92 



The Scarlet Mandarin. This is a larger-sized tree 

 with a tendency at first to make axial growth and after- 

 wards to spread out lateralty. The fruit is fairly large, 

 often equal to the Emperor, sometimes obscurely ridged 

 like a tomato. The rind is deep dull red, not so lively in 

 fragrance as the other sorts, and ultimately becomes almost 

 detached from the sections, giving the fruit an unpleasant 

 podgy feel. The rag is loose, fragmentary and scattered, 

 and the flavour is more or less mawkish, wanting acidity 

 and crispness. Of the Mandarins, however, it is the tree 

 which best will stand tropical heat. For Cape growing, it 

 is not to be named as a competitor of the cling-rind 

 Emperor. 



THE LEMON. 



The Lemon has not been much of a success at the Cape. 

 There has been little effort till lately to get first-class 

 known and marketable varieties, and the plague of seedlings 

 has had more visible effect on the market lemon than on 

 the orange. It is truly pitiful to see the large imports of 

 Sicilian and Lisbon lemons coming over six thousand miles 

 by sea to the country which could grow them quite as well, 

 if not better, than either of the countries exporting them. 



The lemon is considerably more delicate in constitution 

 than the orange. It will neither put up with sudden vicis- 

 situdes of climate nor the alternations of care and neglect 

 which the orange would more or less successfully support. 

 The proof of this fact is to be found in many a garden and 

 orchard where the citrus trees are going back from year to 

 year. The lemons invariably die out first. 



"With regard to climatic conditions, the lemon cannot be 

 expected to give profitable results in localities where sharp 

 spells of frost are to be dreaded in winter. As little will 

 it thrive in those nooks of hot and humid coast-land, where 

 we ought to be growing pine-apples and bananas. Pro- 

 bably the altitude of the upper plateau, 3,000 to 5,000 feet 

 above the sea, will, except in a few sheltered and excep- 

 tional localities, never produce the lemon in perfection. 

 The base of the first slope inland and the plateau^above the 



