130 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



Florida, and this may be another case of compensation. At least it is 

 not a cause of anxiety upon the part of California growers. 



The other standard orange is the Valencia Late, a somewhat seeded 

 variety, and hence not subject to the inconstancy of the Navel, and 

 rarely if ever missing in typical quality through the faults of the 

 parent tree. This orange, in a few localities, vies with the Navel for 

 supremacy of acreage, but generally is of small importance in the crop 

 totals. It is not prepossessing in color, it is uniform in quality, size, 

 and productiveness, and could it be shipped skinless would sell better 

 upon its color, texture, and solidity. There are two or three hybrids of 

 the Washington Navel and the Valencia Late which might have been 

 more popular had they not been queered by the explanations of their 

 origin. 



As this is in the nature of current comment upon the orange in 

 Southern California, I shall not mention the other varieties, except 

 to state that most of them have gradually lost consideration at the 

 hands of the practical grower. Some progress has been made in the 

 cultivation of the Tangerine, and in a few cases it has been very profit- 

 able. The other varieties of the Mandarin type are yet in their experi- 

 mental stage and can not be ranked among the profitable kinds. The 

 pomelo, the largest and most prolific of all the oranges, is halting at 

 present, with good prospects of becoming a perpetuity in the ordinary 

 run of the business. 



The stock now being planted is almost universally first-class. The 

 mistakes made in planting scrub orange trees were in evidence years 

 ago, and the lesson has been so impressed upon the orchardists that 

 the nurserymen seldom advertise or attempt to sell poor trees 



There is nothing new in the practice of preparing the ground for 

 trees. Experience has shown that the land must be graded with special 

 reference to its irrigation. There are many misfit orchards among the 

 oldest plantations in this respect, entailing great loss in the congestion 

 of fertilizers, inequalities in irrigation, and impossible irrigation in some 

 cases. The intelligent planter no longer prepares his land improperl}" 

 or by fixed rule, but proportions his grade as far as possible to the 

 character of his soil and the methods of irrigation he wishes to use., I 

 need not describe the different plans of orchard formation. The square, 

 the five square, and the triangular each has its advocates; but since the 

 orange has been found such a ravenous feeder that its roots soon ramify 

 its feeding-ground entire, we hear little of the arrangement of the trees, 

 but much of their planting distances. 



Aside from the fact that the square formation has the advantage of 

 all others in economy of cultivation, especially in alluvial soils where 

 the ground near the trees does not need cultivation, it has been found 

 advantageous from the fumigator's standpoint. There is nothing more 



