622 THE ORANGE. 



more, have at length sprouted and regained their former^size. 

 Unless actually diseased, there would seem to be hardly any 

 limit to their recuperative power. Trees that had remained 

 stationary for many years in the shade of crowded thickets, or 

 stunted and dwarfed by aggressive grass and weeds, when 

 removed to a congenial spot and cared for have immediately 

 responded by growing off apace. 



Evolution of the Orange. 



The orange, originally a berry about the size of a marble, 

 bitter and full of seeds, has been brought to its present 

 astonishing development in size and flavor by the patient 

 efforts of cultivators from the most remote times. The dif- 

 ferent types and varieties are the result of careful selection 

 of seeds from fruit possessing the qualities most desired, and 

 many variations have come from crossings with the lime and 

 citron. Climate and soil have also exercised a powerful in- 

 fluence, after a term of years changing a variety so much 

 as to render difficult its identification with the original. 

 When various kinds of citrus are intermingled in one grove, 

 distinguishing characteristics are sometimes completely 

 wiped out. In extreme cases almost the whole crop on a 

 tree of an elongated variety has become spherical or even 

 flattened, and vice versa ; navel oranges lost their special 

 mark, and the navel seal appeared on nearly all the fruit of 

 a China-orange tree. Navel oranges, properly seedless, have 

 acquired seeds from the pollen of adjoining seedy varieties; 

 also what appeared to be oranges have been found on lemon- 

 trees and the reverse. Although these changes may not 

 be sufficiently common to forbid the intermingling of dif- 

 ferent trees in a commercial grove, yet they are common 

 enough to prove how easily and rapidly changes in types and 

 varieties may be brought about; the necessity of care in the 

 selection of seed; and also what some botanists have denied, 

 namely, that the influence of pollination appears directly in 

 the flesh of the fruit instead of affecting merely the seed. 

 When quick results in crossing are desired, it may be remem- 

 bered that the influence of strange pollen deposited upon the 

 stigma will also affect for a short time several buds behind 

 and under the blossom, and before this influence ceases these 



