70 



THE OEANGE; 



to produce from twenty-five to fifty or- 

 anges, the third year two hundred, and 

 thus increasing proportionately until m 

 full bearing. 



Fruit Thinning Afterwards Desir- 

 able. — The careful grower will not over- 

 look the thinning of his fruit at any age 

 of the tree. Thus only is the finest qual- 

 ity and a good uniformity of fruit to be 

 obtained. As the trees become large the 

 task of thinning increases to laborious 

 proportions, but that is no reason why it 

 should be overlooked. No greater over- 

 sight is to be charged to our orange grow- 

 ers generally than in their neglect to re- 

 press the over-productive tendency of 

 their trees. 



A Short Cut in Thinning.— An expe- 

 ditious way of thinning the fruit adopted 

 by some growers is to prune their trees 

 quite heavily in June or in one of the fall 

 months when in a dormant stage. This 

 finds the fruit newly set or half formed, 

 and a fair proportion of it is removed with 

 the severed limbs. I believe this to be an 

 excellent plan, "killing two birds with 

 one stone," and both of them pretty good 

 birds. 



Props.— If the high system of prunning 

 has been observed, the fruit will be borne 

 near the extremities of long slender 

 branches, and it is generally necessary to 

 sustain these branches with props from the 

 time the oranges are half grown until ma- 

 tured and gathered. Poles with forked 

 ends are in general use for this purpose. 

 If props are not used, the limbs often 

 break with their weight of fruit and thus 

 the grower suffers loss both in crop and 

 tree. 



Productive Capacity of Seedling.— 

 A seedling tree at Riverside bore at nine 

 years of age sixty oranges ; the next year 

 five hundred, and the next two thousand, 

 when it was accounted at fullest produc- 

 tiveness. Not all seedling trees even 

 when vigorous and healthful in every 

 way can do as well as this or ought, in 

 fact, to be allowed to produce so heavily. 



Yield of Budded Fruit Less.— Semi- 

 drawf budded varieties will never give so 

 large a yield, tree for tree, as seedlings ; 

 but the difference is made up by the ear- 

 liness of bearing, the extra number of 

 trees to the acre, and the superior quality 

 of the fruit. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



PICKING, PACKING AND SHIPPING. 



Picking too Early.— The most ad- 

 vanced of the orange fruit, having at- 

 tained about three-fourths of its normal 

 size, begins to assume a yellowish color in 

 December and January. Some growers, 

 desirous of obtaining the good prices 

 which prevail at the opening of the mar- 

 ket, pick such oranges as appear ripe in 

 January and February. When they do 

 this they make a mistake. The juices are 

 not at that time properly developed and 

 ripened, and the fruit is sour and really 

 unfit to eat. The short-sighted people 

 who sell such trash do not stop to consider 

 that for a mere temporary gain they are 

 ruining the reputation of their fruit, and 

 that for every dollar thus made they must 

 ultimately lose two. The man who eats 

 one of these sour oranges will surely 

 think less and eat less of the fruit the rest 



of the season— perhaps for the rest of his 

 natural life. 



The Time of Ripening. — Oranges be- 

 gin to attain their best flavor in Februaryj 

 and that is the time when the market 

 should be opened. The fruit on the outer 

 branches most exposed to the sun ripens 

 first and is the best. That growing on the 

 inside of the tree, besides being slower in 

 maturing, does not color so highly and is 

 inferior in flavor. 



Long Preservation.— The orange, un- 

 like most other fruits, does not begin to 

 deteriorate directly after ripening, and 

 then drop from its stem. It will hold its 

 juices in perfect preservation from March 

 until June, after which it suffers gradual 

 loss, but remains palatable until August 

 or September. All this time it maintains 

 its place on the tree, unless subjected to 



