FRUIT CULTURE. 807 



Gathering and Packing for Market. In gathering, cut the stem, leaving half an 

 inch of stem on the orange. Place the different varieties in heaps by themselves. Cover 

 lightly with straw for three or four days, the longer time during cold weather and the shorter 

 time during warm weather, that the oranges may sweat. After this time place them in 

 latticed bins, holding from one to two hundred oranges each, to dry. In putting them into 

 bins assort them with reference to size, color, and perfection, so that the classification may be 

 complete. They can now be packed at leisure, for after they have been dried out without 

 being bruised they will keep indefinitely. The boxes for packing should be of light material, 

 neatly made, tolerably close, and hooped. Dimensions 8x16x27 with partition in the middle. 

 In making these one side should be left open. In packing the open side should be turned 

 up, and the box lined with sheets of paper laid on the bottom and resting against the side. 

 Each orange should be wrapped separately in tissue paper containing as little oil as possible, 

 so that it will readily absorb and throw off moisture. 



The wrapper should be careful to reject every bruised or otherwise injured orange. The 

 packer should be careful not to put different varieties in the same box. The buyer should 

 know when he has tasted any orange from a box or brand that all others of the same brand 

 or box are its equal. In packing, the oranges should be placed closely together in layers, so 

 thai there can be no rolling or sliding of the fruit in the box. The last layer should project 

 three-fourths of an inch above the sides of the box, so that the top when nailed on should 

 hold the layers firmly to their places, even after there has been some shrinkage to the fruit. 

 This is all-important when the fruit has to be transported a considerable distance; and 

 especially when transported by rail. The box should now be marked with the number of 

 oranges and the brand of fruit. 



Diseases and Insect Enemies of the Orange. The orange has comparatively 

 few diseases or insect enemies. One of the most formidable diseases is the dying back 

 of the new wood to the old, sometimes confined to a few branches of a tree, and sometimes 

 embracing nearly all of them. This is frequently caused by the sting of an. insect to the 

 new wood, or it may originate near the roots. Deep planting will produce such symptoms. 

 We have occasionally .dug up trees so afflicted and found them wanting in new roots. The 

 remedy is to reset, or else take away the top soil till the lateral roots are brought near the 

 surface, and to keep the soil well cultivated. The better plan is to take them up and reset 

 them. Cut away all diseased wood and roots. When the extremities of roots of trees come 

 in contact with poisonous earth a similar symptom is produced, as in planting upon hard-pan 

 or over a stratum of salt earth. 



Rust on the orange (fruit) has been a considerable cause of annoyance to some growers, 

 because it mars the beauty of the fruit, though it does not affect its sweetness, nor its flavor. 

 It is a disease confined exclusively to the outer skin. Whether it is a true rust, or is simply 

 an absence of the essential oil so abundant in the peel of the yellow fruit, the writer is not 

 fully satisfied, though inclining to the latter opinion. Fruit so affected has one advantage. 

 It keeps longer than that enveloped in the lighter and more oily skin. The writer has had 

 no difficulty in removing this disease. At different times and on different trees he has 

 changed, in a single year, the color of the fruit from a dark-brown to a bright-yellow and 

 smooth skin, by the application of slacked lime from oyster shells, as before noticed. 

 Whether the lime acts as a corrective of disease, or whether its presence was needed in the 

 soil for the perfecting of the fruit, or whether it absorbed carbonic acid and so furnished the 

 additional amount of carbon necessary for the manufacture of the essential oil by the tree, 

 the writer knows not. But the fact of benefit is not doubted. 



Where moss appears on the trunks of trees, it is easily removed by any alkali wash. 

 Soap suds, or what is better, wood ashes, will both fertilize and cleanse. The cracking of the 



