The Malta or Portugal Oranges. 23 



oranges often yield bitter fruit, while according to 

 Dr. Ernst, at Caracas they sometimes yield sour, but 

 not bitter fruit. The foregoing is all taken from De 

 Candolle's recent book on the origin of cultivated 

 plants.* 



In my opinion the value of the three latter state- 

 ments depends a great deal on two circumstances, viz. : 

 (a) whether in Jamaica, Guadaloupe and Caracas, they 

 had besides sweet orange trees also bitter ones ; (b) 

 whether the sowings were made by professional Euro- 

 pean gardeners or light-hearted negroes. If in all the 

 places the two varieties existed and the seeds were in- 

 terfered with by negroes, then the chances are that the 

 latter, like the natives of India, never cared whether 

 they were doing things accurately or almost so. The 

 Indian has a saying : Unnis, bis, that is, 19 or 20, 

 it's all the same ! This is the maximum of accuracy he 

 ever attempts. Not impossibly, therefore, the "familiar 

 and well-attested facts " may after all only be " popular 

 errors." Let any one ask any Indian mali of the 

 plains, " What comes of sowing the seeds of a sweet 

 orange ? " he will reply, " Without doubt a sour orange 

 tree." The fact is he knows nothing at all about it, as 

 in the Khasia hills all the sweet Suntara oranges sup- 

 plied to the Calcutta market come from trees raised 

 from seed, and in no other way ! 



Gallesio, on the contrary, appears to record the 

 sowings of professional European gardeners, and he 

 speaks with no uncertain words. 



When all is said, the fact remains that the Malta or 

 Portugal orange, in its unripe state, is sour, and that, 

 therefore, it probably originated from some sour wild 



* It should be however noted that the writers describe only the 

 flavour of the fruit and give no other characters of the tree, and 

 the flavour may alter very much. 



