Citrus grove

“ They are generally potted in black mud, low down in the pots, as if mud were a scarce article; they are watered and ventilated by accident rather than by system, and their tenacity of life affords a delightful proof of the accommodating spirit of the citrus tribe, which have this good quality at least, that they love life too well to be easily pushed out of it. We repeat that every seedling citrus will produce fruit some day if you only wait long enough and manage the plants properly. ”

“ The general remarks I have given respecting our fruit soils apply with equal force to those best adapted for citrus culture—viz., they must possess perfect drainage, and be of a friable nature. We are growing most of the best varieties of citrus fruit, the original trees from which they are now being propagated having been introduced into the State from the most celebrated citrus-producing districts in the world, and, as stated and shown by the accompanying illustrations, they are all doing well. ”

“ When the orange, lime, citron, or common lemon become established under conditions that are favourable for their proper development, they apparently become as hardy as the indigenous plants, and are able to hold their own against them, thus showing how well the climate and suitable soils of coastal Queensland are adapted for the cultivation of citrus fruits. ”

“ At the present time there are hundreds of citrus trees growing practically wild in different parts of the coastal country that are in vigorous health and producing heavy crops of good fruit, even though they are uncultivated, unpruned, unmanured, and have to hold their own against a vigorous growth of native and introduced shrubs, trees, and weeds. ”

“ Any member of the citrus family, whether citron, shaddock, orange, lemon, or lime, may be raised from seeds with the greatest ease, and every seedling plant will become fruitful when of a proper age to produce fruit, provided it has the advantage of proper management. As a matter of course, a large proportion of the pretty little seedlings we meet with in ladies’ plant houses and window gardens are not properly managed, and are not likely to live to a fruit producing age. ”

“ The governor stood up and came to the open French windows that faced the fields of sugar-cane. In the near distance were clumps of fruit trees, of hedges of lime and flowering shrubs, rows of orange trees, mangoes, red and purple, forbidden-fruit and grapefruit, the large scarlet fruit of the acqui, the avocado-pear, the feathering bamboo, and the Jack-fruit tree, with its enormous fruit like pumpkins. Parrots were chattering in the acacia and in the Otaheite plum tree, with its bright pink blossoms like tassels, and flanking the negro huts by the river were bowers of grenadilla fruit. ”

“ There is one species which is fairly hardy, the Citrus trifoliata, from Japan, [191:2] forming a pretty bush with sweet flowers, and small but useless fruit (seldom, I believe, produced out-of-doors) ; it is often used as a stock on which to graft the better kinds, but perhaps it might be useful for crossing, so as to give its hardiness to a variety with better flower and fruit.
Commercially the Orange holds a high place, more than 20,000 good fruit having been picked from one tree, and England alone importing about 2,000,000 bushels annually. ”

“ Seedlings are probably the hardiest, and will stand the most neglect, but experience is showing that worked trees are the most profitable to grow. The growth of all kinds of citrus-trees from seed is a very simple matter, all that is necessary being a well-prepared seed bed of friable soil that is partially shaded from the heat of the sun, so as to protect the young plants. Selected, fully ripe fruit from well-grown, prolific, healthy trees is taken, and the seeds sown in rows in the seed bed, or broadcast when weeds are not likely to be any trouble. ”

“ Trees in full bearing often yield up to 40 cases, but these are usually old seedlings, which bear a very heavy crop one year and a comparatively light crop the next. All the instances I have quoted are from worked trees, which are found to give the most regular and constant yields. Until quite recently, citrus-trees were almost entirely grown from seed in this State, with the result that we have a very large number of types, and many crosses between different species. ”

“ The sample of cashew preserves examined had the following composition:
Citrus Fruits. —The term “citrus fruit” is applied to that class of fruits represented by the orange, lemon, grape fruit, and lime. In the United States extensive areas are devoted to the production of citrus fruits, and it is claimed by connoisseurs that some of the best varieties grown anywhere in the world are the products of this country. Florida and southern California are two localities where the development of the citrus fruit industry has been carried to the greatest extent. ”

“ In regard to inorganic nutrients, more attention has probably been devoted to citrus trees than to any other tree species, largely because the soils of Florida and California require additions thereof. It would be unfair to say that such main fruit crops as apples, cherries, peaches, plums have been neglected; we merely possess more information on the nutrients of citrus trees than on other tree crops, as far as the micro essential nutrients are concerned. ”

“ But the orange itself, which is so hardy, has an advantage over many other varieties of fruits and can be shipped into any market in the world. For the citrus fruit is not perishable in the same sense that the plums and peaches are and after being removed from the trees may be kept for weeks with advantage without being destroyed by decay or losing its beauty. ”

“ The native orange on this south side of the equator is not orange at all, even when ripe, but its peel is a deep, dark, beautiful green, and its flavor unequaled. The big Citrus decumana, the pomelo of China, the pumplemoos of Java, the Batavian lime in British India, the shaddock of the West Indies, and the grapefruit of Florida, appears in the passers, but is coarse, dry, and tasteless, save for the turpentine flavor, which does not lurk within, but stalks abroad. ”

“ Here again the prospective settler was advised to start citrus fruit groves, to the exclusion of forage and other crops from which immediate returns would have encouraged the farmer, and permitted him to live economically while making up his mind as to the advisability of citrus fruit culture, which is a specialized form of horticulture, requiring much technical knowledge, and a great deal of experience to insure satisfactory results. ”

“ When grown under favourable conditions, citrus-trees are heavy bearers in this State, it being no uncommon thing to meet with seedling or worked orange-trees of from ten to twelve years of age producing over twenty cases of marketable fruit to the tree, averaging about 10 dozen medium-sized fruit. ”

