THE PROFIT OF ORANGE-GROWING. 13 



compared to the vast sections of the United States 

 which will be well filled with inhabitants long before 

 the orange-growing sections can be brought into 

 bearing. The present yield of fruit grown in the 

 United States furnishes hardly one orange a year to 

 each inhabitant. Our population will likely double, 

 judging the future by the past, in the next thirty or 

 forty years. To furnish such a population with 

 one orange or lemon a day will require no less than 

 thirty thousand millions of oranges or lemons per 

 annum. The skill in gathering, curing, and pack- 

 ing the late and early varieties now appearing will 

 enable the grower to furnish for the market at all 

 seasons of the year either oranges or lemons. The 

 wholesomeness of the fruit, together with its medici- 

 nal qualities, will increase its popularity as an arti- 

 cle of food, until it will be universally used. At 

 present the production of Florida oranges is so 

 small that it is not known in the markets of many 

 of our largest cities. The foreign varieties offered in 

 those markets, even when fully ripe and eaten fresh 

 in their own countries, will not compare with the 

 Florida orange. But in order to reach this country 

 in sound condition they have to be gathered when 

 green, and hence are not only unpalatable but un- 

 wholesome. When the Florida orange becomes 

 generally known, and the supply is adequate, it will 

 exclude foreign fruit, and, because of its excellence, 

 become universally used. Such will be the demand. 

 Already successful shipments have been made to 



