42 STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 



described by saying that it appeals to the intellectual percep- 

 tions, as that natural goodness and excellence inherent in the 

 choice products of nature. This can be eliminated from the 

 orange and render the fruit insipid and valueless. We must 

 be careful in the selections of stock and bud that we draw 

 toward this noble fruit and gift of nature, the happy union of 

 staminate and blended qualities that awards this halo of 

 ambrosial excellence. 



If we select the late varieties the St. Michael and the 

 Tardive we will have in the first a strong late orange, and in 

 the last a seedless orange, both of good qualities. Could we 

 add a seedling, a medium early, sweet, with few seeds, and a 

 fine citrus quality, we will have oranges that will supplement 

 the Navel with comparative excellence and meet all market 

 demands. 



With the varieties modified and adapted to the best climatic 

 areas to produce the best fruit, and perpetuated in J^ud and 

 seed by scientific direction to respond to normal productiveness, 

 growth, and longevity, a foundation will be laid to rear a great 

 and glorious State. 



PERIOD OF FRUITFULNESS. 



There seems to be quite prevalent a belief or impression that 

 the period of profitable production of the Washington Navel 

 orange ceases after the seventh or eighth year. 



*"It is not claimed that our trees are shortlived, but that 

 their period of fruitfulness is to be short, and that the budded 

 varieties differ materially from the seedling in this regard. 

 But has such a difference been shown to exist in their actual 

 periods of fruitfulness? Let us make a comparison. In the 

 first place the Navel and seedling are both upon the same root? 

 and therefore start out in life upon the same footing. For the 

 first seven or eight years the seedling tree draws upon its plot 

 of ground for such elements of plant-food only as will produce 

 growth of leaf, limb, and root, asking for no fruit-forming 

 material, as it has made no fruit. It then begins to use spar- 

 ingly of its reserve materials, and within the next seven or 

 eight years it will so nearly have exhausted the fruit-forming 



*C. E. Bemis, in essay read at Farmers' Institute, at Covina, November. 

 1899. 



