. Agricultural news. Agriculture -- West Indies; Plant diseases -- West Indies. 292 THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. September 17, FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES. THE JAFFA ORANGE. The Bureau of Plant Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture has recently published Bulletin 180 of its series, which contains an account of recent agricultural and botanical explorations in Pales- tine. Among the information given, there occur parti- culars of the Jaffa orange, and that part of the bulletin which deals with this is reproduced below:— All the crops mentioned have been cultivated for cen- turies
. Agricultural news. Agriculture -- West Indies; Plant diseases -- West Indies. 292 THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. September 17, FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES. THE JAFFA ORANGE. The Bureau of Plant Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture has recently published Bulletin 180 of its series, which contains an account of recent agricultural and botanical explorations in Pales- tine. Among the information given, there occur parti- culars of the Jaffa orange, and that part of the bulletin which deals with this is reproduced below:— All the crops mentioned have been cultivated for cen- turies in the Orient, but oranges were introduced there at a relatively recent date. Hasselquist, a pupil of Linnajus, who was the first naturalist to study Palestine, in the middle of the eighteenth century, speaks of the beautiful gardens of figs and pome- granates at Jaffa, but has not a word to say about oranges. This silence is significant. But at the time of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, at the close of the eighteenth century, the orange was mentioned among the fruit trees. Chateau- briand, who travelled in the beginning of the nineteenth century, also speaks of this fruit. Lamartine, visiting Pales- tine in October 1832, praises the beauty and quality of the Jafifa orange, but speaks of having seen the flowers and the golden fruits at the time of his visit. Now, at this season of the year it was too late for the trees to have been in bloom and not late enough for the fruits to be ripe. This and other errors of observation cause me to doubt the value of the poet's description, from the point of view of the naturalist and agriculturist, although its value as literature is unijuestioned. At any rate, in the .second half of the nineteenth century, the Jaffa orange was known in the markets for its superior quality. It was exported by sailing vessels all along the Syrian and Egyptian coasts. Its thick skin made it a good shipper, and it was carried as far as , and in
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