December G, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
215 
Brocklebank, both in very fineform; Album fimbriatum, 
a magnificent bloom ; Mrs. D. B. Chapman, splendid ; 
Jeanne Delaux, rich and distinct ; Lady Selborne, 
and Duchess of Albany, very fine ; Mme. Baco, Mrs. J. 
Wright, C. Orchard, excellent ; Baronne de Prailly, 
Mrs. F. Jameson, grand, especially the latter; Boule 
d'Or, a massive bloom, 'with long and very broad petals. 
Mrs. Alpheus Hardy has done well with Mr. 
Thorburn, who hopes for still better things in another 
year. It is encouraging to hear some one speak 
favourably of this much-abused Yankee variety. 
Incurved sorts were well represented by Empress 
of India and Emily Dale, both large, well-formed 
blooms; H. Shoesmith, fine compact flowers ; Barbara, 
very neat. Among the reflexed we noticed King of 
Crimsons, fine ; Chevalier Domage, excellent variety, 
with a gorgeous colour. 
The majority of the plants have been grown in 
smaller pots than those ordinarily used for Mums, with 
very gratifying results. The plants looked very healthy 
and clean, testifying to the high cultural skill and 
care bestowed upon them by Mr. Thorburn.— TV. L. 
-«*$<•---- 
ORANGES AND LEMONS. 
The United States Government certainly sets a good 
example in the use of its Consular Service for the 
collection of information from various parts of the 
world. For instance, the Secretary of State lately 
issued to his Consuls and Consular agents in foreign 
countries an exhaustive series of cprestions as to the 
culture of the Orange, the Lemon, the Olive, and the 
Fig. The answers, together with earlier information 
similarly gathered, have just been collected, and 
published in a Special Report on the Fruit Culture of 
Foreign Countries. (Washington, 1890). As may be 
supposed, the reports differ much in value. Some of 
the reporters have evidently collected their information 
and framed their replies in a perfunctory manner. 
Others, like Consul Bradley, of Hice, and Consul 
Jones, of Messina, furnish very valuable and carefully 
collected facts. The book, taken as a whole, gives an 
interesting picture of the present condition of several 
branches of fruit culture, and especially of that of the 
Citrus tribe. 
The literature of this branch of horticulture has 
recently been enriched by several useful books. The 
standard work on the subject is still the quarto volume 
of Poiteau and Risso, with its beautiful coloured plates 
(L’Histoire et Culture des Orangers. Du Breuil’s 
edition, published in 1872 by Plon & Masson, Paris). 
A more elaborate and scientific book on the Agrumi, 
by Professor Penrig, dealing especially with insect 
enemies, has recently been brought out by the Italian 
Government. 
Dr. Bonavia’s Cultivated Oranges and Lemons of 
India, with an atlas of uncoloured illustrations 
(London : W. H. Allnot, 1890), is fulUof information 
from the East. It includes a very curious study of the 
morphology of the tribe, suggesting that the juice 
vesicles of the fruit are a development of the oil cell, 
of the rind and leaves. The Orange culture of the 
Azores, as it then was, was admirably described by 
M. Fouque in the Revue des deux Monies, April 15th, 
1873. The United States Agricultural Department 
issued in 1888 a comprehensive report on the tropical 
and semi-tropical fruits of the United States, and also, 
in 1885, a work on Insects Affecting the Orange, by W. 
Hubbard, embodying the results of elaborate ex¬ 
periments conducted by that gentleman for the 
department over a period of four years. Mr. Lelong’s 
treatise on the Citrus Culture of California (Sacramento 
State Office, 1888), and Eev. T. Moore’s Orange 
Culture of Florida (Pelton, Hew York), are slighter 
and . more popular volumes. Mr. Wickson’s Cali¬ 
fornian Fruits (Dewey & Co., San Francisco, 1889) is 
a complete and careful survey of the subjects it deals 
with, and exhibits the extraordinary progress fruit 
growing has made in California of late years. Miss 
Ormerod’s South African Insects and the Kew Bulletin 
for August, 1889, show that English entomologists are 
also making studies how to protect the orchards of our 
colonies from the devastating attacks of insects. 
Botanists are not quite agreed whether all the culti¬ 
vated varieties of the Citrus tribe are derived from a 
common stock. It seems probable, however, that all 
came originally from China or Cochin China. The 
Citron was known to the Romans ; the Arabs brought 
the bitter Orange to Europe, and we owe the intro¬ 
duction of the China Orange to the early Portuguese 
navigators. The principal divisions of the Citron 
tribe at present cultivated are the close-skinned sweet 
Oranges, and the loose-skinned Tangerines, the Seville 
or bitter Granges, the Lemons, the sweet Lemons, the 
Bergamots, the Citrons, the Shaddocks and Pummelos, 
and the Limes. Loudon stated in 1840 that Orange 
trees at Salcomb, in Devon, had stood the winter in 
the open air for 100 years. Visitors to Versailles are 
familiar with the ancestral Orange trees, whose stiff 
forms line the terraces there during the summer. 
