22 CITRUS FRUITS AND THEIR CULTURE. 



orange. What the outcome will eventually be it is diffi- 

 cult to say, but it may be that from this fruit may spring 

 a race of hardy citrus with which the citrus industry will 

 be extended northward far beyond its present limits. 



What seems to be the first mention of the trifoliate 

 orange in citrus literature is that made by Kaempfer in his 

 Amoenitatum Exoticarum in 1712. An illustration (page 

 802), accompanying his brief description, leaves no room 

 to doubt the identity of his Si, vulgo Karatats ~banna 

 with the trifoliate orange. In 1763 Linnaeus described 

 the trifoliate orange in the second edition of his Species 

 Plantarum and the name applied by him, Citrus trifoliata, 

 is now the accepted one. Thunberg, in his Flora Japonica, 

 1784, gave the name Citrus trifolia. A. P. DeCandolle, in 

 his Prodromus Systematis Naturalis, 1824, placed the tri- 

 foliate orange in the genus ^3gle, naming it ^Egle separia. 

 There is doubtless some reason for this disposition of the 

 plant, for in many respects it is not a true citrus. Again 

 in 1829, Desfontaines renamed it Citrus triptera. Engler, 

 in his classification of citrus Engler and Prantl, Pflanz- 

 enfamilien, 1896, has placed Citrus trifoliata in the sec- 

 tion Pseudcegle of the genus citrus, which, all things con- 

 sidered, is a satisfactory disposition of the species. 



The trifoliate orange is said to have been first intro- 

 duced into America in 1869 by the late Wm. Saunders, 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture. 



For many years, it has been the hope of citrus fruit 

 growers that varieties might be secured which would 

 resist many degrees of frost. The production of hybrid 

 varieties with this object in view was undertaken, in 

 Florida, in 1892-93 by Dr. H. J. Webber, and Mr. Walter 

 T. Swingle of the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture. Most of the early results were lost, but the work 



