12 FLORIDA FRUITS ORANGES. 



in climate and soil produced varieties and changes in the 

 characteristics of the original common stock, so that in these 

 days the Sicily, St. Michael, Maltese, Havana, and a great 

 number of others are well-known and established varieties 

 of this noble fruit. To suppose, as many do, that the 

 orange is a spontaneous production of the soil of the New 

 World is to make a great mistake ; only where the early 

 Spanish or Portuguese landed and penetrated into the 

 country is the wild orange of America to be found. 



On the banks of the Kio Cedeno, in the midst of a great 

 forest, Humboldt, to his amazement, came upon a broad belt 

 of wild orange trees, laden with large, sweet, and most de- 

 licious fruit. " Surely these must then be indigenous to the 

 soil," he thought ; but subsequent inquiry led to the discov- 

 ery that those grand old trees had once formed a portion of 

 extensive groves planted by the Indians from seeds obtained 

 from their early Spanish visitors and conquerors. And to 

 this same source does Florida owe her beautiful wild groves ; 

 only here, whether by the accident of soil or seed, the wild 

 fruit is sour not sweet. 



Ponce de Leon and his successors, but most of all the 

 unfortunate French colony, barbarously massacred by cruel 

 Menendez, "not as Frenchmen but as Lutherans," \vere 

 directly instrumental in introducing into the "Land of 

 Flowers" the noble fruit that is rapidly becoming the 

 chief source of wealth and happiness to its adopted home. 

 Briefly, the orange is not a native but a naturalized citizen 

 of the United States. 



Looking back only a few years from our present point 

 of enlightenment as to the inestimable value of this once 

 neglected tree, it is very hard to understand how it is that 

 the native Floridian did not long ago wake up to the real- 

 ization of the wealth within his grasp, of the golden apple 

 lying neglected at his feet. And yet there were, it is true, 