Practically speaking, however, all the Citron orchards 
of Europe are almost within sight of the Mediterranean 
Sea, among the sunny nooks of the Riviera, the hills of 
Sorrento and Sicily, the cliffs of Corsica, the Greek 
islands and the plains of Valencia and Murcia. In 
Spain, which sends us our chief Orange supply, the 
tree is said not to flourish north of 42°. In Florida, 
as is well known, the Orange orchards suffer terribly 
from frosts. 
In Jamaica, and some parts of India, the Orange 
is generally grown from ungrafted seedlings. Elsewhere 
budded trees are preferred, and the Sicilians consider 
that they have defeated the dangerous “gum” by 
budding their Lemon trees upon bitter Orange stocks. 
In Corsica, the Citron is exclusively grown from 
cuttings. An open soil with good drainage, but not 
sandy, is the best for Citron orchards, but the trees 
evidently do well in a great variety of soils. At 
Lucknow, Limes were successfully grown in demolition 
mortar without any soil. In Spain, Sicily, and 
California, irrigation during the dry season is essential. 
Manure also is an important element in successful 
Orange culture, though it has been suggested that 
over manuring has caused disease, as it is supposed to 
have done in the Coffee plantations of Ceylon. 
Pudding Lane, which is the centre of the London 
Orange trade, draw's its supplies from all parts of the 
world; the rusty-looking, but delicious produce of 
Florida begins to find its way there, as well as fruit 
from Brazil and far Australia. Spain and Sicily are, 
however, the sources from which the English markets are 
chiefly supplied. In 1889, our total imports of Oranges 
and Lemons were valued at £1,731,000, of which no less 
than £1,516,000, or 88 per cent., came from the king¬ 
doms of Spain and Italy. Real St. Michael’s Oranges 
are almost things of the past. "Whereas the Azores 
sent us £322,000 worth of Oranges in 1874, they only 
sent us £30,930 worth in 1889, so effectually has the 
“la<mma” disease done its destructive work. Our 
O 
imports from Spain have doubled in value since 1874, 
although the price of the fruit has gone down nearly 
40 per cent, (from 9’35s. per bushel to 5'92s.). 
Hew York draws a large Orange supply from the 
Mediterranean, as well as from Jamaica and Florida. 
Southern California sent away 2,250 car-loads of 
oranges in 1888, and an American car holds more than 
twice as much as an English railway truck. The 
number of Californian Orange trees was estimated at 
1,000,000 in 1886, and of these 95 per cent, were 
growing in the three counties of Los Angelos, San 
Bernardino and San Diego. An enormous trade in 
Oranges is carried on upon the Parana River, by which 
tropical Paraguay sends its fruit to the markets of 
Buenos Ayres. At other times of the year the 
Argentine imports this fruit from Italy. On the west 
coast of South America, Ecuador sends its Oranges to 
Peru and Chili. 
In 1889, Hew South "Wales reported 11,000 acres of 
Orange orchards, and Queensland over 1,000 acres. 
Orange cultivation is also attracting attention in the 
new irrigation colonies of Victoria. India does a large 
internal trade in Oranges, and Dr. Bonavia describes 
one grand orchard of 1,000 acres in the Ivhasia Valley. 
The distillers of Hice make “neroli” the basis of 
Eau de Cologne, from Orange blossom, and the “petit 
grain ” essence from the leaves, but the manufacture of 
these delicate perfumes does not seem to have made 
progress elsewhere. The bitter or Seville Orange is 
valued chiefly for marmalade making ; its rind flavours 
Curacoa, and its stock is the best for grafting upon. 
Sicily supplies both Europe and America with Lemons, 
for this tree, being more susceptible to frost than the 
Orange, is not extensively grown in the United States. 
The slopes of Etna and the environs of Messina and 
Palermo are the headquarters of the Lemon. Orange 
and Lemon trees cover 60,000 acres in Sicily. Most of 
the fruit is exported in boxes. The juice of part of the 
Lemon produce, however, is expressed on the spot, and 
boiled down to one-sixth its bulk to save freight. It is 
then shipped to the citric acid manufacturers, who pay 
about £60,000 a year to Sicily for their produce. The 
island also receives about £100,000 a year for the 
essential oil, which is pressed by hand from the cells in 
the rind of the Lemon. Mitylene and the other Greek 
islands supply the Black Sea markets with Lemons, 
and northern Italy receives the fruit of Tripoli. 
