28 



THE OEANGE; 



level surface. For a striker I used a little 

 board, notched, as shown in the accom- 

 l^anying diagram, to allow the lower edge 

 to play freely inside the box an inch and 

 a half below the top edge. 



THE STRIKER. 



Placing the BoiES. — The ground 

 where the propagating boxes were to be 

 located had previouslj^ been graded to a 

 level. As each box was in turn filled and 

 leveled, it was placed m position where it 

 was to remain through the season. Nar- 

 row strips of lumber were laid on the 

 ground for the boxes to rest upon, thus 



I obtained some well -matured seedling 

 fruit. A quantity of cullings — thorned 

 and partially rotted fruit — thrown out by 

 a packing house, served the purpose, and 

 my only expense was the hauling. I have 

 since usea seeas irom imported Tahiti 

 oranges. The foreign seeds are plumper 

 amd more fertile. These I ordered from a 

 San Francisco importing house, and the 

 expense, delivered, was $7 per barrel of 

 rotted oranges. A barrel yielded about 

 eight thousand seeds. In my first plant- 

 ing, however, the native seeds did fairly. 



Extracting the Seeds.— In using fruit 

 that was sound, or nearly so, I made a 

 latitudinal cut about the orange, taking 

 care that the knife penetrated only a part 

 of the way through the pulp. The halves 



□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 

 □□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 



□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 

 □□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 



□□□□□□□nnnnnnnnn 



□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 

 □□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 

 □□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 



□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 

 □□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 



arrangement of the boxes. 



admitting a free circulation of air beneath 

 for warmth and drainage. There wer« 

 four tiers of boxes, the two outside con- 

 taining two rows each; the inner, three 

 ■each. This made ten rows, with sixteen 

 boxes to the row— altogether 160 boxes. 

 Jietween the tiers alley-ways, eighteen 

 inches wide, gave access to every part of 

 the bed. No alleys were left around the 

 outside. From any alley I could reach 

 over the lirnt row of boxes and work in 

 the second row without inconvenience. 

 .Skei>h.— For seed, in my first planting, 



were then torn apart, and the seeds forced 

 out by pressing down upon the pulp with 

 the ball of the thumb. In handling 

 thorciighly rotted fruit I used a sieve with 

 quarter-inch mesh. In this the pulp was 

 thoroughly macerated and washed with 

 water. The finer particles passed through 

 the sieve, and the skins and coarser parts 

 were picked out, leaving the seeds sepa- 

 rated and clean. The seeds should not be 

 allowed to dry befoie planting. I kept 

 mine in a bucket of water until used. I 

 tried, to a certain extent, the Mediterra- 



