38 CITRUS FRUITS AND THEIR CULTURE. 



from the Mandarins. There may be reasons of greater or 

 less weight for this division, but in this publication the 

 name Tangierine has been discarded in favor of the older 

 name. No distinction can be made between the Mandarin 

 and the Tangierine oranges so-called, more than can be 

 made between any two distinct varieties of fruits in rec- 

 ognized pomological groups. Moreover, the fact must not 

 be overlooked that in some of the world's citrus growing 

 districts the two names are used interchangeably. 



Two explanations have been given for the name Man- 

 darin as applied to this group of oranges. It was given 

 either because the fruit was regarded as the best of the 

 citrus family, just as the Chinese Mandarin or grandee 

 stood in social rank above his fellowmen, or because this 

 orange was the fruit of the rich and therefore only within 

 the reach of the nobility. The fact that the fruit is exten- 

 sively cultivated in China and Japan and that it is there 

 held in such high esteem leads to the belief that the first 

 explanation is the more correct one. 



One other name, "kid-glove oranges," has been applied 

 to the group. In explanation of the origin of this name 

 the remarks of the late E. H. Hart before the twenty-second 

 meeting of the American Pomological Society at Ocala, 

 Fla., in 1889, are self-explanatory. "The term 'kid-glove' 

 orange, as applied to Citrus nobilis, originally a joke of 

 our facetious countryman, Colonel Dancy, of Orange Mills, 

 was gravely accepted as a synonym by our first nomencla- 

 ture committee, and like many another whimsical what- 

 do-you-call-him, it struck, where one more dignified would 

 have glanced off." 



The investigations of De Candolle and others show 

 that we are safe in concluding that the mandarin oranges 



