hundred years, is so great that Americans do not know how to consider 

 it in the light of a permanent investment. The fear has sometimes 

 been expressed that the business will be overdone, that the supply will 

 after a while exceed the demand and the price of the fruit so decline 

 that the orange will be unprofitable to the grower. But those who 

 entertain this fear have certainly not considered the facts. That 

 portion of the States, with climate suitable for growing the orange, is 

 comparatively small. The southern portion of California, a very 

 small part of Louisiana and the whole of Florida if devoted to orange 

 culture is but a trifle compared to the vast sections of the United 

 States which will be well filled with inhabitants long before the orange 

 growing sections can be brought into bearing. The present yield of ~ 

 fruit grown in the United States furnishes hardly one orange a year to 

 each inhabitant. Our population will likely double, judging the 

 future by the past, in the next thirty or forty years. To furnish such 

 a population with one orange or lemon a day will require no less than 

 thirty thousand millions of oranges or lemons per annum. The skill 

 in gathering, curing and packing the late and early varieties now 

 appearing will enable the grower to furnish for the market at all 

 seasons of the year either oranges or lemons. The wholesomeness of 

 the fruit, together with its medicinal qualities, will increase its popu- 

 larity as an article of food, until it will be universally used. At pres- 

 ent the production of Florida oranges is so small that it is not known 

 in the markets of many of our largest cities. The foreign varieties 

 offered in those markets, even when fully ripe and eaten fresh in their 

 own countries, will not compare with the' Florida orange. But in 

 order to reach this country in sound condition they have to be gathered 

 when green and hence are not only unpalatable but unwholesome. 

 When the Florida orange becomes generally known, and the supply is - 

 adequate, it will exclude these foreign varieties and, because of its 

 excellence, become uuiverally used. Such will be the demand. 



Now note the possibility of supply. Only a small proportion of 

 those sections with climate sufficiently mild to grow the orange can 

 ever be made available. The long, dry seasons of California prevent 

 the possibility of growing this fruit in that State except by irrigation, 

 while the estimated yield per tree is only six hundred oranges. In 



