FRUITS AND NUTS 105 



of lemons and about 4,000,000 pounds of oranges. At present 

 the consensus of opinion gives the first rank to the grapefruit 

 from Florida and Porto Rico. California grapefruit are more 

 bitter and not so juicy. The lemon industry in the United 

 States, however, is almost entirely confined to California. Lit- 

 tle success has been had in growing lemons in Florida except 

 in a few restricted localities. 



Citrus fruits run wild in various parts of the Tropics, thus 

 resulting in the development of numerous seedlings. Some 

 Hawaiian and Porto Rican seedling oranges are of excellent 

 flavor and are gradually finding an appreciative market. The 

 Porto Rican seedling oranges are shipped in large quantities 

 to New York City, where they are sold to the poorer inhabi- 

 tants of the East Side. In the matter of citrus fruit, at least, 

 the East Side residents get a far better bargain than their 

 more prosperous fellow citizens, since the seedling fruit cost 

 much less than the standard varieties of oranges and are for 

 the most part actually of superior flavor to the Navel and Val- 

 encia oranges. The same statement applies with equal force to 

 some of the Hawaiian seedling oranges, which are far superior 

 to the California oranges shipped to the Honolulu markets. 

 The citrus industry is rapidly developing in one line or another 

 in various tropical countries. As an example of one special line 

 of development, it may be mentioned that perhaps the chief 

 export from the Dominican Republic is concentrated lime 

 juice. 



The orange-producing countries stand in the following or- 

 der : United States, Spain, Italy, Palestine, Japan, Porto Rico, 

 Cuba, etc. The total production of oranges amounts to 40,- 

 000,000 boxes per year. The lemon-producing countries stand 

 in the following order : Sicily, Italy, California, etc. The total 

 production of lemons is 7,000,000 boxes per year. The citrus 

 industry, as a whole, results not only in the production of enor- 

 mous quantities of fruit to be consumed in a fresh condition, 

 bull also in various by-products, such as lime juice, lemon juice^ 



