ORANGE 



ORANGE 



2379 



^lition on the tree for two months, a Valencia for six 

 months or longer. 



Oranges are picked with extraordinary care to pre- 

 vent injury. They are never pulled, but are clipped 

 flush with the "button" with round-pointed clippers. 

 The fruit is collected in canvas bags carried by the 

 picker, which open at the bottom and allow the fruit 

 to slide gently into wooden lug-boxes. The unbroken 

 skin of an orange is veiy resistant to decay, but the 

 least abrasion, no matter how slight, whether caused by 

 withdrawing the orange carelessly from the branches, 

 or by the finger-nails, or by placing the fruit in boxes 

 in the bottom of which a few grains of sand or dirt have 

 fallen, is almost sure to become inoculated with spores 

 of decay fungi, such as the blue-mold or the soft-rot. 

 Many growers do not take all the fruit from the trees 

 at one picking, but pick the lower fruit first, thus get- 

 ting it out of the way of frosts which are most severe 

 near the ground; and brown-rot, which is splashed up 

 from the soil by winter rains; and also to relieve the 

 strain on the branches. The standard car is made up of 

 a certain proportion of the different sizes, hence it is 

 customary to go over those remaining on the trees, 

 selecting certain sizes to meet the daily demands at 

 the packing-house. Formerly, picking was paid for by 

 the box, but the tremendous losses from the decay 

 resulting from rapid work has brought about a com- 

 plete change to day labor. 



The lug-boxes of fruit are hauled to the packing- 

 house on spring wagons or auto trucks and weighed in. 

 The fruit is then stored in the same boxes from one to 

 five days, in order that the rind may shrink and the 

 surface cells become less turgid and subject to abrasion. 

 In this condition, oranges will stand a large amount of 

 handling and tumbling about in the padded machines 

 without injury. The fruit is first run through a brusher 

 which removes dust and dirt. In case there is smut from 

 scale insects or soot from oil-pots, they are put through a 

 washing machine containing a -gV of 1 per cent solution 

 of copper sulfate in water. The fruit next travels on 

 belts before the graders who, considering color, shape, 

 smoothness and blemishes, sort the salable fruit into 

 three grades, standard, choice, and fancy. Each one of 

 these grades, after being weighed on automatic scales, 

 passes through a separate sizing machine which delivers 

 each of the eight or ten sizes into a separate, heavily- 

 padded canvas bin. The packers, mostly women, wrap 

 each fruit in printed absorbent tissue paper and place it 

 in the box with great dexterity and skill, averaging sixty 

 boxes a day. A very high pack is customary, and after 

 the covers are forced on and nailed, the boxes are 

 delivered by automatic carriers to the car or the pre- 

 cooling room. One hundred lug -boxes will usually 

 pack put about sixty packed boxes. The cars vary in 

 capacity, depending on whether they are provided with 

 collapsible ice-bunkers. The standard car contains 384 

 boxes loaded two tiers on end and six rows wide and 

 including not more than 10 per cent of the following sizes, 

 96, 1 12, 250, and not over 20 per cent of the 126 size. 

 The remainder of the car may be divided among the 

 150, 176, 200 and 216 sizes. Cars other than standard 

 are discounted on the market according to the number 

 of the off sizes they contain. The freight is figured on 

 an estimated weight of seventy-two pounds to the 

 box. In summer about five tons of ice are placed in the 

 bunkers after loading and the cars are re-iced in transit 

 as needed, unless they have been pre-cooled, in which 

 case the initial icing suffices. The average time between 

 San Bernardino where the Santa Fe trains are made 

 up, or Colton where the Southern Pacific trains are 

 made up, and New York is about fourteen days. The 

 packing-houses vary in capacity up to twenty carloads 

 a day. In no other fruit industry have the appliances 

 for handling the fruit in the packing-house been so 

 highly developed. 



While a few of the larger growers still look after the 



sales of their own fruit, and a few sell the fruit on the 

 trees to various fruit companies and commission men, 

 the larger part turn their fruit over to a large and very 

 strong cooperative organization of growers known as 

 the California Fruit-Growers' Exchange. This organi- 

 zation began business in 1895 but was reorganized in 

 1905. In 1915, the Exchange handled about 62 per 

 cent of all the citrous fruits shipped out of the state. 

 The Exchange has greatly increased the consumption 

 of citrous fruits by advertising and better distribution. 

 The business of the Exchange is to "provide for the 

 marketing of all the citrous fruit of members at the 

 lowest possible cost under uniform methods, and in a 

 manner to secure to each grower the certain marketing 

 of his fruit and the full average price to be obtained in 

 the market for the entire season." Much of the fertilizer 

 and other supplies used in the industry are secured 

 through a cooperative store known as the Growers' 

 Supply Company. In 1914 this store did a business of 

 $3,319,062.04 at an operating expense to the members 

 of % of 1 per cent on each dollar of business trans- 

 acted. 



Varieties. 



A large list of varieties of oranges has been tested out 

 under California conditions, but the law of "the sur- 

 vival of the fittest" has worked rapidly and today two 

 varieties dominate the field, viz., the Washington 

 Navel and the Valencia Late. While old orchards of 

 other varieties are still producing considerable quan- 

 tities of fruit, new plantings are now practically limited 

 to these two varieties. The Washington Navel origi- 

 nated at Bahia, Brazil, in the early part of the nineteenth 

 century and was introduced into California by William 

 Saunders, of the Department of Agriculture, in 1870, 

 through Mrs. L. C. Tibbet, of Riverside. This variety 

 now known as the "king of oranges" rapidly gained in 

 popularity until at the present time nearly 80,000 

 acres of it are planted. It owes it success to the follow- 

 ing characteristics: fruit large, smooth, with fine color 

 and flavor, seedless, a splendid shipper, and having a 

 navel mark which serves on the market as a trade-mark. 

 The tree is semi-dwarf, precocious, prolific, and a 

 regular bearer. The Navel is prone to sport and much 

 care should be used in cutting bud wood. The Thomson 

 Improved is the best example of a desirable sport from 

 the Navel. The Navel reaches its highest develop- 

 ment in the interior valleys. 



The Valencia Late originated in the Azores and was 

 introduced into the United States in 1870 by S. B. 

 Parsons, of Long Island, through Thomas Rivers, of 

 England. The Valencia reaches its highest develop- 

 ment along the coast. It is a poorer orange than the 

 Navel, but it is the only variety which remains on the 

 trees in good condition until late fall or early whiter. 

 Other varieties still marketed to some extent from old 

 groves are Mediterranean Sweet, Paper Rind, Jaffa, 

 Ruby Blood, and Seedlings. 



Insects and diseases. 



The following insect pests occur in the California 

 citrous orchards: the black scale, red scale, yellow scale, 

 purple scale, cottony cushion scale, soft brown scale, 

 citricola scale, hemispherical scale, greedy scale, olean- 

 der scale, citrus mealy-bug, red-spiders, silver mite, 

 thrips, aphis, orange tortrix, Fuller's rose beetle, and a 

 few others. More than $500,000 are expended in 

 southern California each year combating the scale 

 insects. The cottony cushion is controlled by a pre- 

 daceous beetle, but the other scales are controlled by 

 fumigation with hydrocyanic acid gas under movable 

 tents made especially for the purpose. The cost of 

 fumigating a medium-sized tree averages about 35 

 cents and the work must usually be repeated every 

 second year. Spraying citrous trees for scale insects is 

 almost obsolete in California. The black and purple 



