THE ORIGIN OF SEEDLESS ORANGES 
was the fact that it was seedless. In addition to this, its 
other qualities were quite satisfactory. Instead of being 
inferior to the parent, it was an improvement on it. 
Fortunately the owner of this tree was capable of ap¬ 
preciating the possibilities. He took buds from this 
branch and grafted them on other roots. Thus he started 
a new variety of orange. It was fifty years later that 
the United States Department of Agriculture introduced 
this orange into this country. It did splendidly in Cali¬ 
fornia, so well, in fact, that each year some twenty-five 
thousand carloads of its fruit are now leaving the state 
and being distributed wherever the market calls. 
This navel orange gets better results in winter in Cali¬ 
fornia than any other and has consequently been given a 
monopoly of the orange field for that season. Strange to 
say, it is not grown at all in Florida. In that state it 
yields such light crops that it does not pay to plant it. 
35 
