The pineapple belongs to the same family as the long gray 
“moss” that hangs from the trees in our southern forests. Many 
varieties are known, but as usual, only a few are grown commer- 
cially. Several near relatives of the pineapple produce fruit much 
esteemed locally. 
The citrus fruits are all old world Asiatic species. The sweet 
orange came to us by way of Persia from Southeastern Asia ages 
ago and is now distributed wherever it will grow, over 70 varieties 
being cultivated in United States. The principal California var- 
iety is the Washington Navel, introduced into this country in 1870 
from Bahia, Brazil, where it was discovered about 1824. The 
orange lives a long time, trees in Spain being said to be over 600 
years old. Individual trees have been known to produce 6000 fruits 
in a single year. Ranking next in importance to the orange is the 
grape-fruit, that peerless breakfast and dessert fruit of the city 
man. The grapefruit, native to the islands lying to the south of 
Asia, was brought to the West Indies early in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, but the present commercial culture started in Florida only 
about 25 years ago. Like the orange, it exists in numberless 
forms, the large pyriform shaped ones being known as “shad- 
docks”. Some of these measure two feet in girth. Somearepink- 
lleshed. Seedless forms of the grapefruit, excellent in quality, 
now come to our markets. Along about Christmas time, baskets 
of small, oval, perfumed oranges are common in the fruit stores. 
These are kumquats, the spiced orange of Japan, eaten skin and 
all, or used for preserves. In the orient many curious kinds of 
citrus fruits are known, one of the most peculiar being the fin- 
gered citron. Another kind is called the soap orange, and Safford 
says it is a common sight in our island colony of Guam to see 
women and girls, waist deep in water, vigorously rubbing clothes 
with soap orange pulp and a corn cob. Many hybrids between 
the various citrus fruits are known, some of which are natural, 
others being artificially made. Professor Swingle of our Depart- 
ment of Agriculture is especially interested in this hybridization 
work, as is also Professor Webber of the University of California. 
As a result of their work, new types of citrus fruit are being pro- 
duced such as limequats, citranges and tangelos, the latter being 
a hybrid between the tangerine orange and the grapefruit. 
The melon family is of ancient cultivation, a painting of a cut 
melon being found in the ruins of Herculaneum. The muskmelon 
was known during the Hebrew sojourn in Egypt and is supposed to 
have been brought from there to Rome, thence to F ranee in 1495 and 
later to England. The finest muskmelons were once said to have 
come from Bokhara, a country lying near the native home of this 
fruit. The wild type is extremely variable; most of the fruits are 
said to vary from the size of a plum to that of a small apple. This 
is hard to believe from the size of fruits we now have, some of 
which weigh over 14 pounds. Three types of muskmelons are 
found in our fruit stores, green and yellow fleshed melons and the 
cassaba, the cape or winter muskmelon. The latter in general is 
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