p. 701 | Home of the Orange

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 18, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 44.

Home of the Orange.

The southern slopes of the great Himalayan mountain range, extending eastward from the Sikh country—a region watered by the northern tributaries of the Ganges—constitutes the original habitat of the orange. This conclusion is drawn from botanical considerations and from traditional or historical accounts. Botanists have ascertained that this region is the home of wild varieties of the orange family which have served as types from which the cultivated varieties have sprung. The wild citron of Northern India is believed to have been the source of our cultivated varieties of the orange. The orange tree made its appearance in Europe in the fourth century, but it was not widely diffused until the fourteenth century. According to Gallerio, oranges were brought by the Arabs from India by two routes—the sweet ones through Persia and Syria, and thence to the shores of Italy and the south of France; and the bitter, called in commerce Seville oranges, by way of Arabia, Egypt, and the north of Africa, to Spain. Thus all the old orange groves at Seville and Cordova, planted by the Moors, are of the bitter-fruited variety; and to this day the bitter orange predominates in the south of Spain.—Sel.