Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-05-29
SeedIess Oranges.

seedless, or navel oranges grown. A
few oranges were raised in Florida, but
the bulk of the supply came from the
Mediterranean, and the fruit was ex-
penslve. The annual yield of Callfor-
mia oragnes was less than five car
loads. Now the annual orange yield
In California is upward of $4,000 car
loads, and the total amount invested is
something like $43,OOO,OOO while then
ty-flve years ago it was only $23 900.
The introduction of the seedless, or
navel orange has caused these changes
1t has revolutionized the orange in
dustry of the United States. drawing
$4,000 men out of other pursuits and
has transformed vast areas of sun
baked land in California into beautiful
orange groves. The New York Sun
recently had an interesting article on
this subject, from which we derive our
information.
The first seedless orange trees were
introduced in 1872 through the efforts
of William +. Judson, United States
Consul of Bahia. Brazil. who heard
from the natives of few trees in the
swamp on the north bank of the ANA
zon, some sixty miles inward, which
had no seeds. 1t seems that even in
those days there were Consuls who
were interested in scientific matters,
and could forsee the economic value
of discovery of this kind. He sent
a native up the river to get some
shoots, and bring back some of the
fruit Several of the shoots were pack
ed in moss and clay and were shipped
to the Agricultural Department at
Washington. They did not excite
much attention at first. but the next
year Mr.. Horatio Tibbetts asked the
Agricultural Department for speci-
mems of fruit and shrubs suitable for
experimental propagation in South
ern California. Among other things
Mr.. Tibbetts obtained the four sur
viving orange tree shoots from Brazil.
They were shipped to Riverside, Cali
fornia, and were Immediately planted.
Even here the shoots appeared to have
mad bad luck; one died of neglect and
another was chewed up by. COW.
Five years passed and the two surviv-
ing trees come into bearing and in the
winter of 1S7S-79 they bore sixteen or
anges of the seedless variety.-the first
ever grown in North America. Spec
linens were shown to orangemen and
fruit growers. At first they
were sceptcal as to whether
the trees would bear annually
such fine specimens. The sec
ond crop was awaited with great an
Niety There was about a box of Or
anges in the second years croD and
they were even better than those of
the first crop. Mr.. Tibbtets was sure
there was fortune in the new variety
of oranges. For two years he expert
mented with propagatlng trees from
shoots and cutting from his two seed
less trees. His attempts were fail
ure, but finally he hit upon scheme
of budding from the seedless navel
trees upon the seeding trees. Exper-
iments along that lne were successful,
and it was found, that bud taken
from one of the two Tlbbetts trees
grow seedless oranges. The original
orange branches were then cut away
and the treet thereafter bore only the
new variety of fruit Work was car
ried on in earnest in the winter of
1882 and in the following year the de-
mand for buds was so large that a
dozen frequently sold for IS and 81
each was finally not considered eXces-
sive for good bud. A fence was
built around the two trees to protect
them and a year or two later the Or
ange trees that had been propagated
iioiii the tWo oiH6ihdi trees DeSdu u
bear and they furnished tens of thous-
ands of navel buds, which were as good
as those from the two original trees.
The industry has grown until now NO
one thinks OF planting Seeding or
anges. and tens of thousands of seed
ling trees have been budded into navel
orange trees, and there are many nav
ell orange groves in the region which
have yielded net profits of from $3.50
TO $500 an acre year. Riverside has
grown from a hamlet of less than
thirty American inhabitants to pros
porous town with $4,000 population.