ORANGES IN JAMAICA. 421 



tioii for cattle grazing. The doctor says of the introduction of the 

 orange : 



When the English landed in this island they found here the sweet and bitter 

 orange and the lime. The citron and shaddock are of more recent introduction ; and 

 at the present time nearly all the useful kinds of the orange family are either widely 

 disseminated or to be found as growing specimens in our botanical gardens. The 

 JEgle marmelos, or Bael fruit, is yet scarce; the Japanese orange, or kumquat, is 

 almost unknown, and some kinds of lemon, notably the bergamot and lime, are still 

 wanting. 



After speaking at length of the conspicuous and distinctive charac- 

 teristics of the orange tree as evidence in the leaf, the flowers, the 

 seeds, and the rind, he says : 



The sweet oranges grown in Jamaica have been, up to quite recent years, of no par- 

 ticular or named variety. They have been grown from seed ; and it speaks much for 

 the perfect suitability of the soil and climate in most parts of the island that such 

 excellent fruit should have been produced under a plan which embodies none of the 

 teachings of horticultural art, under a plan, in short, which is one of neglect or lucky 

 chance, left to take the place of intelligent guidance. The earliest cultivators of 

 oranges in this island were the enslaved negroes, and the oldest trees yielding the 

 largest crops are only to be found on those parts of estates which were set apart for 

 the cottages and gardens of the slaves. I know of a small sugar estate on which, 

 forty years after emancipation, the fruits of the orange trees planted by the old 

 negroes around their dwellings, were sold to a contractor, without any expense of 

 labor, for 40. This was almost at the commencement of our fruit trade, and the 

 crop (more carefully handled now than then) is worth more than double the money. 

 Our common variety, then, is a mixture of seedlings, some of the fruit being really 

 excellent, of large size, of good flavor, and of qualities which achieve for it a popu- 

 larity in the American market. Naturally, when the cultivators trust only to seed- 

 ling trees for their crops, the best fruit will be produced in the most highly-favored 

 localities. The orange tree requires a deep, rich soil, a warm climate, with plenty of 

 sun to ripen and sweeten the fruit, and plenty of moisture to keep up its growth. 

 These conditions of soil and climate obtain in the parish of Manchester, which is 

 famous for its oranges, also in the cooler parts of Clarendon and St. Catherine and in 

 St. Ann's, from all of which parts the best oranges are exported. % 



Of the methods for propagating desired varieties he says : 



We owe the large number of varieties to the tendency which the orange has to 

 *' sport," as gardeners term the tendency of seedlings to prove different from the 

 parent plant. Whilst this tendency is of some advantage as affording the chance of 

 improvement, it is a disadvantage, in that it prevents the propagation of the tree by 

 means of seed, for when seeds are sown the resulting tree is much more likely to be 

 inferior to than it is to equal or surpass its parent. Hence the necessity for special 

 means of propagation, as by cuttings, layering, budding, and grafting. The orange 

 tree is not usually propagated by cuttings, but it can be done ; nor by layers, and 

 yet, as a matter of fact, a modification of the method of layering, known as layering 

 by elevation, is practiced in the case of the orange. Almost everybody is familiar 

 with the process of laying down the shoot of a grape-vine. The branch of the vine is 

 simply laid in a shallow trench ; it is pegged down in its place, or a stone is placed 

 upon it to keep it down. The trench is then filled up with earth, which should be 

 kept moist, when in about three mouths a copious supply of roots has been thrown 

 out by the branch in the trench, and the shoot may be cut off from the parent vine 

 and be planted in an independent position. Now, in the case of a high-growing tree 

 Jifce the orange, we can not bring the branch down to the ground, but we can carry 



