The Republican journal., 1896-02-06

becomes the staple article of diet, especi-
| ally among the common people, who now
i season with oranges their usual frugal
meal of cornbread and fried fish. In the
/ gardens everybody helps himself indis-
criminatey. The trees are SO extremely
prolific that no one knows what to do
with the crop. 1t can neither be sold nor
given away, and annually thousands upon
thousands OF bushels rot on the ground or
are fed to the swine. Your acquaintance
ill-concealed delight. You are urged to
eat all YOU want directly from the trees,
ana are also compelled TO fill your
pockets. Then, lest You are not yet fully
supplied, heaping basket is sent home
to you by a servant, This plenitude is at
first somewhat bewildering- accustomed
as We have been at home to pay five cents
for even poor oranges. Here we purchase
from the dealers from ten to fifty for a
single ent-fresh and JUICY, each one like
a cup of liquid honey. | have often been
to the market and filled my hands and
pockets with the choicest fruit culled
from a two-bushel basket, and then gone
ness at receiving half cent in change for
the single cent rendered for payment. As
for windfals, no one ever thinks of eating
them and they have no marketable value -
On all the islands, orange gardens mo-
nopolize a large portion Of the available
land. The SaIacens, who once swalmed,
fruit with them, and every seed they
dropped seemed to have taken root and
tiouIished The groves are all surround
ed by walls of lava rock, from u to 20
feet high, to protect the trees from occa-
sional gales. with broken glass thickly
set IN the mortar on top to discourage
thieves from climbing over. There is
heavy, iron bound door in the wall, with
stone cross set over it, and usually a
"lucky horse shoe' to warn away
I witches and duppies. The trees are
planted separately in rows and are com
monty propagated by layers. sometimes
by grating, OF by seed Those raised
from layers bear in three years, and reach
their prime At II years. BY grating. a
productive orchard is not procured under
10 years. Seeding requires the longest
time of AN, but they are the most prolific
and are said to be less subject to the rind-
Worm The older trees bear the best fruit
thin skinned and secdless. Many of the
trees are Of great age, yet produce an an
nUal crop averaging 30, 600 oranges. Some
/ nj them even bear a second crop. called
lidoiha fruit so that he fortunate Azor-
cans have oranges all the year round.
4 The orange quintas are busy places dur
ing the picking season. The fruit is
carefully picked from the trees into bas-
kets by boys, while women carry the full
baskets to the great golden mound in the
middle OF the orchard, where men put
them into boxes and bevies Of children
are kept busy smoothing out corn husks
for wrappers. rolling each orange and
handing them singly to the packers.
About 1870 oranges are required to fill a
box, but those for England are heaped
with two or three hundred more, to save
duty. Then the boxes go to the carpen-
ters. who nail on the tops and they are
ready for shipment. The bulk of the
orange crop is sent to England, where the
st. Michael orange as the fruit of all
the islands is called, is more highly
esteemed than that of any other part of
the world. The average annual exporta-
ton to England alone is 467, 564 boxes.
and the average price realized is 81. 80
per box. Some 300 sailing vessels and 40
steamers are now annually employed as
transports for orange cargoes. CONNER
cially, San Miguel is the queen of the
group, but the oranges of Fayal are the
best raised in the Azores. The United
States market has never been supplied to
any extent with Azorean oranges. 1t
! takes a sailing vessel too long on a winter
voyage to land them in good condition
but now that steamships make the jour
ney, they may go into the business more
largely, especially if Jack Frost continues
his frolics in Florida and California There
is no less abundance of other fruits in the
Azores, including bananas, red and vel
low, figs, guavas, and other tropical va
| rieties; strawberries and blackberIies of
I superb size and flavor; but the pears.
peaches, apples and plums do not COM
pare with ours.
| | nave never found place worth living
in where the cost of living is SO slight as
| in the Azores. Large and handsome
houses, fully furnished, little way out
of Ponta Delgada and Horta, with extern
sive fruit and flower gardens attached,
can be rented from 500 to $500 per year.
Servants wages average from 81 to So
per month, including the food they like
best, coarse bread and cabbage SOUP
Meat, poultry and eggs sell for about half
as much as with us, vegetables for almost
nothing, and the fish market is a never
ending establishment to foreigners for va
I