312 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



for trees of the variety, and in October of the same year received 

 from Minister Bingham, via S. S. Peking, a box containing " twenty- 

 five young plants of the King Orange," sent just as they were re- 

 ceived from Saigon. Minister Bingham stated that he had secured 

 these through the favor of his esteemed colleague, Mons. R. de Bollay, 

 charge d'affaires of France in Japan. These imported trees appear 

 to have been seedlings and from the botanic garden at Saigon, where 

 the .French had been in control for some thirteen years prior to 1880. 



Whether both the imported trees and the seedlings grown by Doctor 

 Magee were budded from is not entirely clear, but that more than one 

 seedling tree was thus perpetuated seems strongly probable and pos- 

 sibly accounts for the rather wide range in habit of growth, thorni- 

 ness of wood, and quality of fruit found under this varietal name 

 to-day. 



Doctor Magee appears to have first sold trees of it in 1882, & but 

 so far as known the variety was first fruited in America by Mr. J. E. 

 Cutter about 1885 on top-budded trees, specimens grown by him 

 having been sent to the New Orleans Exposition in that year. Mr. 

 Cutter sent specimens of the fruit to the late William Saunders, 

 Horticulturist of the Department of Agriculture, in March, 188T, C 

 these being the first that reached the Department. Mr. Cutter is 

 reported to have developed a much less thorny strain than that first 

 disseminated, 5 and most of the stock of King grown in Florida ap- 

 pears to trace to his dissemination of the variety, though according 

 to Reasoner e two of the imported trees and buds from others were 

 sent to Mr. John Carville Stovin at Winter Park, Fla., in 1882, pre- 

 sumably by Doctor Magee. The variety also reached Florida in 1882 

 in the form of buds received from Doctor Magee by the Beed, Knox 

 & Beed Company, of Bulow, Volusia County, in July of that year.f 

 These buds were considered by Mr. L. B. Knox to have been cut 

 from a single tree, and as the trees grown from them were very 

 thorny Mr. Knox and his associates practiced systematic bud selec- 

 tion in their propagation with a view to getting rid of the thorns. 

 In this effort they rebudded some of the trees twice in a season, and 

 were eventually successful in reducing the thorniness to a considerable 

 extent. About 1884 and for some time thereafter they disseminated 

 the variety considerably through Florida. On March 10, 1887, they 



Letter of Hon. John A. Bingham to Dr. S. R. Magee, September 16, 1880, fur- 

 nished by Doctor Magee's daughter, Mrs. Cunningham, of Riverside, Cal., April, 

 1908. 



6 Riverside Press and Horticulturist, July 8, 1882. 



c Letter of J. E. Cutter to William Saunders, March 12, 1887. 



d Letter of E. L. Koethen, Riverside, Cal., March, 1908. 



e Division of Pomology Bulletin No. 1, 1888, p. 73. 



f Letter of L. B. Knox, April 22, 1908. 



