Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
written in the fifth century
bc
. It explains how the Emperor Ta-Yu (twenty-third
century
bc
) included among the taxes to deliver two types of oranges, large and
small, which indicates the high value of these fruits through the ages. Theophrastus
(372-288
bc
), the disciple of Aristotle, stated in his
History of Plants
extensive
information on over 500 plants, among them the citron (
Citrus medica
L.), brought
by Alexander the Great (356-323
bc
) from Asia. He referred to the citron, a spe-
cies known in Media and Persia (now Iran), as the medical apple (
Malus medica
),
and describes the flower morphology and aromatic and medicinal properties of
this fruit. Virgil (70-19
bc
) was the first Latin writer who mentioned citron in his
Georgics
, a poem in four topics, that highlights its characteristics as anti-rheumatic
antidote. Surprisingly, in the Bible, which recognizes more than 200 fruit tree spe-
cies, there is no clear reference to citrus and only
Citrus medica
has been described
from around 200
bc
.
Nevertheless, the French archaeologist Victor Loret (1859-1946) found paint-
ings in the temple of Karnak in Egypt, with Killerman in his
Die Zitronen und Or-
angen in Geschichte und Kunst
(1916) identified seeds of citrus in his excavations
at the south of Babylon. It is concluded that the origin of
Citrus
established as part
of the ancient culture of Mesopotamina, Egypt and Greece around 4000
bc
.
During the Roman Empire agriculture progressed remarkably, however it is not
easy to find references to
Citrus
. Pliny the Elder (23-79
ad
) in his
Natural History
and, later, Palladio (4
th
century
ad
) in his
Treaty of Agriculture
, refer to the char-
acteristics and properties of the citrus crop. Greek culture, at the beginning of the
Modern Era, also refers to
Citrus
. Disocórides of Anarzaba (60-70
ad
) in his
Medi-
cal Matter
described the medicinal properties of
Citrus
fruits and seeds.
The Arabs spread the growing of
Citrus
in the Mediterranean basin. Ali al-Ma-
sudi (896-956
ad
), historian and geographer of Baghdad, published in 943
ad
his
work
Al-Dhahab Moruj
(
Golden Fields
) and describes the importance of weather
conditions on the characteristics and properties of sour orange trees (
Citrus au-
rantium
L.) as well as the citron (
Citrus medica
L.), in what might be called first
study on the ecological adaptation of
Citrus
species. Ibn Wahsiya, Iraqi farmer,
in his book
The Nabatean Agriculture
refers for the first time to lemon trees [
Cit-
rus limon
(L.) Burm.f.]. The Spanish-Arab Abu Zaccaria (Ibn al-Awan) (twelth
century), in his
The topic of Agriculture
, devotes a chapter to describe citrus and
study's separately, the citron, sour orange, azamboa or bastanbon (probably pum-
melo) and the lemon, mentioning some of their varieties, unrecognizable today.
He also describes several cultural practices such as transplanting, irrigation, or-
ganic fertilization, pruning, thinning, and the propping up of branches, and even
refers to some physiological disorders such as chlorosis. There are no references
of when and how the sweet orange [
Citrus sinensis
(L.) Osb.] was introduced to
the Mediterranean basin, the first one being referred to at the commencement of
the sixteenth century.
The Spanish conquerors introduced citrus cultivation in America in the 16
th
cen-
tury onwards. Franco Calabrese (
2004
) provides an excellent study on
The Fasci-
nating History of the Citrus Fruit
from his native Italy.
