CITRUS CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA — POLLINATION. 41 



germ and excite germination, or a weakness of the nectaries to 

 furnish sweets to attract the natural insect aids. 



(6) That the capacity of the Navel to produce pollen is an 

 inherent weakness of the staminal impulse in the tree and is 

 not dependent upon climatic conditions. This removes the 

 Navel from the varieties that can be modified by germinal 

 changes in the embryo or seed, and classifies it with those 

 varieties which will show modifications by adaptation in their 

 bud development onlj'. That if the same inherent bud quali- 

 ties were possessed by the parent trees of Florida and Cali- 

 fornia, unfruitfulness of the Navel varietj^ may be expected to 

 appear in the orchards of California. 



AJaptability. — The great questions of profitable and success- 

 ful orange culture in California are the adaptability of each 

 variety to an area that will produce, as far as possible, a perfect 

 fruit, and the selection of such groups of qualities that will 

 meet a market demand during the season. 



That one principal variety, like the Washington Navel, can 

 fulfill these conditions is impossible. Several well-chosen 

 varieties will meet the market demand. 



If a relatively sweet orange for the early market is desired 

 we should choose one in which the processes of fruit growth 

 hasten the period of ripening, as in the Washington Navel and 

 Homosassa — one the great seedless orange of California, and 

 the other a modified staminal type. This caution should be 

 given as to the Navel and all seedless varieties. 



There is a subtle and delicate citrus quality that must be 

 associated in all the qualities of an orange. It can only be 

 described by saying that it appeals to the intellectual percep- 

 tions, as that natural goodness and excellence inherent in the 

 choice products of nature. This can be eliminated from the 

 orange and render the fruit insipid and valueless. We must 

 be careful in the selections of stock and bud so that we will 

 draw toward this noble fruit and gift of nature the happy union 

 of staminate and blended qualities that awards this halo of 

 ambrosial excellence. 



If we select the late varieties— the St. Michael and the 

 Tardive — we will have in the first a strong late orange, and in 

 the last a seedless orange, both of good qualities. Could we 

 add a seedling, a medium early, sweet, with few seeds, and a 



