406 FKUIT CULTURE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



uewly 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-skinued 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, ill 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 land 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, $10. 



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

 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 

 annual for an orchard of several hundred trees. 



There beinp; 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. Suxtek, Jr., 



Consul. 

 United Stated Consulate, 



Acapulco, February 15, 1884, 



SONORA. 



UEPORT liY CONSUL WILLARD, OF (JVAYMAS. 



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

 growers ia the interior of Sonora (for at Guaytnas but few oranges aire 

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

 ;is a busiiii'ss ill Konora dales back only a lew years (since llie Sonora 

 railway hits been in oix'ration, 1882), they did not WhA fompetonf in 

 j-jivini',' .1. ])i'oii('i' report. 



