22 Oranges and Lemons of India. 



long series of years sown pips of sweet oranges,* taken 

 sometimes from the natural tree (seedlings), and some 

 times from oranges grafted on bitter orange and 

 lemon trees. The result has always been trees bearing 

 sweet fruit, and the same has been observed for more 

 than sixty years by all the gardeners of Finale. There 

 is no instance of a bitter orange tree from the seed of 

 sweet oranges, nor of a sweet orange tree from the seed 

 of bitter oranges. In 1709 the orange trees of Finale 

 having been killed by frost the practice of raising sweet 

 orange trees from seed was introduced, and every one 

 of these plants produced the sweet-juiced fruit." 



The foregoing is either true or not true. If true, 

 it is, I think, good evidence in favour of the two 

 kinds having a distinct parentage, and that not 

 improbably they are distinct species ; considering the 

 opportunities both must have had of intercrossing, 

 the latter surmise becomes stronger. 



Curiously enough, however, De Candolle goes on 

 to record that Macfadyen, in his " Flora of Jamaica," 

 says "It is a well established fact, familiar to every 

 one who has been any length of time in this island, 

 that the seed of the sweet orange very frequently grows 

 up into a tree bearing the bitter fruit, well attested 

 instances of which have come to my own knowledge. 

 I am not aware, however, that the seeds of the 

 bitter orange have ever grown up into the sweet 

 fruited variety. We may therefore conclude that 

 the bitter orange was the original stock." Macfadyen 

 asserts that in calcareous soil the sweet orange may 

 be raised from seed, but that in other soils it 

 produces fruits more or less sour or bitter. Duchas- 

 saing says that in Guadaloupe, the seeds of sweet 



* Presumably of the Portugal type, as the suniara type of orange 

 appears to have been then unknown in Europe. 



