know that an avocado and an alligator pear are the same
thing."

"Anyhow," he boasted. picking up a gold-red fruit at the edge
of a smaller grove. they were passing. "anyhow. I know what
this is, without being told. I've seen them a hundred times
in the New York markets. This is a tangerine."


"In that statement," she made judicial reply. "you've made
only two mistakes. You're improving. In the first place,
that isn't a tangerine, though it looks like one--or would if
it were half as large. That's a king orange. In the second
place, you've hardly ever seen them in any New York market.
They don't transport as well as some other varieties. And
very few of them go North. Northerners don't know them. And
they miss a lot. For the king is the most delicious orange in
the world. And it's the trickiest and hardest for us to
raise. See, the skin comes off it as easily as off of a
tangerine, and it breaks apart in the same way. The rust mite
has gotten at this one. See that russet patch on one side of
it? You'll often see it on oranges that go North. Sometimes
they're russet all over. That means the rust mite has dried
the oil in the skin and made the skin thinner and more
brittle. It doesn't seem to injure the taste. But it--"

"There's a grand tree over toward the road," he said. his
attention wandering. "It must be nearly a century old. It
has the most magnificent sweep of foliage I've seen since I
left the North. What is it?"