The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1900-06-04
THE SEEDLESS ORANGE NAuMMOCRATS TOMEET
United states Consul Found u I'm Bra
zil in -CalifoinIao's Luck la Get
ting It,

"The first seedless orange trees were
apparently freaks of nature. writes It
California correspondent Of the New
York sun. s"Their countorparts have
never been found. In the summer OF
1872 William r. Judson, United states
Consul at Bahia, Brazil, heard on aC-
count from natives Of a few trees in
the sWamps on the north bank OF the
Amazon some sixty miles inland that
bore oranges without seeds. lie was Of
scientific bent and consul that knew
his business. He had heard of the start
ing Of Orange Groves in Florida, and ne
believed that seedless orange trees were
well worth experimenting with there.
So he sent native up the river 10 cut
some shoots of the trees and geu some
of the fruit When the native returned
the consul was delighted with the spcci-
mems. Forthwith he sent six OF the
orange-tree shoots carefully packed in
wet moss and clay to the Agricultural
Department at Washington for propo-.
cation. The trees did not excite as
| much attention in the department as
| the enthusiastic consul had expected.
/ Two of the shoots, which were no big
| ger than horsewhips, died from lack of
| care in the department grounds, and
! the others were almost forgotten In a
/ few months. In the winter of 1873 Mrs.
I
was visiting her cousin, Gen. Benjamin
+. Butler, then a congressman from
Massachusetts. Her husband had re-
Gently removed from Boston to Los An
! geles, Cal, and was about to pre-empt
a tract of government land i'm San Ber
nardino valley. He asked Mrs. Tibbetts
| to get from General Butler an introduce
| ton at the Agricultural Department.
| She was then to ask for specimens of
! fruits and shrubs suitable for expert
mental propagation in Southern Cali
! fornia. Among other things, Mrs lib
bets got from the department grounds
| the four surviving orange-tree shoots
! from Brazil. The trees reached Mr..
J Tibbets safely at Riverside, Cal, week
| later and were Immediately planted.
| That was in December, 1873. One of the
shoots died from neglect and another
was broken and chewed up by a COW.
Five years passed and the two sur
viving trees came into bearing. In the
winter of 1S7S-79 they bore sixteen or
anges, the first seedless oranges ever
| grown in North America. The speci-
mems were carried about Southern Cali
fornia and shown to all ranchnen and
fruit growers. There We're many who
doubted whether the trees would an
nually bear such royal specimens of
orange culture. Nearly every one be-
| lieved that the fruit would become
coarse and tough in few years more.
So the second crop was awaited with
curiosity among the neighbors. There
were about a box of oranges in the sec
ond yield and they were even better
than those of the first crop. The fame
of the Tibbetts seedless oranges went
far and wide in Southern California.
/ People who were growing the old fash
| Toned oranges Travelled hundreds of
miles in wagons to see the trees. Still
there were less than a dozen people
who believed that such a freak as a
| seedless fruit could ever be propagated
into an established industry.
Mr.. Tibbetts was sure that there was
a fortune in his new variety of oranges.
! For two years he experimental with
propagating trees from shoots and cut
tings from his two seedless orange
| trees. But all his attempts were fail
ures. Finally he hit upon the scheme
of budding from the seedless navel
! trees upon seeding trees. Experiments
J along that line were successful. 1t was
| found that a bud taken from one of
! Tibbett's two navel orange trees and
| grated into the bark of Seeding tree
would grow to be a limb which bore
| seedless navel oranges. Then Mr. lib
! belts grew tiny Seeding orange trees
! just as had been done by orange grow
ers for years, and budded into the trunk
of each little tree several navel orange
buds. When the buds had become
| branches of the trees, he cut away all
the original or Seeding branches, leav-
| ing only the navel orange branches to
bear fuit In this way he easily Gre
ated navel orange tress. and the prob
lem Of growing seedless oranges was
| solved.
THE planting of groves of seedless
orange trees propagated from buds from
the two original trees on the Tibbetts
| place began in earnest throughout
Southern California in the winter of
1882. In the following year the demand
for buds from the Tibbetts trees was
so large that a dozen buds sold fire.
quently for So, and some growers, desir-
Gus of getting navel orange buds of
genuine quality, paid 81 each for buds.
In 1884 the two Tibbetts trees furnished
buds that sold for 81 800 and a tall
fence was built around them to keep
people from stealing the buds. A year
or two later the orange trees that had
been propagated from the Tibbetts trees
! began to bear, and they themselves
| furnished tens of thousands of navel
buds as good as those from the two
| original trees. Then the first navel
orange groves began to bear fruit, and
| from that time the boom in navel or
ange groves has continued. No one
plants Seeding orange trees nowadays
and tens of thousands of Seeding trees
| have been budded into navel orange
]
Seeding orange groves in Southen CAL
| ifornia during the last ten years have
| been less than $l00 an acre, while there
are many navel orange groves in this
region that have yielded net profits OF
! $3.50 and $500 an acre year.
THE two trees from which have come
directly and indirectly all the navel
oranges in the world are still on the
old Tibbetts ranch in Riverside. Since
! Mr.. Tibbetts received the shoots from
! the Agricultural Department and began
! propagating the first seedless oranges
! Riverside has grown from a hamlet Of
/ less than thirty American residents, to
a beautiful, prosperous city Of 14,000
population with an assessed valuation
of $S,275000. II is the greatest orange
producing locality I'm the world. Some
! 10000 acres of land is devoted to orange
! growing. The average annual ship
ments of oranges from Riverside are
1,600 600 boxes, valued at $2100,000. All
! this has come from the introduction Of
FNHN-u