Bergamot trees are largely grown in Calabria. The 
juice is inferior in acidity, and therefore in value, to 
that of the Lemon, but the essence from the rind is 
more esteemed. 
The Citron is an interesting member of the Orange 
family. The fine candied peel that is used in our 
plum puddings and mince pies, and which brings 
double the price of Orange or Lemon peel, is made 
from the thick rind of the Citron. This fruit often 
weighs 6 lbs. or 8 lbs., and consists chiefly of rind. 
Horthern Corsica is the home of the Citron. An 
average crop of about 3,000 tons of fruit, either in 
brine or candied, is shipped chiefly from Bastia. The 
fruit g»-ows in little terraced orchards, many of them 
perched like birds’ nests among the cliffs of Cape Corse, 
and sheltered by coverings of brushwood from the 
strong winds of winter. Here are collected in summer 
the Citrons des Juifs — half-grown fruit with the 
remnants of the blossoms still adhering, which are 
used in thousands at Hebrew religious feasts. 
The Lime, which grows wild in many tropical 
countries, is cultivated in the islands of Dominica and 
Montserrat, West Indies. The thin but fragrant skin 
of this fruit yields a fine essence, and its juice is 
valuable as a beverage, and also as a medicine at sea. 
Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands supply San Francisco 
with Limes and Lime-juice. 
Wherever, through human agency, one form of vege¬ 
tation prevails very extensively over a large area, the 
disease and blight that attack that form have such a 
favourable environment that they spread in a way 
unknown under natural conditions. This is the history 
of the Phylloxera and the Oidium ; and the trees of the 
Citrus tribe have suffered not less seriously than the 
Vine. From the Cape of Good Hope, the U.S. Consul 
writes in March, 1890, “The time was, and not long 
ago, when the Orange crop of this colony meant a good 
revenue to the farmers. With the advent of the Aus¬ 
tralian bug, all this is changed, and in place of trees 
loaded with luscious fruit, now only remain a few 
blackened stumps to show where the orchards once 
stood. Ho systematic effort was made to eradicate the 
pest, A saying that it was useless for him to struggle 
against the evil, while B, whose orchard was close by, 
gave the bug free license to breed and multiply.” 
St. Michael, in the Azores, was, until about ten 
years ago, the scene of the most beautiful Orange culti¬ 
vation. Ho one who has visited the sunny “ quintas ” 
round Ponte Delgada will ever forget their delights. 
Protected from the Atlantic gales by high walls, and 
still higher hedges of Faya, the nohle Orange trees 
were basking in the sun. The golden fruit shone out 
from the shadow of the broad dark foliage, or lay in 
generous heaps upon the ground. The air was heavy 
with the luscious fragrance of the Orange flowers, and 
the paths were often bright with Camellia and Poin- 
settia blossom. How all this is changed. The 
‘ ‘ lagrima, ” a strange disease which made similar havoc 
in the neighbouring island of Terceira, a few years 
ago attacked the trees right and left. The growers, in 
despair, abandoned the Orange culture for that of Vines 
and Sweet Potatos, and the export of Oranges from the 
islands has dwindled down to a tenth of its former 
importance. 
Scale insects have attacked the Orange most alarm¬ 
ingly in the United States. But Americans are not 
Portuguese, and immense pains have been taken by 
Mr. Hubbard and others to study the habits of these 
creatures, and to find out what emulsion most 
effectually destroys them. Regular sprayings of insecti¬ 
cide are the rule in California and Florida. The most 
curious and destructive agent is, however, a natural 
one. It was discovered in Australia that the ladybird 
was a deadly enemy to the “ cottony cushion scale.” 
The insect was imported into California, and sure 
enough the dreadful scale vanished before it. 
Mr. J. R. Dobbin, of St. Gabriel, California, stated 
in July, 1889, that the Australian ladybird had 
multiplied and spread over 3,200 trees in his orchard, 
and that the cottony cushion scale was rapidly 
disappearing. He adds, “I made a public statement 
that my orchard would be free from Icerya by the first 
of Hovember, but the work has gone on with such 
amazing rapidity that I am to-day confident that the 
pest will have been thoroughly exterminated from any 
trees by the first of August. As the ladybird has been 
extensively distributed, I feel positive from my own 
experience that the entire valley (San Gabriel) will be 
practically free from Icerya before the advent of the 
new year.”— S. 
