28 



THE ORANGE; 



level surface. For a striker I used a little 

 board, notched, as shown in the accom- 

 panying diagram, to allow the lower edge 

 to play freely inside the box an inch and 

 a half below the top edge. 



THE STRIKER. 



PLACING THE BOXES. The ground 

 where the propagating boxes were to be 

 located had previously been graded to a 

 level. As each box was in turn filled and 

 leveled, it was placed in position where it 

 was .to remain through the season. Nar- 

 row strips of lumber were laid on the 

 ground for the boxes to rest upon, thus 



I obtained some well-matured seedling 

 fruit. A quantity of cullings thorned 

 and partially rotted fruit thrown out by 

 a packing house, served the purpose, and 

 my only expense was the hauling. I have 

 since used seetis from imported Tahiti 

 oranges. The foreign seeds are plumper 

 ad more fertile. These I ordered from a 

 San Francisco importing house, and the 

 expense, delivered, was $7 per barrel of 

 rotted oranges. A barrel yielded about 

 eight thousand seeds. In my first plant- 

 ing, however, the native seeds did fairly. 

 EXTRACTING THE SEEDS. In using fruit 

 that was sound, or nearly so, I made a 

 latitudinal cut about the orange, taking 

 care that the knife penetrated only a part 

 of the way through the pulp. The halves 



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ARRANGEMENT OF THE BOXES. 



admitting free circulation of air beneath 

 for warmth and drainage. There were 

 four tiers of boxes, the two outside con- 

 taining two rows each; the inner, three 

 each. This made ten rows, with sixteen 

 boxes to the row altogether 160 boxes. 

 Between the tiers alley-ways, eighteen 

 inches wide, gave access to every part of 

 the bed. No alleys were left around the 

 outside. From any alley I could reach 

 over the first row of boxes and work in 

 the second row without inconvenience. 

 SEEDS. For seed, in my first planting, 



were then torn apart, and the seeds forced 

 out by pressing down upon the pulp with 

 the ball of the thumb. In handling 

 thoroughly rotted fruit I used a sieve with 

 quarter-inch mesh. In this the pulp was 

 thoroughly macerated and washed with 

 water. The finer particles passed through 

 the sieve, and the skins and coarser parts 

 were picked out, leaving the seeds sepa- 

 rated and clean. The seeds should not bo 

 allowed to dry befoie planting. I kept 

 mine in a bucket of water until used. I 

 tried, to a certain extent, the Mediterra- 



