April Showers 



always sufficiently ripened to pass through the winter 

 without scorched tips, but this kind shows no signs of the 

 deciduous habit of its hardy parent. Morton is nearest to 

 Aegle, having long thorns and shedding many of its leaves 

 during winter and the third, named Savage after a man, 

 not its thorns, as it well might be is intermediate between 

 these in general appearance. They have acquired the 

 pleasant name of Citrange in America, and the fruits are 

 used for marmalade and what is there called orangeade. I 

 tried the Bitter Orange which grows so well on the hills 

 around Florence, and drops ripe oranges on to the snow 

 in severe winters up there. But although I planted them 

 in the most sheltered position I could afford, they lost 

 their less ripened growth every winter, until precious little 

 was left alive, and I believe the only survivor is at its last 

 gasp this season, and so I must rest content with Aegle 

 and its offspring. I believe Aegle is much hardier than 

 most people think, for I have seen finer plants in places 

 where the winters are severe than in Cornwall or Ireland, 

 where it usually looks yellow and sickly, and refuses to 

 start away upward, but to flower well it needs a hot sun 

 and thorough ripening of the wood. One Spring it had a 

 bad shaking here, and that was because it was in full 

 flower and shooting into leaf-growth, when a severe frost 

 on a Good Friday simply split the sap-laden shoots and 

 every bit of even two-year-old growth was killed ; and 

 every bud, whether of leaf or flower, was destroyed, and 

 the trees looked very sad for about a month, then adven- 

 titious buds formed on three-year-old wood, and by the 

 end of the summer the young growths had grown out 

 beyond the dead wood. 



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