THE ORANGE,. 



ITS CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 



CHAPTER I. 



A FEW OBSERVATIONS TO BEGIN WITH. 



There is that about the cultivation of the 

 orange which attracts people. Call it a 

 glamour or what you will, the fact re- 

 mains that many who have hardly given 

 a second thought to horticulture their 

 lives long, seeing the orange tree, lall be- 

 neath its spell, and become henceforth its 

 most ardent devotees;— toiling for it, 

 spending their money for it, waiting long 

 and patiently for it, and even undergoing 

 privations that they may possess it. I do 

 not know that this subtle influence is 

 capable of analysis; I only know that it 

 exists. But sometimes in thinking upon 

 this subject the fancy has struck me that 

 the orange tree knows very well how to 

 gauge a man— has the faculty, so to speak, 

 of approaching him on every side at once. 



Is he a lover of the beautiful? Then he 

 must be delighted with its trim body and 

 symmetrical branches; its dark evergreen 

 foliage, with the yellowish new growth 

 peeping out a-top; its bloom that rivals 

 the tuberose in delicacy and fragrance; 

 its fruit like apples of gold in pictures of 

 silver. 



Has he a fancy for out-door life? The 

 tree invites him to share with it the fresh 

 air and sunshine. 



Does he possess the true horticultural 

 instinct? — does he like to see things grow 

 and make them grow? The orange re- 

 wards him doubly for every attention he 

 bestows. 



Does his grosser nature crave the good' 

 things of this world? No fruit is more 

 luscious. 



And finally, is there, underlying the 

 poetry, the industry, the skill, the appe- 

 tite of the man, a shade— just a shade— of 

 cupidity? There the orange tree touches-^ 

 him again. 



You see it has measured him very accu- 

 rately; it knows his strong points and his 

 weak points; it averages him and takes 

 him for what he is worth. His own wife 

 couldn't have done the thing better. 



In most parts of the United States the^ 

 tendency of population is toward the city. 

 Not only does the farmer's boy leave the^ 

 country to seek out the coveted clerkship^, 

 but the farmer himself, arrived at a com- 

 fortable affluence, is often disposed to 

 move into town, either on the pretext of 

 giving;. the children a better schooling, or 

 that he may engage in trade, or because 

 the farm labors and cares are too arduous 

 for his years. In Califarnia the move- 

 ment is in the opposite direction. People 

 go from the city to the country. Our fruit 

 colonies are filled up with retired pro- 

 fessional and business men. In some in- 

 stances they are men that have adopted 

 farming as a sanitary measure; but again, 

 many are to be found in their very prime 

 and vigor who lead this life purely as a 

 matter of choice. Some of them, possessed 

 of wealth, education and refinement, seek. 



