130 
T HAL AMI FLO RJE, 
beautiful objects during the months about Christmas, laden with 
their golden-hued fruit, which for richness of flavour and for 
sweetness cannot be surpassed. In that district a bitter or a 
sour Orange is rarely to be met. It is deserving of remark, 
indeed, that the sweet Orange is produced in its greatest perfec- 
tion in districts which, like the parish of St John, belong to the 
limestone formation : whereas, they are very inferior, being 
more or less sour or bitter, even when raised from seeds of 
the sweetest sorts, when grown where any of the other rocks 
prevail. 
Little or no care is bestowed in this country on the cultiva- 
tion of the Orange. As the fruit, notwithstanding this, is pro- 
duced in the greatest abundance, and of so fine a quality, it must 
appear surprising that it is not made an article of exportation, 
as few of our objects of cultivation would give a more profitable 
return. Were the fruit carefully hand-picked from the tree, 
on a dry day, and, after being slightly papered, packed in com- 
mon flour barrels on the spot, there cannot be a doubt but that 
they would bear the voyage even to England, and arrive there 
in a marketable condition. We are anxious to establish the 
Clove and the Nutmeg, when we have already a tree, which 
would, were it more generally and carefully cultivated, give us 
an article of exportation, for which the demand is constant, and 
would in any part of the world command a market. Few 
trees are longer lived than the Orange, those of the Orange 
groves of Spain having survived six hundred years ; and few are 
more productive, some individuals having been known to pro- 
duce in one year six thousand Oranges.* 
The Sweet Orange, according to Dr Turner, contains malic 
acid ; and we may ask, might not an effervescing liquor like 
cider be obtained from the juice? As a fruit, it is inferior to 
none : “ the pulp is cooling and refreshing in fevers, inflamma- 
tion, and scurvy, and alterative in phthisis and dyspepsia.”f 
The bitter orange is employed in making, the well known con- 
serve, marmalade : the peel in an aromatic bitter : the roasted 
pulp is an excellent application to foetid sores ; and the negroes 
employ it, as a substitute for soap, in washing their coarse linens. 
From the flower a distilled water is prepared. 
6. Citrus decumana. The Shaddock. 
Leaves elliptic rounded at both ends subemargin- 
ate crenulated glabrous above puberulous especially 
along the nerves beneath, petioles alate, stamens 
30-3 5, fruit very large with the rind thick. 
* Southern Agriculturist, Vol. iii. p. 638. 8vo, Charleston, 1830. 
f Rennie’s New Supplement to the Pharmacopeias, p. 40. 
