TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT- GROWERS 5 CONVENTION. 



169 



The Navelencia, being so more recently introduced, is not so well 

 known. Mr. Thompson has displayed commendable enterprise in 

 giving us the Improved Navel and the Navelencia. Some recent sales 

 of this latter variety have shown up well. Some specimens I have seen 

 were attractive as to texture, size, and color. Disappointment, has 

 attended the introduction of so many varieties that it might not be 

 prudent for growers to be too hasty in extensively setting out this 

 new orange. However, those who care to experiment with what gives 

 promise of being a fine orange will find this variety worthy of their 

 attention. 



The Navelencia is an orange supposed to follow the Navel season and 

 in a measure, I presume, take the place of the Mediterranean Sweet. 

 The Washington Navel is, however, so extensively grown in Southern 

 California and under such widely different conditions that some sections 

 are able to hold it in good shipping condition until the Valencia comes 

 in. When this is the case there would, in our judgment, be but little 

 call for an orange to supply the demand of this particular season. 



There are other varieties to be found here and there throughout the 

 orange districts, but none, so far as I know, have sufficient merit to 

 make them worthy of consideration by one contemplating setting out 

 an orchard. I think I have named what may be termed the standard 

 commercial varieties. These have been tested by both the grower and 

 the trade, and seem pretty generally, with the exceptions noted, to meet 

 the wants of each. In choosing varieties local conditions must have 

 some weight. These questions well considered by the grower, his 

 orchard well cared for from its setting out until maturity, and even 

 better after that, with due attention given to the care and marketing of 

 fruit after it is grown, will in most cases make the orange business not 

 only reasonably profitable, but perhaps as desirable an occupation as 

 any other we may select. 



PRUNING TO IMPROVE THE ORANGE. 



By C. R. PAINE, of Rbdlands. 



Pruning fruit trees and vines to improve the product is a very 

 common practice, known from a distant period 



The orange tree in its youth has done so well with little or no prun- 

 ing that the practice has been quite general to let it go virtually 

 untended in this respect, at least until some irregular growth demands 

 removal. Many orchards, perhaps most, have passed from youth 

 through years of bearing satisfactory quantities and qualities of fruit 

 with little increase of care in pruning, so that a habit has been formed 

 among many of regarding the pruning of an orange tree as a species of 

 work rarely necessary. 



