THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [November i, 1887 
The oranges are brought down and sold at bazars 
on market days, in towns adjacent to our territory. 
They are bought by ' Koonjaras, ' Kohars, ' and other 
dealers; and by them taken to Goruckpore, Bustee, 
Fayzabad. Benares, " &c. 
" Dr. Cameron's Mali in Gonda, says that this 
orange is called ' Suntowrea,' and that it is grown at 
' Bootwal ' and there alone. " 
" I met a Havildar of the 1st Goorkha regiment. 
He confirms what I told you about the ' Suntolah ' 
orange. It grows wild in the hills, and not in the 
plains of Nepal, the Kaptee valley, &c. By , cultivation 
the orange becomes sweeter, bigger, and has a thinner 
skin; otherwise the wild and cultivated oranges are 
one." 
This small sweet " Suntolah " orange, from Boot- 
wal, was hardly known beyond Goruckpore ; some 
time ago but now, since the railway has been opened 
north of the Ghagra, this curious little wild and very 
sweet orange, averaging about 6§ inches in girth, has 
foini its way to Benares, and no doubt, in time, 
to other places. 
Next to Sylhet and its surroundings, the largest 
centre of orange trade is Nagpore, and other parts of 
the Central Provinces. 
Mr. J. B. Fuller, 0. S., states, that " this orange 
is the great speciality of the black soil country, in the 
fruit line." In my opinion, the Nagpore orange is the 
best flavoured of all the ' Suntara ' type of oranges, 
and the same gentleman thinks it is " decidedly the 
best of any which he has tasted in India." That 
from Bootwal is sweeter, but many think it is " too 
sweet," and that a mixture of sweetness, with suffi- 
cient acid to make an agreeable flavour, such as that 
of the Nagpore orange, is preferred. 
The Bombay market is largely supplied with oranges 
from tbe Central Provinces; and there is probably 
little doubt that the black soil of those provinces has 
a great deal to do with the fine flavour of the Suntara 
orange grown there. 
Mr. J. B. Fuller, Commissioner of Settlement and 
Agriculture, Central Provinces, has courteously fur- 
nished me with some statistics of the orange trade 
of Nagpur. The paper was drawn up by the 
Superintendent, Government Garden : — 
" Within the last twelve years many new orchards 
have been planted in Nagpur, Eamptee, and other 
parts of the district ; and orange cultivation is now 
spreading rapidly in other districts of the Province. 
There is a great demand for the Nagpur oraDge in 
Bombay, and considerable quantities of the fruit 
are annually exported to this and other places. In 
the year 1885, 22,609 maunds of orange fruit were 
exported from the Nagpur station, out of which 
21,400 maunds were exported to Bombay alone." 
Mr. J. H. Fisher, Collector of Etawah, who had been 
at one time stationed in the Central Provinces, has 
kindly given me the following information : — 
" It is low ten years since I was in Nagpur and 
Chattisgurh Divisions of the Central Provinces, and I 
write from memory. In the "NVardha District, as in 
Nagpur, there were a good number of large orange 
groves, the produce of which was sent down to Bombay. 
The tree there, gives two crops : one ripens in the 
spring, called 'Miragbahar' (the young fruit setting in 
the rains * ) ; the other ripens in the winter, and is 
CaUrd ' Anibiababar, ' as the young fruit sets at the 
same time as the young man^o fruit sets. 
The orange trees thrive prodigiously in the rich, 
black soil of the country which, being decomposed trap 
rock, is highly calcareoil", f o that they get the lime that 
the whole tribe of citrus so delight in. The orange 
groves are planted, not only near the railway, but at 
considerable distances from it. I remember some in 
the Arvi Tehsil of the Wardba District, and also in 
the San ar Tehsil, in the south of the Chindwara Dis- 
tiict. The groves that I remember were planted out 
in theopen, without reference to any shelter or pro- 
ttction from large trees. 
