I do know, however, that bringing
up a crop of oranges is as anxious an undertaking as "raising" a family.
Little black smudge pots stand in rows in the groves, ready to be
lighted at the first hint of frost. The admonition of the hymn applies
to fruit growers as well as to foolish virgins:
"See that your lamps are burning,
Your vessels filled with oil."
On sharp mornings the valleys are full of a gray haze still lingering
protectingly over the ranches. Then there are blights. I don't pretend
to know all the ills the orange is heir to. Sometimes it grows too fat
and juicy and cracks its skin, and sometimes it is attacked by scale.
Every tree has to be swathed in a voluminous sheet and fumigated once a
year at great expense. After living out here some time, I began to
understand why even in the heart of the orange country we sometimes pay
fifty cents a dozen for the large fruit. There is a way, however, of
getting around the high cost of living in this particular--you can go to
a packing house and buy for thirty-five cents an entire box of what are
called culls--oranges too large or too small for shipping, or with some
slight imperfection that would not stand transportation, but are as good
for most purposes as the "Sunkist" themselves.
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