The Ripening of Oranges 
A. M. Henry. 
The Legislature of 1911 passed the 
Immature Citrus Fruit Law, which was 
designed to prohibit the shipment of 
green, unripe, immature citrus fruits, 
but did not define citrus fruits that were 
green, unripe, and immature. Owing to 
the confusion and uncertainty having 
arisen by not having a definition or stand¬ 
ard for immature fruit, the Commission¬ 
er of Agriculture appointed in 1912 a 
commission to propose such a standard. 
This commission proposed a tentative 
standard for oranges that was later ap¬ 
proved and adopted by a convention of 
orange growers, and is as follows: 
“One. All round oranges showing a 
field test of one and twenty-five hun¬ 
dredths (1.25) per cent, or more of acid, 
calculated as citric acid, shall be consid¬ 
ered as immature. 
“Two. Provided, however, that if the 
grower (or shipper) consider the fruit 
mature he shall have the right to appeal 
from the field test, to the State Chemist 
for a chemical analysis, and if this chem¬ 
ical analysis shows that the percentage 
by weight of the total sugar, as invert 
sugar, be seven times or more than the 
weight of the total acid as citric acid, 
the fruit shall be deemed mature. 
“Three. That the juices of not less 
than five average oranges shall be mixed 
from which a composite sample shall be 
drawn for the field test. 
'“Four. That the juices of not less than 
twelve average oranges shall be mixed, 
from which a composite sample shall be 
drawn for the laboratory analysis. 
“Five. Provided, that after the fifth 
day of November in each and every year 
the standard shall be, that if each orange 
is two-thirds its total area colored yellow, 
it shall be considered as mature and fit 
for shipment. That no variety of or¬ 
anges or grapefruit shall be allowed to be 
shipped before the first of October of 
each year that has bloomed during that 
calendar year.” 
As a result of this condition this work 
has been undertaken by the Division of 
Chemistry of the Department of Agri¬ 
culture of Florida to provide data from 
which a permanent and simpler standard 
could be adopted. In this connection 259 
analyses of oranges from seventeen dif¬ 
ferent localities and 90 samples from va¬ 
rious other localities in Florida were 
analyzed the past season. It was shown 
by this work that great care must be 
used‘in selecting the sample, particularly 
of oranges in the early fall. Below are 
given analyses of oranges from the 
north, east, south and west sides of a 
tree early in October, which shows the 
great variation in the composition of or- 