When I was in camp in 1873, in the S.-K. corner of 
the Kaipur District, in the Zimindari of Khariar, I 
* This is the ' Durnrez,' or after-crop of other places 
remember the Raja of Kalabandi, a Feudatory State 
in the neighbouring district of Sambulpur, coming to 
see me. He brought with him some huge baskets full 
of oranges, the produce, he told me, of wild orange 
trees, which grew in certain places in the forests, on 
his estate. As they were out of my district, I never 
had an opportunity of seeing these wild trees, and 
forming an opinion as to their origin, i. e., whether 
they were really indigenous, or were the descendants 
of trees brought from elsewhere. In any case, the 
oranges, though not so large as the cultivated variety, 
had the same characteristics as the Nagpur orange and 
were very sweet. 
When at Chindwara in 1876, I imported (with vines, 
olive grafts, figs, and mulberries ) some varieties of 
oranges from Naples. One or two of the plants I 
took with me to Jabalpur in 1877, and left them there 
in 1878. The others remained at Chindwara. Whether 
any of these trees have survived the changes of District 
Officers that have since taken place, and established 
themselves in these districts, I know not. 
Delhi and its surroundings is another centre of 
some orange trade, but it appears to import more 
than it exports. The 'Sintra' orange of Delhi is 
sufficiently well known. It is a baggy, loose-skinned 
orange, usually without much pretension to symmetry 
of form. I need hardly mention that the ' Sintra 
orange has nothing to do with the Cintra town of Por- 
tugal. It is merely a corruption of ' Suntara, ' which 
word, as I have elsewhere explained, appears to be of 
Sanskrit origin. In Delhi the Sintra orange is often 
called Bungtra. The origin of the latter term is rather 
hazy. Mr. George Smyth, Deputy Commissioner of 
Delhi, has courteously given me the following 
statistics regarding the orange trade in that city. The 
Mema. was drawn up by the Tebsildar of Delhi. 
The Bungtra orange of Delhi is exported to Meerut, 
Jeypore, Bombay, and to some other minor places ; 
about 200 maunds are exported per- annum, valued at 
Es. 1,600, orRs. 8 per maund. 
Then from Ulwar, Nagpur, Gurgaon, and villages 
across the river Jumna, about 2,000 maunds are im- 
ported into Delhi, valued at about Rs. 24,000 or 
Rs. 12 per maund.* 
The Memo, also states that the Rungtra orange is 
cultivated to some extent in Lahore, Ulwar, Meernt, 
and Bulundshuhr. 
We have then the Sylhet orange ' Kamala lemboo, ' 
the Bhootan orange, the Bootwal, or ' Suntolah,' or 
f Suntowrea ' orange, the Nagpur and the ' Sintra' of 
Delhi — all varieties of the one type of the Indian loose- 
skinned orange — the Suntara of Sanskrit origin. 
This type of orange is found in many other parts of 
India, and also in Ceylon. In Lahore, a pretty pear-shap- 
ed variety is grown under the name of ' Karna,' or 
Sungtara. In Mooltan, another round variety is also 
called ' Sungtara' ; a variety grown in Poona is also 
called Suntara. In the Shevaroy hills, another curious 
variety of the same type goes by the name of ' country 
orange.' I am indebted for specimens of this variety 
to Dr. John Sbortt. In Yarcaud, it is given the 
native name of 'Kolinge,' and about Madras ' Kitchlee. ' 
I was informed that in Canarese the orange is called 
' Kitle hanDOO.' 
The Western coast of India, south of Goa, is supplied 
from Coorg with an orange of the Suntara type. 
In Ceylon, they have a ' Konda Narun,' almost an 
exact copy of the Nagpur orange ; and also a larger 
variety called there 'Jawaf Narun.' In Kandy, the 
latter is smooth, but in Colombo, there is a large 
variety, which is subw'arty, with a move pronounced pear- 
shapedness. Somehow, these Suntara oranges of 
Ceylon have got the name of Mandarin oranges; none 
of the above, however, is true Mandarin, although the 
latter is allied to the Suntara type of orange. Any 
one having once scented the leaf or the rind of a true 
Mandarin, can recognise it again, even blind-folded. 
Curiously enough, I found that in the Peradeniya 
Botanic Garden, they hare the true Mandarin orange, 
with its distinctive scent of leaf and rind, and with a 
* This figure seems somewhat doubtful, 
f Jama.— Ed. 
