406 FRUIT CULTURE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



newly laid out lime-tree plantations the distance between trees is 20 

 feet in every direction. 



Situation. Anywhere, mostly in moist places along small streamlets 

 or gulches on the hill-sides, in low bottoms along rivers, or near the 

 sea-shore ; in sandy black loam they yield the best results ; the sweet- 

 est and thin-skinned oranges usually grow on hill-sides, whilst the fruit 

 of lowlands is generally thick-skinned. 



Some orchards are in close proximity to the sea-shore, in sandy black 

 loam, in some instances with lagoons or brackish water on the side op- 

 posite to the sea-shore, and give very excellent results. Thus situated 

 there is one, newly, regularly planted, of 8,000 lime trees and 100 orange 

 trees, with room for many thousands more, and with the advantage of 

 cheap transportation by water to Acapulco, the port of shipping. 



Irrigation. Xo system of artificial irrigation is in use ; the ground 

 between trees is not cultivated, but merely kept free of undergrowth 

 and weeds, lands being as yet of but nominal value. 



Yield. As the orchards are not regularly planted and the trees are 

 scattered here and there without any regard to economy in laud occupied, 

 it is utterly impossible to state even only approximately the yield or 

 cost of cultivation of an acre per annum. 



One orange tree from the age of eight years up to fifty years of age in 

 ordinarily good conditions will yield on an average 3,000 oranges every 

 year, worth, picked, $4 per thousand. A lime tree from the age of eight 

 years to the age of fifty bears fruit all the year round, and will yield 

 about 8,000 per year, worth on the tree, say, $L<>. 



Land being but of nominal value, no interest on capital invested in 

 the same or any ground rent is to be taken in account: nothing is irri- 

 gated, consequently the cost of cultivation is very little, say $150 per 

 annum for an orchard of several hundred trees. 



There being no export market for the other varieties of the citrus 

 family, they are of comparatively little value, and only raised for home 

 consumption. 



JOHN A. SUTTER, JR., 



Consul. 



UNITED STATES CONSULATE, 



Acapulco, February 15, 1884. 



SONORA. 



REPORT BY CONSUL WILLAIID, OF GUAYMAS. 



On receipt of circular, I addressed letters to several of the orange 

 growers in the interior of Souora (for at Guaymns but few oranges are 

 grown) and in reply was informed that, as the cultivation of oranges 

 as a business in Sonora dates back only a few years (since the Sonora 

 railway has been in operation, 1882), they did not feel competent m 

 giving a proper report. 



