The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-13 00:00:00

THti; 2R-41)_!? IL T ORANGJ3".

Oranges aria imported in b, containing from ',?50 and
more, and in chests holding ,5Ch 9 to 1,000. The qu:tntity
of this fruit imported has be,,s, 't steadily increasing for
some years past. In the three yo. trs ending with 1842 the
average imports were 334,070 bone s; inthefive yearsen.ding
with 18b0 they had increased to 380,1)00 boxes. Since then thes
quantity has been computed in bu kilt els. The average annual
imports in the five years ending- With 1860 were 977,440
bushels. The quantity taken for • consumption has now
reached upwards of 1,000,000 bushels, end, assuming each
bushel to contain 650, this would i live 650 millions of
oranges, or about 22 for each soul of t he population in the
kingdom. Tho appended figures ind irate the source of
81:Ipply of this fruit to Great Britain in bushels:--
1855. 1860.
lugal 265,222 .... 218,480
Awls es .. 369,060 .... 627,709
Spain
Sicily
Other Tim rters

806,153 1,154, 410
The Azores or Wesi`era Islards, from whence thel,finest,
St. Michael oranges c,
lrue, it will be seen furnish us with.
the largest supply. The
impoi-ts from thence have double&
in the last five years. The
expe. nse of walling and planting
an acre of orange garden is stoted.
to be £l5 for the wall, £8
for 65 trees, and £2 for labour. It
y fields half a crop of beans
or Indian corn during seven years, but no oranges ; from
eight to eleven years half a crop of' .oranges is obtained.
Then a full crop, which is sold for £lo £l5. Each tree on,
arriving at maturity will produce annua:lY, on an average,
12,000 to 16,000 oranges ; one grower is said to have picked
26,000 from a single tree. The trees bloom. En. March and
April, and oranges are gathered for the London market as
early as November. The Portuguese never eat Ale m before
the end of January, at \which time they possess Weir full
flavour. In the season of 1851, which produced by na
means an unusully large crop, not less than 353 L'argoes
of oranges, containing about; 200,000 large boxes, ..hold-
ing 800 oranges, were shipped from the Western lslan
Fayal formerly exported a great ;Deny oranges, but then
insect pest, which appeared in 1840„ in a few years killed
all the trees there. Terceira annually exports about 30
cargoes, and St. Mary a few cargoes, but St. Michael is
the great mart. In 1801 the value of the fruit imported
from thence was but £10,600 ; in 1850, £65,000 ; and im
1859, £84,123. It was estimated that the produce of fruit
in this island during 1859 was 252,000,000 of oranges and
40,000 lemons; of these all the lemons and 49,000,000
Oranges were consumed on the island. The export of
oranges from St. Michael was 179,379 boxes in 1852 ;
123,327 boxes in 1855-6; 100,079 in 1856 .7 ; 179,922 in.
18:57-8 ; and 130,858 boxes in 1858-9. The trade has been.
suffering for several years from severe depression, owing to
the low prices obtained for the fruit in England. In the
semen 1858-9' the growers obtained an average of 10s. sd.
per box, which is considered a very fair remunerative price
by the proprietors of orange gardens. More than half the
orange crop is shipped in the months of November and
December. The vthlue of the fruit imported now reaches
nearly £600,000 annua.,llY.—Gardeners' Chronicle.