Note 12 — Chapter I

The cultivation of madder is said to have been introduced into Europe by an Oriental in the year 1765, and it was first planted in the neighborhood of Avignon. Of course, it has been grown in that district for less than a century; but upon soils where it has been a frequent crop, it is already losing much of its coloring properties.—Lavergne, Économie Rurale de la France, pp. 259-291.

I believe there is no doubt that the cultivation of madder in the vicinity of Avignon is of recent introduction; but it appears from Fuller and other evidence, that this plant was grown in Europe before the middle of the seventeenth century. The madder brought to France from Persia may be of a different species, or, at least, variety. "Some two years since," says Fuller, "madder was sown by Sir Nicholas Crispe at Debtford, and I hope will have good success; first because it groweth in Zeland in the same (if not a more northern) latitude. Secondly, because wild madder grows here in abundance; and why may not tame madder if cicurated by art. Lastly, because as good as any grew some thirty years since at Barn-Elms, in Surrey, though it quit not cost through some error in the first planter thereof, which now we hope will be rectified."—Fuller, Worthies of England, ii, pp. 57, 58.

Perhaps the recent diseases of the olive, the vine, and the silkworm—the prevailing malady of which insect is supposed by some to be the effect of an incipient decay of the mulberry tree—may be, in part, due to changes produced in the character of the soil by exhaustion through long cultivation.