Cultivation of the Orange and Lemon. 103 



die without any assignable cause, before reaching 

 maturity as well as after, and from the quantity of 

 dead trunks stacked for firewood, the rate of mor- 

 tality seemed high. 



The orange planter should always keep before him 

 what has been stated in Appendix, No. 32. " In the 

 Azores, the finest orange gardens in the world, the 

 trees up to 1836 were in perfect condition; no care, 

 no attention, and no labour was given them, save 

 that of picking, packing, and exporting the fruit. 

 The trees were left without manure, without draining, 

 and may be without pruning. The people sang, they 

 danced, and amused themselves, while the trees 

 pumped out of the soil its essence to feed the 

 oranges. When ripe they exported the most valuable 

 part of their soil in the shape of oranges to London, 

 and then perhaps they sang and danced and enjoyed 

 themselves more vigorously by the aid of the pro- 

 ceeds of the sales, without giving a thought to the 

 need of compensating the soil for its annual loss. 

 They woke up one day, however, to find disease 

 spreading among their orange groves, and to see trees 

 200 and 300 years old, and producing each from 6,000 

 to 20,000 oranges, disappearing ! " 



G. W. Septimus Piesse, in his " Art of Perfumery," 

 published in 1879, gives us some idea of the care 

 and attention given to the orange tree in the South 

 of Europe. He says : " Before planting the orange 

 (sweet Portugal or bitter Seville), a tree which 

 attains great age, the soil upon which it is to live 

 must be well prepared, otherwise the after life of 

 the tree will not be of that thriving condition which 

 we could desire. The soil should be trenched at 

 least to the depth of four feet, and well manured. 

 The care bestowed on the infant plant will be seen 



