LXXXV 
INVENTING NEW FRUITS 
I SN'T IT ODD that the trifoliate, or Japanese, orange, 
a hedge plant which grows freely amid the snows of 
central United States, can mate with the orange tree of 
the tropics and produce a new fruit! 
This trifoliate orange is unlike the ordinary orange: it 
grows three leaves on a stem while the latter grows one; 
it is deciduous while the other is evergreen. It is, never¬ 
theless, a member of the citrus group, and these members 
are able to cross with each other. 
Plant-breeders of the Department of Agriculture three 
decades ago began experiments intended to develop citrus 
varieties which would stand cold and could therefore be 
grown in the United States outside of Florida and Cali¬ 
fornia. They hit upon this northern representative of 
the citrus group and crossed it with the orange. They 
had to wait years for the resulting trees to come into 
fruitage. Finally they did so, and the process of elimina¬ 
tion was begun to determine which of the new plants 
produced a fruit of value. 
Most of them were useless. The trifoliate fruit was of 
poor quality. There were a few exceptions in which there 
were possibilities. The fruit produced on these few 
plants, called a citrange from its two parents, was more 
like a lemon than like its orange ancestor on the fruit- 
yielding side. The tree was hardy and would grow 
throughout the Gulf States. It came to be planted in 
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