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HOME FRUIT GROWER 



Fig. 105. Champagne, one of the best Loquats 



eastern quarter of the 

 United States and 

 adjacent Canada, but 

 among them not one suc- 

 cess. Doubtless, better 

 results have followed 

 similar trials in the South- 

 east, but I have not heard 

 of them. 



LOQUAT OR BIWA 



The Loquat (Fig. 

 105), one of the most de- 

 licious of fruits, is popu- 

 larly grown as a door-yard 

 and garden fruit from 

 Florida to California. 

 While generally eaten 

 fresh it is often made 

 into preserves, jams, pies 

 and jellies (the acid ones). 

 The thin but tough skin 

 contains a firm to melting, juicy, cherry-like flesh and one to eight 

 or ten large seeds in the center (Fig. 106). 



So far the majority of the trees growing in the South are seedlings 

 which, though mostly good, are inferior to the varieties recently 

 originated by C. P. Taft of California, and to some of those imported 

 from Algeria, Sicily and Japan, from which last country the Loquat 

 comes originally. The trees, which often grow 25 feet tall, blossom in 

 the Fall and in Spring ripen their globular to pear-shaped, yellow to 

 orange fruits, which sometimes are three inches long. 



While the tree will grow and produce an abundance of fruit on 

 poor, dry soil, the specimens though of good flavor and quality, are 

 almost always small. A moist, deep, gravelly loam suits them well. 

 They will stand fairly liberal feeding, but unless the fruit is thinned 

 the size will be more or less disappointing. In order to offset this 

 the trees are sometimes set close together 12 to 15 feet apart, though 

 about 20 feet is usual and the fruit thinned considerably. Culti- 

 vation is the same as for other orchard fruits. Fertilizing may be 

 fairly liberal after the plants begin to bear. Pruning consists in 

 shaping the tree as other trees are trained and in removing inferior, 

 internal and dying branches, preferably a little annually after the 

 trees reach maturity. Since the flower buds are borne at the tips- 



