Limits of Profitable Citrus Fruit Culture. 221 



matter which can easily be placed by this system, to use a common 

 expression, " where it will do the most good." 



VARIETIES. 



It is only within comparatively a brief period that horticulturists have 

 recognized the necessity of adapting varieties to localities to make a success 

 of fruit-growing, and to-day there are many intelligent people who do not 

 know that there is any material ditference in oranges, and that they are not 

 ripe and edible as soon as they take on their yellow color. 



It is now well known that the whole citrus family is prone to change 

 from differences in soil and climate, as well as from its natural tendency to 

 " sport," when cultivated from seeds after the manner of most of our orchard 

 fruits. It is also said that in many parts of the West Indies and South Amer- 

 ica the whole orange tribe is found growing wild, springing up spontane- 

 ously from the seeds of the trees originally planted by the Spaniards, vary- 

 ing in size, form, and in every gradation, from the lime to the shaddock. 

 Oranges are often found there equal in flavor and sweetness to those of the 

 Azores, though of much larger size, while others in the same grove vary 

 from these to a degree of sourness and acrid bitterness sufficient to draw 

 blood from the mouth accompanied by severe pain. There you may see the 

 lemon, citron, lime, shaddock, and sour, sweet and bitter oranges growing 

 ind'scriminately together in the same forest. They are round, flattened, 

 rough, smooth, obovate, pear-shaped, thick and thin-skinned, juicy, dry, 

 some with and others without seeds, some bearing seed at the end, outside 

 of the fruit, while others present a navel-like protuberance at the same point 

 with no seeds, and in passing through these groves it will be observed that 

 some trees will contain but little fruit, while others will be loaded to excess. 



I consider this tendency of the citrus fruits to sport, and their adaptation 

 to localities, as one of the most promising aids, in the hands of intelli- 

 gent horticulturists, to the gradual extension of citrus fruit-growing into 

 regions now thought to be unfavorable to it. We have already the sour 

 orange stock and another from Japan as claimants for superior endurance 

 of low temperatures and moist subsoils, with the power to impart this 

 quality to seme extent to more valuable but much more delicate varieties, 

 grafted upon them. The claim for the Japan variety is that it will endure, 

 for a brief period, a temperature of near the zero of Fahrenheit. In the 

 foothills of the Himalayas, and also in the tablelands of the province of 

 Durango, Mexico, it is said there are varieties that are grown successfully 

 within the limits of the snow line, but the minimum temperature of the 

 region is not given. There is, therefore, much to encourage the fruit- 

 grower in less favorable localities in a search for varieties that may possess a 

 greater endurance of occasional low temperatures and yet retain the quali- 

 ties that will commend them to the great orange-eating public. 



MARKETS. 



Fruit-growers have long since realized that they may grow fruits suc- 

 cessfully, cheaply, and in abundance; but, owing to many and various causes, 



