BLACK ORANGES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 378, 1 August 1874, Page 3

BLACK ORANGES.

I Two hundred years ago that eminently practical and ordinarily phlegmatic people the Dutch went perfectly crazy on the subject of tulips; tho varieties command such-phe-nomenal prices that it was at length surmised that not all the Bank of Amsterdam would cover the extrinsic value of a black specimen of tho handsome,'but scentless bulb. Equally maniacal, although not bo widely spread, was the attempt made within our own generation by a society of French horticulturists not only to deprive the queen of flowers, the roso, of its delicious perfume, but to rear a malodorous monstrosity with the disgusting name of rosa fcetida. The Chinese and Japanese have been credited in all ages with the performance of some strange tricks affecting the color and confirmation of fruits and flowers ; but nature is, after 'all,' the grand conjuror, aud if a recently published paragraph in an American newspaper is to be believed, Nature, in the stato of Florida, has been doing her very best to vindicate the character once ascribed to her by Mr. WhacWord Squcers, of being " a rum un." It seems that in the South Atlantic State jusi, named, Mrs. Harriet Bee her Stowe possesses an orange grove, of which she is very proud, but unfortunately Nature, in an inexplicable fit of caprice, has presented the authoress of " Uncle Tom's Cabin" with a cro*p of oranges which have all turned black. Mrs. Stowe is inclined to attribute the sable hue of the fruit, which should be golden, to an insufficiency of lime in the soil ; bufc the- old -Southern planters shake their heads, and murmuring that black orauges were never heard of in Florida prior to the coming of this formidable Yankee lady from Massachusetts, insinuate that Fate has decreed that all her oranges shall be of the hue so highly favored by the "Bobolitiouists." That blackberries or black heart cherries should abound in Mrs. Stowo's orchards ; that blackbirds should delight to sing in her bushes, and that black hawthorn should grow m her hedges ; that the brocoli Bhould be very woolly about the heads, and her potatoes sicklied ovor with the pale yellow cast of the mulatto's complexion ; nay, that anything save black pepper, black radishes, should consent to grow in her kitchen garden, and that 'the basement of her residence should be haunted by black beetles, would be comprehensive enough, and no law of nature would be violated by the coincidence of color ; but a black orange is a hitherto Unheard of rarity. Tho eminent authoress's swart fruit are said to possess a very nice flavor ; but, being dark in the face, they are unmarketable, and eren the negroes refuse to buy them ; whereas ihe oranges iv the plantations adjoining Mrs. Stowe's are said to be of a bright golden hue. Clearly Mr. Whackford Squeers is right, and Nature fully merits the familiar epithet which he bestowed upon her.