IO4 Oranges and Lemons of India. 



50 years, nay even a century afterwards. A tree 

 requires 1 5 years to reach maturity, but will produce 

 both flowers and fruit in four or five years. When 

 in full vigour each tree yields an average of 25 

 pounds weight of blossoms annually. Many plan- 

 tations at Nice are more than 100 years old. 

 At Fontainebleau there are now to be seen orange 

 trees planted by an ancestor of mine 200 years 

 ago." 



It should be remembered that in the South of 

 Europe, besides taking the excess of flowers for per- 

 fumery purposes, enough are left to produce an ordinary 

 crop of fruit. A given tree can only support a given 

 amount of fruit, but the flowers are far in excess of the 

 amount of fruit which it will carry, and so this excess 

 is gathered and sold fresh daily to perfumers. 



The following, taken from the Gardeners Chronicle 

 of 20 June, 1885, p. 796, may help to impress the 

 reader with the value of manures and good general 

 tilling of the soil, especially when a large quantity 

 of the soil, &c., in the shape of fruit, is annually 

 removed. 



"Food of plants derived from the atmosphere and 

 the soiir 



"No plant can attain full development without 

 a sufficiency of potash, phosphoric acid, and nitrogen. 

 Besides these, lime, magnesia, sulphuric acid, chlorine, 

 and perhaps silica, are sometimes, if not always, in- 

 dispensable to produce perfect growth, though in some 

 cases they are only required in fractional proportions. 



" The largest constituent of plants is water, which 

 forms nearly f to ^ of the weight of common garden 

 plants. The next largest constituent is the organic 

 matter, which is from seven to 25 per cent. And 

 finally, the ash constituents which remain after the 



