216 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



tion of the orchardist and gardener. We only require what other countries 

 have not wholly failed to supply — a fair system of remuneration. We 

 require, too, sub-irrigation, that the tap-roots maybe invited to reach down 

 into the region of perpetual moisture. The imperative demands fully met, 

 we may confidently expect to give the world oranges unrivaled by any- 

 thing hitherto known in either hemisphere. 



Climate, about which we have heard so much, is everything. It is unde- 

 niably hot where the long summer matures and ripens the citrus fruits. A 

 visitor in one of the towns of Southern California, while mopping his brow 

 vigorously, suggested to an enthusiastic native that it was hot. "Hot!" 

 was the answer; " we require heat to bring our oranges to perfection." Cer- 

 tainly. Yet, with us, it is not a life-destroying heat. It is singularly dry, 

 and decidedly unfavorable to those varieties of scale that require humidity 

 as a condition to their rapid propagation and tenacious hold. 



While, in New York, Chicago, and St. Louis dogs go mad in the days of 

 August, and man himself succumbs to the nineties, we here invade the 

 open air without precaution when the mercury rises to one hundred and 

 ten. 



A prejudice has long prevailed in Europe that even the olive will not be 

 productive more than fifty miles from the sea. We have proved that this 

 elegant tree will yield a bountiful harvest more than a hundred and fifty 

 miles inland; and that it will attain the stature of a forest tree. 



That malarial fevers are known wherever the climate is warm and irri- 

 gation is practiced, no one will have the hardihood to deny. Whoever 

 heard that the growth of St. Louis or New Orleans was retarded by the 

 presence, in profitable quantities, of calomel and quinine? I am satisfied 

 that, especially in a country like this, the health conditions are in the 

 hands of the people. With less of surface irrigation and an approved sys- 

 tem of sewerage, no prevalent disorder is to be feared, while the prospect 

 will steadily improve, until proximate perfection will be attained. 



After all, the ardent summers of Central California have their corre- 

 spondence in the " ethereal mildness " of its winters. Spring, with us, is so 

 far from being the poet's dream, that it is, infallibly, a factor in the econo- 

 mist's calculation. As I remember, it was near the City of Nice, in 1789, 

 an orange tree whose trunk filled the embrace of two men, their fingers 

 touching, was killed to the roots by an unexampled visitation of cold. We 

 know how Florida has suffered in the same unexpected way. Here the 

 tender fruits ripen before the advent of the crisping rime; before even the 

 trees have fairly begun to shed their autumn leaves. Rarely, even at a 

 later period, are the pools sheeted with a transparent film of ice. 



Before retiring, permit me to touch lightly, the very weighty subject of 

 culture. I observed, in a number of the seedlings at my own door, an 

 apparent effort to develop the mark that distinguishes a Washington Navel, 

 as much as any peculiar mark may be said to distinguish a human being. 

 I asked myself, whether, in that Edenic garden, whose good things are 

 presumed to have had so wide an embrace, the Washington Navel was not 

 the autocrat, if not, indeed, the sole original. It occurred to me that, under 

 the superior culture of our day, the Oroville seedling may jet be made to 

 surpass the great and pampered favorite of the connoisseurs. All this may 

 be fanciful; but, I am content to rest the case, by referring you to the 

 wonderful results of artificial selection. Doubt and infidelity, offspring of 

 ignorance, are no longer in the field. Evolution is a supreme fact in the 

 world of horticulture. Now, with such a vigorous stock, I may say, with a 

 native product so eminently good, what may we not anticipate? Add to 

 this a certainty that, under conditions that have done so much for the seed- 



