630 THE ORANGE. 



fertile, could long keep up its strength when crops of two 

 hundred and fifty to nearly four times that number of boxes 

 of fruit are annually removed from it, unless the elements 

 taken away are continually being restored. In the wild 

 groves, where the entire product falls and is immediately re- 

 solved into original forms by decay, there is of course no 

 impoverishment or deterioration. 



The peculiar characteristics of an orange are also due, in 

 great measure, to the season of its development and ripening. 

 The superior excellence of the Florida product is well known. 

 About the ist of March the blossom opens. During the dry 

 weather of April and May the superfluous setting falls off, and 

 what remains progresses, under the fostering influences oi: 

 heat and showers, to maturity by the last of autumn. The 

 cool winter weather checks the flow of sap, the green rind 

 assumes a brilliant golden hue, and the sharp acids become 

 toned down and blended with a delightful intermingling of 

 the saccharine. Evidently the conditions of climate and soil 

 are eminently fitted and the changes of the seasons come just 

 at the right time, to bring about these superlative qualities. 

 But there are midsummer blooms whose fruit ripens the fol- 

 lowing summer, and it is a curious fact that this summer fruit, 

 though subject to the same influences, but at different seasons 

 as regards stages of growth, is every way inferior to the regu- 

 lar crop, and, instead of a ruddy golden yellow, never gets 

 beyond a pale greenish tinge. The same has been observed 

 in some tropical regions, where cool weather is unknown; 

 hence it is evident that a low temperature at the ripening 

 period contributes to perfection, and it is believed that the 

 orange is best at its northern limit in this hemisphere. South 

 of the equator the conditions would be reversed. 



Distance of Planting. The distance apart in the grove de- 

 pends upon the kind of tree and character of soil. Sweet 

 seedlings or buds on sweet stocks grow to a great size, and 

 anywhere from thirty to forty feet will not be found too close 

 in loose and deeply drained ground. On sour stocks twenty- 

 five to thirty feet. On trifoliata still closer, and dwarfed on 

 Otaheite no more than ten by ten. On heavy, low-lying, and 

 wet land, trees attain less size and should be set nearer ; say 

 twenty by twenty for sweet stocks and sixteen by twenty for 



