ORANGE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 177 



many oranges per tree as seedlings of the same age, and as the 

 trees grow in age the difference increases in favor of the seed- 

 ling. No one knows that the budded orange tree is shorter 

 lived than the seedling, because the orange is a long-lived tree ; 

 but other budded trees are shorter lived than corresponding 

 seedlings ; hence, he argues from analogy that the budded or- 

 ange tree is also shorter lived than the seedling. The Florida 

 argument is not good, because they bud everything there, taking 

 the wild, sour orange from the woods as the stock on which to 

 work. They must bud it, because it is worthless without. Here 

 it is different. He does rot think the budded tree will produce 

 a fruit more nearly uniform than that of the seedling. All trees 

 will produce some good and some poor specimens of fruit. 



Mr. Frye, Superintendent of the Wolfskilf orchard, stated 

 that one tree in that orchard bore a very large fruit of excellent 

 quality, while adjacent trees bore the ordinary seedlings. Trees 

 budded from that tree all produced the same fine quality of 

 fruit. He could discover nothing in the soil or the surroundings 

 of that tree, or of those budded from it, that should cause the 

 superior fruit. 



Mr. Messenger thought a stranger, listening to the discussion, 

 would come to this conclusion: "There appears to be a differ- 

 ence of opinion in regard to budding the orange. It seems that 

 a man can put out an orchard of budded trees, and realize an 

 income from it in two years, while he must wait five years for 

 returns from an orchard of seedlings. I shall therefore put out 

 a budded orchard, and then study this question at leisure." 



Mr. Blanchard, of Ventura, stated that the Horticultural So- 

 ciety of Florida had translated and published a French work on 

 the citrus family written fifty years ago by Gallesio, in which 

 the author took the same ground, relative to budding, as that 

 taken by Mr. Rose. Budded trees in full bearing would produce 

 from fifteen hundred to two thousand oranges per tree, while 

 seedlings would produce from two thousand to five thousand, 

 and he gave one instance in which a tree had borne eight thou- 

 sand. The seedling tree bore uniformly good fruit, influenced 

 only by soil, climate and location. 



Mr. Garey replied that Gallesio's work was no argument for 



