ; but it is cultivated there chiefly for the rind, from which the essential oil is extracted which is so much used in the manufacture of perfumes. The streets in the south of France are frequently festooned with orange peel to be dried for this purpose, whilst women and children sit at their doors peeling oranges as we should peel potatoes, the fruit divested of its peel being used for making citric acid, so useful both in the kitchen and the laboratory. The orange trees in the south of France are cut and trimmed till they resemble nothing so much as the trees out of a child's Noah's ark, but in South Italy they are allowed more liberty, and the miles of orange groves about Sorrento are beautiful with loads of golden fruit, and fragrant at the same time.with the lovely blossom. There, too, it is a pretty sight to see the peasant women and girls, in their bright costumes, tripping down to the coast with large trays on their heads laden with half-green oranges and lemons ready to be packed for exportation, for the fruit must be gathered before it is quite ripe, or it would not bear the carriage. In Spain, Southern Italy, and Sicily the orange comes to perfection, but the far East is looked upon as its native habitat, and the Arabs are credited with the intro- duction of this valuable fruit to the West. According to Galessio, the Arabs penetrated farther into India than Alexander the Great, and found there various kinds of oranges growing, and they brought them thence by two routes — the sweet ones, known as China oranges, through Persia and Syria, and thence to Italy and the south of 190 OUR VIANDS France ; and the bitter or Seville oranges by Arabia, Egypt, and the north of Africa to Spain. But it is thought that the sweet orange introduced by the Arabs was not the variety known as St. Michael's, but rather that still cultivated in Italy. The St. Michael orange was brought direct from China by the Portuguese, who sent it from Portugal to the Azores, whilst the Spaniards are credited with having introduced it to America. Humboldt found wild oranges growing in a forest in America, but they are not believed to be indigenous to that continent, although at present they are cultivated there with great success, the orange groves of Florida, California, and other Western States being very extensive.