The present importation of dried figs into Great Britain must be enormous. Many years ago, from Turkey only, it amounted to nine hundred tons annually, besides those coming from France, Italy, and Spain.

The fig enters very little into recipes for cooking - it is too luscious and devoid of pungency; but I have tasted green figs from the Cape, preserved in bottles, which are excellent, although the peculiar, resinous flavour would perhaps not quite suit everybody's palate. There seems no good reason why this should not be added to our list of English preserves. Thousands of green figs are allowed to drop off the trees year after year, which might thus be utilised and rendered valuable, especially in seasons of scarcity of other fruits.

A writer in 1846 estimated that 272,000,000 oranges were imported annually into Great Britain, allowing about a dozen to every individual, and adds: * This extraordinary consumption of a product which is brought here from very distant places, is a natural consequence of certain qualities which fit the orange in a remarkable degree for being the universal fruit of commerce. If we would have foreign figs and grapes, they must be dried, for the undried grapes which we bring even from the short distance of Portugal are flat and vapid; the tamarind is a liquid preserve; the guava must be made into a jelly; the mango destined for us requires to be pulled before it is ripe, and is pickled; the date must be dried, and the cocoa-nut becomes, when here, consolidated and indigestible. But the orange, man may have fresh in every region of the world, and at almost every season of the year. The aromatic oil and the rind, preserve it from the effects both of heat and cold, and the acridity of the former renders it proof against the attacks of insects. It is true that oranges rot like other fruits, but that does not happen for a long time if the rind is uninjured and they are kept from moisture, and so ventilated as not to ferment' *

With the improved means of transport since the above was written the import of oranges must have increased enormously, so that now it would be almost impossible to estimate the number imported, although the tonnage might perhaps be found by reference to the Board of Trade returns. It is, however, sufficient for our purpose to know that now, all the year round, oranges and lemons may be bought at a penny a-piece, and often at three or four a penny, whilst only a few years ago they could scarcely be eaten before Christmas, and were not to be had after June. Nevertheless, the facility with which they are now conveyed, even from Australia, does not tend to the perfection of the fruit, inferior sorts being thrown on the market, because of their abundance, to the partial exclusion of those which require greater care in cultivation and in packing. The St. Michael - prince of oranges - is now seldom to be seen, whilst thick-skinned, coarse-grained, and bitterish-flavoured varieties are foisted upon the purchaser as equally good. Very few people are good judges of oranges in the fruiterers' shops: they look to size and darkness of skin, instead of weight, fineness and delicacy of skin, with medium size, which are the points of excellence in an orange. The genuine St. 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 successfully in Northern Europe; the trees may, indeed, be grown in tubs in greenhouses, and will produce fruit, but the fruit 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.

* 'The Food of Man,' p. 79.

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 introduction 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 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.

Oranges grow and thrive wonderfully in South Africa, where they are supposed to have been introduced by the Portuguese, but the early Portuguese navigators speak of them as growing on the eastern coast; and it is a singular fact that the Chartered Company of British South Africa found miles of wild orange trees growing in Manicaland, with many other fruits not supposed to be indigenous. The orange found would seem, from the description given of it, to be quite an unknown species, and one which may prove of great value. One of the pioneers writes: - 'Riding along we came to groves of wild orange trees, laden with ripe fruit of a yellow colour; the fruit is encased in a hardish shell; inside it has the appearance of an over-ripe sweet melon; the flavour is a combination of sweet melon, pine-apple, and orange, and is very nice eating.'

Oranges have been divided into eight species, known as sweet oranges, bitter oranges, bergamots, limes, pampelucos, sweet limes, lemons, and citrons, and of each of these there are numerous varieties. The variety known as the blood orange, which comes from Malta, is said to derive its colour from being grafted on the pomegranate.

The lemon is a more delicate tree than the orange, and requires more warmth; it will not flourish in the south of France, except at Mentone, which has given rise to an interesting legend. They say when Eve was driven out of Paradise she managed to carry away with her two or three of her favourite fruits, and among them the lemon ; with these she wandered over the earth till she came to Mentone, where, finding the climate and the soil so much resembled the lost Eden, she planted the lemon, which has grown and flourished ever since.

What the cook would now do without lemons we can hardly surmise: they seem an indispensable adjunct to so many savoury dishes, and are become so plentiful that it is no uncommon thing to hear them hawked about the streets of London at three or four a penny. The lime, on the contrary, is very seldom seen, although lime-juice cordial has long been used as a beverage, and the little island of Montserrat has become famous for the production of this useful fruit, the juice of which seems indispensable, where vegetables cannot be obtained, and the lack of which has so often caused the decimation by scurvy of the crews of vessels engaged in Arctic exploration.

The citron is chiefly known to us by the preserved peel, which forms such a delicious condiment for cakes, Christmas puddings, and mince pies.

The Shaddock, so called in honour of the ship captain who introduced it into the West Indies from China, is now little valued, although in China, its native habitat, it is known as the 'sweet ball.' We occasionally see it in the market, as well as its near relative the pomelo, but the bitterness of the rind prevents its becoming a popular fruit. On the contrary, the little Mandarin orange, called nartje at the Cape, the rind of which is so highly perfumed, has of late years been very freely imported - chiefly from Malta and Spain, from which latter country we also receive the bitter Seville, so valuable for many purposes, and especially for making that favourite adjunct to the breakfast table - orange marmalade - of which many tons must be consumed annually.

We have by no means exhausted the uses of the varieties of the orange family, which are as valuable medicinally as in a culinary sense, and seem to bear out the Mentone legend that they were brought originally from the Garden of Eden. Undoubtedly they are all natives of the far East, and the probability is that they were indigenous in India and China, and were introduced into Africa in very early times by traders, possibly Chinese, although Galessio believes them to have been brought originally from India by the Arabs; and it is pointed out that they were apparently unknown to Pliny and other early naturalists.

All the varieties now grow in perfection at the Cape, in the West Indies, Australia, and America - in fact, wherever there is abundance of warmth and sun; and with care they will live to the age of three hundred years, even in England, there being some at Hampton Court said to be of that age, but the fruit will not compare with that of foreign climates, for these golden apples of the Hesperides require the sun-dragon to guard them from frost and blight, and to bring them to perfection.