THE ORANGE IN CALIFORNIA VARIETIES. 



57 



nounced difference in coloring. While some are disposed to 

 believe that through its golden-bronze skin shines the lighter 

 blood of a remote ancestry, others in turn find an excuse for 

 its sporting in the theory that adjacent trees bearing fruit of a 

 different variety may by pollination stamp upon it the insignia 

 of their species for the Navel is more susceptible to change 

 than any other type. From reports of the United States con- 

 suls in the orange-growing countries of the entire world, it is 

 clear that in no other country on the face of the globe is the 



Original Washington Navel orange trees, at the Tibbets homestead, 

 Riverside, Cal. 



culture of the orange so successful as in the Golden State, 

 where the climatic conditions and soil are so well adapted to 

 its perfection of character. There are two colossal old trees, 

 * Los Migueletes,' in Mairena del Alcon of Seville, which are 

 recorded to have borne each thirty-eight thousand oranges in a 

 single season, and those in the garden of the Alcazar, at 

 Seville, said to have been planted at the time of King Pedro I, 

 and others whose hollow trunks still support luxuriant foliage, 

 which might have afforded shade for Charles I, for they date 

 back three hundred and forty years. While the original Cali- 



