A correspondent who has some seedling oranges, desires to know if they will bear without being grafted; or if they bear, whether the fruit will be good for anything.

A seedling orange or lemon will bear in time, and the fruit may be as good or even better than its parent. Grafting - or rather budding, for these plants are seldom grafted - is resorted to in order to bring the plant into early bearing. A bud from a bearing plant, will give a bearing tree at once, but a seedling usually takes many years to produce flowers or fruit.