CHAPTER XV 



THE WILD "SOUR," OR SEVILLE ORANGE 



Citrus aurantiwm bigaradia: Rutacem 



THERE is no edible fruit in America which both grows 

 so abundantly (through the southern — the semi- 

 tropical portion) and is at the same time so little known or 

 understood and in consequence so little appreciated 

 or considered adapted to practical usage as is the wild or 

 sour (as it is known in the South), or the Seville orange, 

 as it is properly termed. And this fact seems the more 

 strange the further one looks into it, since Americans travel 

 so extensively and this orange is so highly prized for nu- 

 merous purposes throughout Europe and the British Isles 

 (to say nothing of other countries and continents) , whether 

 there grown or merely imported. This may perhaps be 

 explained by the fact that as a nation Americans are eaters 

 and drinkers of sweet stuffs and that to be told a fruit is 

 sour is to consider it uninviting and uninteresting even as 

 to name: something to "forget." And so, when the use of 

 the Seville orange is read of (with no special mention of its 

 acidity) it is not connected with the "sour" orange; it is 

 already truly forgotten with other disagreeable matters, 

 and it is taken for granted that the Seville is some variety 

 of the common, sweet orange. There is a "Sweet Seville," 

 but it is never mentioned by those really familiar with 

 oranges without the distinguishing adjective, for it is a 

 mere namesake and all sweet oranges (unless we except the 

 mandarin-tangerine group, whose history is rather indef- 

 initely blurred in the hazy mass of ancient Japanese and 



