FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
143 
exhibit of'any one of several single coun¬ 
ties as shown at the Florida State Fair 
held at Tampa. Oranges are grown 
and cared for in Egypt about the same 
way as in Algiers, except they depend 
on irrigation entirely. Guava trees are 
not small bushy things as with us, but 
quite as large as orange trees and are 
kept pruned up. 
From Egypt we went to Italy and 
Southern France, where from Naples to 
Nice, along the shore of the Mediterran¬ 
ean, the orange flourishes in a more or 
less precarious way, being often found 
growing on narrow terraces of a moun¬ 
tain side with snow capped peaks in plain 
view. In fact it appears to me that the 
Mediterranean varieties of citrus fruits 
can, and do, stand much more cold than 
they do with us in Fla. Even in Egypt 
there had been, shortly before our visit, 
enough cold to cut down bananas and 
knock the leaves off the guava and other 
tender trees. While the cold is always 
felt it is seldom extreme enough to freeze 
the fruit, and at Nice in Southern France, 
where they had recently experienced a 
real freeze, we were told that all fruit 
that did not drop off the trees within a 
couple of weeks was considered as good 
and marketable as if there had been no 
freezing. Blooming seems later than 
with us, and it was after the first of 
April before we saw any trees in full 
bloom. 
None of these countries produce orang¬ 
es in quantities large enough to have 
much apparent effect on our markets, and 
in fact they do not seem to raise more 
than enough for home consumption and 
to supply local and adjacent markets. We 
only had opportunity to get at the prices 
of oranges as sold at retail, and found 
them selling at approximately the same 
price as at home. As a table necessity 
they seem to be well appreciated, and I 
do not remember a single dinner any¬ 
where in the Orient or Europe that we 
did not have them. 
We noticed surprising and astonishing 
things that completely upset our ideas, 
based on experience, of the disposition 
and nature of orange trees, such as seeing 
them growing and flourishing luxuriant¬ 
ly out of holes in solid rock pavements 
with no apparent soil or other nourish¬ 
ment for their support and no possible 
chance to cultivate or fertilize them. We 
saw them trained against houses and 
palaces, and shaded into arbors like vines. 
In Egypt we saw several large en¬ 
closures fenced in with hedges of orange 
trees pruned and trimmed into various 
shapes as the owner’s fancy dictated. 
In conclusion I may say that the most 
prominent feature of our trip was cold 
always and everywhere, and with the ex¬ 
ception of a few days in Cairo, and one 
day clambering over lava and in warm 
volcanic ashes on Mt. Vesuvius, the very 
day before the great and destructive erup¬ 
tion, we have not had a chance to get 
warm ! 
In the lower end of the Jordan Valley, 
near the Dead Sea, around the towns of 
Jericho and Gillgal, was the only place 
where we did not see evidence of frost. 
In this small territory are a few 
lemons, guavas, etc., but the Turkish sys¬ 
tem of taxation is so oppressive that little 
is undertaken by the wretched inhabitants 
in the way of fruit growing. They told 
us that each and every fruit tree was 
taxed the same, no matter whether it was 
large or small, barren or productive. 
Many were cutting down their trees and 
selling the wood as the only way to escape 
this ridiculous method of taxation. With 
