THE ORANGE IN COMMERCE 421 



It is a significant fact that though the orange thrives in the 

 tropics it does not resent the slight touch of frost which charac- 

 terizes semi-tropical situations. It is also significant that the 

 fruit grown in semi-tropical countries, especially those which 

 have a more or less distinctly marked two-season climate, differs 

 in character from the strictly tropical orange and is firmer, heavier, 

 more sprightly in flavor and with much better keeping and carry- 

 ing qualities. The tropical orange has but small commercial im- 

 portance ; the semi-tropical orange rules in the markets of the 

 world. That the semi-tropical orange should have this distinctive 

 character is most fortunate, for it ministers directly to the will 

 for industry which is superior in semi-tropical countries. By the 

 seven degrees of frost which the orange tree will endure without 

 injury, it has gained the seventy degrees of north latitude through 

 which its fruit freely seeks a market. Because, though the tropical 

 orange would reach most distant markets in small quantities, it 

 could never attain the commercial supremacy which the fruit now 

 enjoys. 



The sweet orange is a native of eastern Asia and was carried 

 thence to India and to Asia Minor. It possibly reached Portugal 

 from India through the early Portuguese navigators. Thus the dis 

 tribution of the fruit was westward. The history of modern com- 

 mercial orange growing consists of a series of progressive move- x 

 ments always trending westward and gaining in volume the 

 newer centers of production outstripping the older and ultimately 

 largely displacing their product from the greatest markets of the 

 upper divisions of the temperate zone. When the Moors intro- 

 duced orange growing into Algeria and Spain they displaced the 

 traffic from Asia Minor and gave the Mediterranean region for 

 several hundred years undisputed possession of the markets of 

 the north of Europe and possession also of the American demand 

 when that arose. When the Spaniards and Portuguese carried 

 the orange to the West Indies and to Florida they laid the foun- 

 dation for an industry which American enterprise developed in 

 Florida until that district not only contended with the Mediter- 

 ranean region for American markets, but was planning to invade 

 northern Europe by direct shiploads w r hen the demonstration 

 came that the climate of northern Florida and of the Gulf coast 

 westward was too treacherous for commercial ventures in orange 

 growing at least with the then popular varieties and methods of 

 propagation. But as the Florida supply failed through the severe 

 freezing of 1895, California came forward and is now not only 

 supplying four-fifths of the oranges consumed in the United States, 

 but is selling the highest priced oranges in the London market 

 against a \vorld of competitors. 