“ Through the irrigation water always at the command of the horticulturist, our lands are being transformed into beautiful orchards, vineyards and meadows. The peach, the prune, the apricot, the pear and the raisin-grape are made to flourish, and the olive to produce its valuable oil, the orange and the lemon their golden fruit. The colonies already established are situated in the thermal belt of the Sierra, in the finest citrus region of the State, in a district equal to the best anywhere, and in a territory remarkable for its earliness and productiveness. ”

“ At the same time there are hundreds of thousands of acres of land in this area in which the soil and natural conditions are eminently suited to the growth of citrus fruit, and in which the tenderest varieties of these fruits may be grown to perfection without the slightest chance of their being injured by frost; and where the natural rainfall is such that, provided the trees receive ordinary care and cultivation, there is seldom any necessity for artificial irrigation. ”

“ When they take the color of the tree they rest on, it may be to elude their enemies, to whom their slow motions make them an easy prey. At the corner of the house stands a pomegranate tree, full of fruit, which is not yet entirely ripe; but we find enough to give a fair taste of its rich flavor. Then there are sweet oranges, and sour oranges, and limes, and coconuts, and pineapples, the latter not entirely ripe, but in the condition in which they are usually plucked for our market, an abundance of fuchsias, and Cape jasmines, and the highly prized night-blooming cereus. ”

“ Both the provinces of Santa Clara and Matanzas, also, came in for more or less extensive citrus fruit culture, while in the Isle of Pines, during the first years of the present century, large holdings of cheap lands were purchased by American promoters, and afterwards sold in small tracts to residents of the United States who were promised fortunes in orange culture.
Some of these various ventures in citrus fruit culture, especially those where intelligence was used in the selection of soils, and sites commanding convenient transportation facilities, have proved quite profitable. ”

“ It is possible to bud as you propose, and it is not necessary to go back to the old stock. Work in above the forks.
No Citrus Fruits on Lemon Roots.
Would it be any advantage to bud the Washington Navel on grapefruit and lemon roots?
The grapefruit or pomelo is a good root for the orange, and some propagators prefer it. The lemon root is not used at present, because of its effect in causing a coarse growth of tree and fruit and because it is more subject to disease than the orange root. In fact, we grow nearly all lemons on orange roots. ”

“ When by and by he tucks himself up for slumber in silk homespun and later, joyous, emerges, he has still the colors of the orange grove, the pale yellow of ripening fruit, barred with the dark shadows that are set by linear leaves on all that flits beneath them. ”

“ Up to 1872 very little more than this was done, when the founding of the colony at Riverside, and the fortunate introduction of the Bahia or Navel orange from Brazil by our government, at this juncture, was the start of prosperous citrus culture on that coast. Now there are annually about 5,000,000 boxes of oranges sent out of that State alone, and the amount is steadily increasing. A large part of these are of the justly famous Navel variety.
Lemon growing is also becoming a great industry there. Orchards of one hundred acres are rather common, and some are fully five times larger. ”

“ Sometimes the rows were interspersed with vines, and many of the fields were bordered with mulberries. There were ledges covered with the green foliage of violets, and great double heads of purple, scented bloom peeping out of it. There were fields of jasmine, of tuberoses; terraces of lavender, of lilies of the valley, carnations, mignonette; gardens of orange trees, grown more for their flowers than for their fruit; and of course groves of olives, of which the oil forms so important a part in the local manufactures. ”

“ The orange tree, it is true, does not tower in height and conspicuous leadership like the giant Sequoias and Redwoods—although it is said that the bitter specie of the tree occasionally acquires considerable diameter and that the trunk of one near Nice still standing in 1789 became so large that two men could scarcely embrace it. The citrus tree does not tower like Babel. But better yet, it simply bears fruit for food—which [Pg 82] the giants of the forest fail to do—like the strong men who prefer only to be reliably useful. ”

“ In your opinion, is it possible for one man, of average strength, to take perfect care of a twenty-acre citrus orchard? Are the services of a man who takes the entire responsibility of an orchard (citrus) worth more than those of a common ranch hand? ”

“ In the Gulf States he will substitute fig-cuttings for apples; and in Florida, southern California, southern Texas, or southern Arizona he will plant all the orange and lemon seeds he can obtain. Even if his grove never gets beyond the nursery stage he may still reap a return from his venture, besides the pleasure that it has afforded him, for in every locality there is a steady demand for young fruit trees, which thus have a cash value from the moment they are sprouted. ”

“ The vine, also, was grafted on a cherry and a myrtle-stock, which produced, in the first case, grapes in spring, [1382] in the second, a mixed fruit, between the myrtle-berry and the grape. [1383] When the gardener desired to obtain black citrons, he inserted a citron-graft into an apple-stock, and, if red, into a mulberry-stock.
Citrons were likewise occasionally grafted on the pomegranate-tree. In the present day, the almond, the chestnut, the fig, the orange, and the citron, with many other species of fruit-trees, are no longer thought to require grafting. ”

“ The so-called grape fruit or pomelo is one of the biggest products of the citrus family and also possesses properties which may be regarded as a cross between the lemon and the orange. It is more acid than the orange and more sweet than the lemon. This fruit is perhaps more highly esteemed than any other citrus variety for direct edible purposes, forming a breakfast dish which is eaten very extensively throughout all parts of the United States by those who are able to afford the luxury, for so it still is by reason of the high price of the product. ”

“ Magnificent farms line the road; at short intervals appear large well-kept vineyards, in which gangs of Chinese coolies are hoeing and pulling weeds, and otherwise keeping trim. A profusion of peach, pear, and almond orchards enlivens the landscape with a wealth of pink and white blossoms, and fills the balmy spring air with a subtle, sensuous perfume that savors of a tropical clime. ”