CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 

 FRANCE. 



REPORT BY CONSUL BRADLEY, OF NICE. 

 ORANGES AND LEMONS IN THE RIVIERA. 



Varieties. Among the hundred and over varieties of citrus grown on 

 the Riviera, it is impossible to specify any one or two as most profitable. 

 The oranges are not only exported as fruit, but orange-flower water is 

 distilled from large quantities of their flowers (one firm alone using 

 700,000 pounds of flowers). Tons are candied green. Neroli, so much 

 used by the perfumer, is extracted from other varieties, and from the 

 dried peel cura^oa is manufactured. 



From recommendations given I have 'selected eight varieties of 

 oranges as among the most useful. 



ORANGES. 



Orange franc (Citrus aurantium vulgare). Stem straight and vigor- 

 ous, bark gray, head hemispheric, whose branches, numerous and con- 

 fused, are covered with thorns. The young sprouts are angulous and of 

 tender green color. The lower leaves thick, oVal, lightly notched, light 

 green ; upper leaves oblong, darker green, glossy, entire, on along stem, 

 less winged than the under leaves. Flowers axillary and terminal, white 

 petals, ovary often striated at the base. Fruits, average size, rounded, 

 globulous, sometimes slightly concave at top, where the place that the 

 style occupied is always apparent. The stem end frequently shows the 

 striae noticed in the ovary. Skin golden yellow, slightly rough, and cov- 

 ered with vesicles. The pulp is divided into eight or ten compartments, 

 full of large vesicles nearly as yellow as the skin, which hold a juice 

 abundant, palatable, and sweet. Seeds large, oblong, unequal, each 

 inclosing three or four perfect germs. The tree grows here to be 24 

 feet high, its head, say, 27 feet in circumference; in warmer climates 

 a little larger. It commences bearing at eighteen or twenty years of 

 age. The fruit grows sweeter as the tree grows older. It ripens early 

 and resists cold better than any other variety ; not much cultivated on 

 account of slow growth, and because the fruit is much of it spoiled for 

 transportation by the thorns, but the stocks are much used for grafts of 

 other varieties. 



477 



