SEED-VESSELS WE EAT 197 



six millions boxes went to market. Then came the 

 freeze in December, and another in February, and 

 orchards north of the middle of the state were 

 ruined or badly damaged. Large plantings in 

 southern Louisiana were utterly destroyed. This 

 sad lesson taught growers the limits within which 

 orange culture can safely be pursued, and it left 

 the way clear for California to supply the defi- 

 ciency, by ever greater production. 



The demand for oranges is large in the United 

 States. California supplies 80 per cent, of it. 

 The importation of Mediterranean oranges has 

 largely given place to West Indian, and Ameri- 

 can fruit. England uses an ever-increasing quan- 

 tity of California oranges of the finest grades. 



The Washington Navel is the great commercial 

 orange. It is seedless, with a funny little wrinkled 

 orange, no bigger than a berry, tucked into the 

 blossom end. The divisions of the fruit are 

 many, the walls thin, and the flesh sweet and fine- 

 flavored. The trees are small, but well-shaped 

 and very prolific, beginning to bear early. 



In 1870, a resident of Bahia, Brazil, sent to the 

 Department of Agriculture in Washington three 

 cuttings of the seedless orange, the principal vari- 

 ety of that country, grown for a century or more, 

 but not especially good, and unknown in this 



