ORANGE 



ORANGE 



2377 



and gives continuous employment to the equivalent 

 of 40,000 persons. Not less than 200,000 acres were 

 devoted to citrous fruits at the end of 1914. 



The orange-producing lands of California are scat- 

 tered from San Diego to Shasta County, a north-and- 

 south distance of 450 miles. It is a peculiar fact that 

 there are orange orchards in California in the same 

 latitude with New York City; Peoria, Illinois; Lin- 

 coln, Nebraska; and Salt Lake City, Utah. This is 

 made possible by the peculiar topography of the state 

 whereby the mountain ranges are so arranged that the 

 cold winds of the North are shut out, and the warm 

 southwesterly breezes from the Pacific are admitted. 

 The great interior valleys, such as the Sacramento, 

 San Joaquin and Imperial, are very hot and dry. The 

 chief citrous areas of these valleys are situated on the 

 foothills about their rims. West and south of the Coast 

 Range, the fogs and moist ocean breezes protect, to an 

 extent, from sudden fluctuations in temperature, and 

 orange orchards extend from the foothills well out upon 

 the valley floor. The factors which determine orange 

 areas are: frequency of frosts, water-supply, transpor- 

 tation, and soil conditions. The greatest and most 

 productive area embraces the country around Los 

 Angeles, Riverside, Redlands, Corona, Orange and 

 Santa Ana. The second area in importance is the Por- 

 terville section in Tulare County. Other important 

 areas are in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ven- 

 tura, Kern, Fresno, Sacramento, Yuba, and 

 Butte counties. Large extensions are now 

 under way in Ventura, Los Angeles, Tulare, 

 Fresno, Glenn, Sacramento and Tehama 

 counties. On account of the higher tempera- 

 tures, the interior valley oranges ripen much 

 earlier than those grown near the coast. As 

 some of these valley orchards lie far to the 

 north of the coast country orchards, the 

 unusual procedure of shipping early ripening 

 fruits southward to market is accounted for. 



monly than apples or pears and the greatest care and 

 eternal vigilance is necessary in order to keep the 

 nurseries free from undesirable sports. The worthless 

 "Australian" or "hobo" trees which make up such a 

 shockingly large proportion of many orchards are the 

 result of ignorance or carelessness in selecting buds 

 on the part of nurserymen whose only concern is to 

 sell nursery stock. 



Citrous nursery trees are usually dug and trans- 

 ported with a twenty- to forty-pound ball of earth 

 about the roots inclosed in burlap. When set out, the 

 cords are cut and the corners turned down but the sack 

 is not removed, inasmuch as it quickly decays in the 

 soil. Orange trees will grow just as well when dug with 

 bare roots as when balled, provided the sun and dry 

 desert air are not allowed to touch the moist roots even 

 for a few minutes. There is the greatest difficulty in 

 impressing laborers with the importance of this danger, 

 which has led to the custom of balling trees and paying 

 transportation charges on the extra soil as a precaution- 



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Cultivation. 



Almost all the old seedling orchards of ,'- '. . ''. 

 early days have given place to budded trees. _'V ; ; .-;' 

 Several kinds of stocks are used. The most ';<;. 

 popular root at present is the Florida sour .?-.** 

 orange, because it is better suited to heavy v^j.'?^ 

 lands and is markedly resistant to gum dis- />'''?*-- 

 ease and foot-rot. Sweet orange root is de- 

 sirable on light well-aerated soils. Grape- 

 fruit root is being increasingly used and is especially 

 satisfactory on desert soils of a granitic nature. The 

 use of China lemon root has been discontinued entirely. 

 The rough lemon and trifoliata roots are little used, as 

 they very rarely show any advantage over the sour or 

 pomelo, and in many cases suffer in comparison with 

 them. 



Seeds are usually planted under the partial shade of a 

 lath-house. They are covered with an inch of sterile 

 sand and watered with great care in order to prevent 

 serious loss from damping-off fungi. After a year in 

 the lath-house, the seedlings are transplanted into the 

 field 12 inches apart in rows 4 feet apart. After a year's 

 growth, they are budded from 2 to 6 inches from the 

 ground. After the bud has set, the top is cut away 

 and the young shoot trained to a lath stake and 

 headed at about 33 inches. Budding is done both in the 

 fall and in the spring and early summer. Some of the 

 more rapid-growing trees will be large enough to set 

 in orchard form at one year from the bud, but some 

 will require two years. Often the slower-growing trees 

 are the more desirable, having been budded from wood 

 with heavy fruiting tendencies. In fact, a pair of cali- 

 pers is a poor gauge of the value of an orange tree. 

 Many fine large nursery trees produce but little fruit 

 in after years. The selection of buds is a very impor- 

 tant matter. Oranges vary and sport much more com- 



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2623. A California orange grove. 



ary measure. Balled trees retain their leaves, while 

 bare-root trees have the leaves removed when they 

 are dug. 



The prevailing custom in California is to plant the 

 trees in orchard form in squares 22 by 22 feet or 22 by 

 24 feet, the former requiring ninety trees to the acre. 

 Great care is used to keep the bud-union above the 

 ground and free from the soil. Yucca or paraffined 

 pasteboard trunk-protectors are almost universally used 

 to prevent sunburn. Often the trees are planted out 

 ahead of canal-construction and watered for a year or 

 two from a tank wagon. 



Soils and fertilizers. 



The character of soil for orange-culture is not so 

 important as its physical arrangement. If the soil is 

 deep, fertile, well drained, and free from layers or 

 strata of a different physical make-up from the main 

 body of the soil, for 5 or 6 feet in depth, it does not 

 matter so much whether the soil is light sand, heavy 

 adobe, loam, or disintegrated desert granite. Excellent 

 orange orchards exist in all these types of soil. It is 

 more pleasant and convenient to cultivate a loam than 

 an adobe, and it is easier to irrigate a loam than a light 

 sand. These things should always be taken into 

 account, but the successful growth of the trees depends 

 more on the uniformity than upon the character of the 



