ITS ELSE AND PROGRESS IN FLORIDA. 



7 



Africa, and Spain ; from these points the orange traveled into 

 other countries, notably China, and in this latter empire it so 

 flourished and spread, far and wide, that by and by it came to be 

 a fiction believed in by Euroj^eans, that the orange was indige- 

 nous to China. 



Galessio shows, however, that the so-called '"'China orange " 

 is by no means a spontaneous production of that country, and his 

 statement is further corroborated by the absence of all mention 

 of this fruit, in the exceedingly minute and circumstantial account 

 given by the father of modern travelers, Marco Polo, of the 

 productions of China. 



The orange was not known to the ancients, either in Europe 

 or Syria, and the palm of its introduction to the world must be 

 accorded to the Arabians, whose anxiety for extension of medical 

 and agricultural knowledge, was almost equal to their zeal for the 

 propagation of the Koran. 



The sweet orange which they carried to Spain spread thence 

 into Portugal, Sicily, St. Michael and the Mediterranean islands, 

 and the West Indies. 



In each and all of these various places has the difterence in 

 climate and soil produced varieties and changes in the character- 

 istics of the original common stock, so that in these days, the Sicily , 

 St. Michael, Maltese, Havana, and a great number of others are 

 well known and established varieties of this noble fruit. To sup- 

 pose, as many do, that the orange is a spontaneous production of 

 the soil of ihe Xew AYorld, is to make a great mistake ; only 

 where the early Spanish or Portuguese landed and penetrated 

 into the country, is the wild orange of America to be found. 



On the banks of the Eio Cedeno, in the midst of a great forest, 

 Humboldt, to his amazement, came upon a broad belt of wild 

 orange trees, laden with large, sweet and most delicious fruit. 

 ''Surely, these must then be indigenous to the soil !''' he thought ; 

 but subsequent inquiry led to the discovery that those grand old 

 trees had once formed a portion of extensive groves planted by 

 the Indians from seeds obtained from their early Spanish visitors 

 and conquerors. And to this same source does Florida owe her 

 beautiful wild groves ; only here, whether by the accident of soil 



