APRIL 1, 1916 



271 



orchard in the North. That would make a 

 difference; for it would insure fertilization, 

 even in bad weather, in cases where the 

 gi'ower thought there were no bees about. 

 Few men, till their attention is called to it, 

 notice whether bees are on the blossoms or 

 not. 



I was glad to read the article, p. 92, Feb. 

 1, taken from the Hemet News, of Califor- 

 nia, It seems to corroborate what I have 

 been forced to conclude from my own ob- 

 sei'vations along this line. 



Deland, Fla. 



[Prof. Baldwin states the peculiar rondi- 

 lioiis in Florida so clearly that we consider 

 if his estimate of the number of colonies 

 needed per acre were too high ours was too 

 low. As he says, it is far better to err on 

 the safe side — that of having too many, 

 rather than too few to do the work of 

 pollination, both in the orchards of the 

 North and of the South. The last para- 

 gi'aph in the article referi'ing to the item on 

 page 92 is somewhat at variance with the 

 following article. Who is right? — Ed.] 



FROM THE CALIFORNIA STANDPOINT 



BY M. C. RICHTER 



As for California, it can be stated posi- 

 tively that all of our commercial varieties 

 of citrus fruits are able to set and mature 

 fruit without pollination. The navel orange 

 has no pollen, and very rarely contains a 

 seed. If, perchance, a seed has formed in 

 the navel orange, it means, in all proba- 

 bility, that a bee has brought some pollen, 

 e. g., from a Valencia tree, to the stigma of 

 the navel orange. It has happened at times 

 that navel oranges in some orchards have 

 had a considerable sprinkling of seeds in 

 them. This phenomenon, however, is of 

 rare occurrence. 



On the other hand, about half of the 

 Valencia oranges contain seeds ; but it rare- 

 ly happens that there is more than one seed 

 in an orange. The seeds are, of course, the 

 result of pollination. But if all the bloom 

 of a Valencia orange-tree were protected 

 from insects, there would nevertheless not 

 be the slightest diminution of set and ma- 

 ture fiTiit. 



The same is tiiie of lemon-trees. Dr. J. 

 Eliot Coit, Professor of Citriculture of the 

 University of California, and the leading 

 authority on the Pacific Coast, performed 

 the following experiment on a lemon-tree. 

 Just before the buds opened he cut off all 

 the upper portion, i. e., the petals and the 

 stigma of the pistil that receives pollen. 

 The bloom, nevertheless, set and matured 

 good fruit, which did not contain a single 

 seed. This experiment, altho made for an- 

 other purpose, viz., to ascertain whether the 

 lemon-tree could produce seeds partheno- 

 genetically, also proved that pollination is 

 not necessary to set and mature fruit. 



The honeybee in the citrus orchards of 

 California is not an unwelcome guest, how- 

 ever. She does not harm the orange-grower, 

 but she does enrich the state by thousands 

 of dollars annually. 



San Francisco, Cal. 



[The conditions in California, especially 

 when seedless fruit is grown, possibly are 

 quite different from conditions in Florida 

 and in the Isle of Pines. A Florida orange 

 and a Florida grapefruit are quite different 

 fi'om the same fruit in California. If we 

 are correct, Florida oranges all have seeds, 

 as the seedless variety apparently doesn't 

 do well there. Thei^e are a great many seed 

 oranges and grapefruit gi'own in California; 

 but the grapefruit in ' California is vei-y 

 much smaller than that from the Peninsular 

 state. Many colonies of bees are in the vi- 

 cinity of the orange and grapefruit gi'oves 

 in California. They gather a large amount 

 of honey from the groves. The presence of 

 the nectar would seem to indicate that Na- 

 ture has an object in seeking out the visita- 

 tion of insects in the citrus groves. While 

 it is probably true that seedless fruit can 

 be grown without bees, it is possible that 

 larger grapefruit could be gTown in Cali- 

 fornia providing there were more bees to 

 the acre. 



At the present time the citrus-fruit grow- 

 ers of the Isle of Pines are discovering that 

 they need bees; and we happen to know 

 that certain concerns furnishing bees are 

 having calls for bees. Bees in Cuba are so 

 badly affected with disease that the residents 

 of the Isle of Pines do not care to import- 

 from their nearest neighbor and are, there- 

 fore, seeking the breeders in the United 

 States. 



From the best advices at hand, the Isle 

 of Pines is greatly in need of bees because 

 the fruit-growers there are waking up to 

 the fact that they probably could grow more 

 and better fruit if they had more bees. 



This is a rather interesting question, and 

 we hope that some time the Bureau of 

 Entomology, Washington, can give us scien- 

 tific data on it. — Ed.] 



