The mango has for many years tried to secure a place in our markets, but the specimens supplied—usually from worthless seedling trees—have given it a bad name.
The Government office of Pomology has been cultivating the infinitely superior Mulgoba mangoes of East India, "fit to set before a king," and will probably, ere long, add this to the list of marketable delicacies. In India there are mangoes of all sizes and flavors, some of which Americans of the future will no doubt enjoy.
The United States Government has, furthermore, gone into the business of creating entirely new fruits, and valuable varieties of nuts, particularly pecans, on which the Department of Agriculture has specialized. Great improvements in corn, wheat, and other cereals have also been made at the Government's Experiment Stations, not to speak of stock breeding, some of which has a gastronomic value. Nearly every volume of the "Year Book" of the Department of Agriculture has a chapter or two on this subject, and some of the papers have been reprinted separately.
Probably the two most important of the new creations are the tangelo and the citrange—new names for new fruits which seem destined to become as common in our markets as oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit.
The tangelo is a hybrid of the tangerine orange and the pomelo (grapefruit). There are several varieties. It is described as being sweeter than the pomelo, but more sprightly acid than the tangerine. It has the loose "kid-glove" skin of the latter fruit. "The characteristic bitter flavor of the pomelo is considerably reduced but remains as a pleasant suggestion of that popular fruit." I have had no opportunity to try this novelty, but Professor Bailey pronounces it "an excellent dessert fruit and an interesting and valuable acquisition."
Of the citrange, also, there are several varieties, the Rusk, Willits, and Morton. They are the outcome of an attempt to combine the hardiness of the worthless trifoliata orange (citrus trifoliata) with the sweetness of the common orange. The Morton is very near to a sweet orange; while the Willits makes a good drink and replaces the lemon for culinary purposes. The Rusk "makes a very delightful citrangeade, a good pie, and excellent marmalade and preserves. For the latter uses it may ultimately be grown extensively."
BURBANK'S NEW FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.
As a creator of new plants useful to mankind as superior foods, or because of their beauty, no man is the peer of Luther Burbank, of Santa Rosa, California. In the words of David Starr Jordan, president of the Leland Stanford University, "Luther Burbank is the greatest originator of new and valuable forms of plant life of this or any other age." "He is all that he has ever been said to be, and more," says Professor Bailey of Cornell University, America's chief authority on horticulture; and the leading foreign botanist, Hugo de Vries, of Amsterdam, admits that "in all Europe there is no one who can even compare with Luther Burbank. He is a unique, great genius."
That last sentence explains Mr. Burbank's supremacy. He has, it must be admitted, enjoyed unique advantages. The climate of California has been in his favor, enabling him in some cases to raise more than one crop in a year and to operate on a larger scale than any one else has ever done. Of fruits alone, for instance, he has had under test at one time "300,000 distinct varieties of plums, different in foliage, in form of fruit, in shipping, keeping, and canning qualities, 60,000 peaches and nectarines, five to six thousand almonds, 2,000 cherries, 2,000 pears, 1,000 grapes, 3,000 apples, 1,200 quinces, 5,000 walnuts, 5,000 chestnuts, five to six thousand berries of various kinds, with many thousands of other fruits, flowers, and vegetables."