Show DEBT DUE TO BRAZIL < PROM THAT COUNTRY CAME FIRST SEEDLESS ORANQEB Fruit That Has Added Added Million of Dot lars to the Wealth of the Country Had Remarkable vicissitudes Freak of Nature The Introduction of the eeedle naval orange has revolutionized the orango industry of the United States It has drawn 13000 men from other pursuits and transformed vast areas of sunbaked land in California Into orange groves It has been tho prime factor In the growth of a dozen towns of 5000 and 10000 persons in southern Cull forma and has added directly more than 43000000 and Indirectly JCO 000000 more to tho taxable wealth of the state The first seedless orange trees were apparently freaks of nature and their counterparts have never been found Early In the 70s William Judson United States consul to Bahla Brazil heard an account from natives of a few trees in the swamps on the banks of tho Amazon some sixty miles away He sent a native up the rIver to get some of the fruit from the tree When the native returned the consul was delighted with the specimens and sent six of the shoots carefully packed In moss and clay to the de tmrtment of agriculuue at Washington Washing-ton The trees did not excite much interest In-terest at the department Two which wero planted in the department grounds died for lack of care and the others were forgotten for months Four cuttings were planted again In December of 1873 In southern California Cali-fornia One of the shoots died from neglect one was broken and chewed by a cow Five years passed and the two remaining re-maining shoots carne Into bearing These sixteen seedless oranges were tho first ever grown in tho United States Tho specimens were carried I I about southern California and shown to ranchmen and fruit growers Tiie second crop was awaited with great curiosity for It was feared that in a few years the fruit would become hard and tougH There were about a box of oranges In the second yield and they wero even better than the first crop The planting of groves of seedless oranges propagated from the buds in from the two original trees began earnest in 1882 The following year the demand for buds was so large that a dozen buds sold frequently for 5 stud some growers paid even as high as 1 apiece for them In 1889 tho two TIbbett trees furnished fur-nished buds which sold for 15000 and a tall fence was built around from stealing the them to keep people the or two later buds A year or sago trees which had been propagated propa-gated from the TIbbett trees began to bear and they themselves furnished tons of thousands of navel buds as good as from the original trees trees Then the first navel orange began to bear fruit and from that time oranges was assured tho boom in navel sured Now York Herald |