132 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ORANGE CULTURE IN CALIEORNIA. 



BY I. N. HOAG, AGEICULTURAL EDITOR OF THE RECORD-UNION. 



The orange is said to be a native of tropical India, and according 

 to ancient records was, some time during the eleventh century, intro- 

 duced into Arabia and Persia, and from thence to Spain, from whence 

 it spread into different parts of the world where the climate was suf- 

 ficiently favorable to warrant its cultivation. The orange groves of 

 Florida are not indigenous to the country, but were undoubtedly 

 brought there iii the early settlements from Spain and cultivated for 

 a time and then abandoned with the changes which time and revolu- 

 tion wrought in that section. The orange was also brought from Spain 

 to the southern coast of the Pacific, and the first orange groves of 

 Southern California were planted by the founders of the old missions^ 

 who were also from Spain. The oldest orange grove in Los Angeles 

 County is at the Mission San Gabriel, and is now over ninetj^ years 

 old, but is still in a healthy condition and bearing heavy crops each 

 year. The orange is a long-lived tree, and when cared for retains its 

 fruitfulness to a wonderful age. There is a tree in the orangery of 

 the A'^ersailles now over 450 years old. It has an interesting history.. 

 It grew from some seed of a bitter orange planted at the commence- 

 ment of the fifteenth century by Eleanor of Castile, wife of Charles 

 III, King of Navarre. They were planted — as many of the seed from 

 which have sprung a number of the trees growing in diff'erent sections- 

 of this State— in a pot, and were grown and kept in the same vessel 

 until 1584. In 1799, when more than two hundred years old, they 

 were removed from Pampeluna to Versailles, and the survivor of 

 these trees is now in a healthy and vigorous condition, not exhibiting, 

 any signs of decay. There may not be at this time an orange tree 

 growing in this State that will live as long or achieve so interesting a 

 history and so lasting a name as the Grand Connetabable, as this old 

 Versailles orange tree is called, but there are many, that to those who 

 jDlanted the seed and nursed the trees till they began to bear the 

 golden fruit, have a history that will be preserved in family tradi- 

 tions for generations to come, and those who planted and reared them 

 will be remembered as benefactors by the people who perhaps centuries 

 hence may pluck and eat of the golden apples that will then weigh 

 down their branches. The apple, the peach, and the pear, though of 

 great value to man on account of their food properties, and so general 

 cultivation and use, have never been regarded with so much interest 

 as has the orange in every country in which it has found a genial 

 climate and soil. 



The orange tree, on account of its beauty, its symmetrical form and 

 deep evergreen foliage, is and ever has been a universal favorite in 

 all countries where care and nursing can bring it to anything like 

 perfection, and in those countries in which it grows naturally in 



