FRUIT-GROWING 153 



early market which is to prove their profit — a 

 variety that would ripen in April ; and to do 

 this it would probably be necessary to forsake 

 the southern nurseries for trees and turn to 

 Zanzibar or Ceylon. The present varieties of 

 oranges have been obtained from Natal and the 

 Cape, but the fruit is not particularly luscious. 

 Equatorial stock might give the fruit a distinc- 

 tive character, thus securing a second advantage 

 in Europe. 



Considerable destruction occurred among the 

 early planting by collar rot or gum disease at the 

 base of the tree, believed to be caused by the trees 

 having been planted too deeply. It is not con- 

 sidered safe to plant orange-trees at their normal 

 and natural depth, but to keep them well up, even 

 planting them on top of the ground and gathering 

 the soil into a mound round their roots. It is 

 difiicult to understand why orange should differ 

 from other trees in being subject to injury if 

 planted at their normal depth. Injudicious 

 irrigation had perhaps something to do with 

 the trouble ; leading the water round the base of 

 the tree to puddle the soil into a paste excluding 

 the air. That is treatment w^hich is not only 

 unnatural but useless, or almost so, as a means of 

 supplying moisture for the tree. Trees feed 

 through the root hairs which ramify at the 



