Of all tropical fruits the mango is perhaps the most delicious. Its tree grows to enormous size and bears a prolific burden of fruit. In front of my house are a great number of huge mango trees which are said to have been planted more than two hundred years ago. The fruit picked up from under a single tree amounted to a trifle over one hundred and sixty-one bushels. Unlike the banana or even our American peaches, pears and plums, the mango is scarcely fit to eat unless allowed to ripen and drop off the tree. Much of the delicacy of its flavor is lost if plucked even a day before it is ready to fall. When picked green and shipped to the American markets it is but a sorry imitation of the fruit when allowed to ripen on the tree. It ripens in June, and it is almost worth one's while to make a flying trip to the tropics in that month just to sit beneath the mango tree and eat one's fill of this fruit four or five times a day. The only native fruit that ever could be profitably raised here for the American market is the orange. The Mexican orange is well known for its thin, smooth skin and superior flavor and sweetness. The trees thrive in the locality of Tuxpam, and bear abundantly from year to year without the least cultivation or attention. On my place thousands of bushels of this fruit drop off the trees and go to waste every year, there being no market for it. I made an experimental shipment of 1,000 boxes to New York on one of the Ward Line Steamers. After selecting, wrapping and packing them with the greatest care, and prepaying the freight, in due time I received a bill from the New York commission house for $275 (gold) for various charges incidental to receiving and hauling them to the public dump. The steamer, however, had been delayed several days. The ratio of profit on this transaction is a fair example of the returns that one may reasonably expect from an investment in any agricultural enterprise in Mexico.[12] If ever we get rapid steamer service between Tuxpam and Galveston or New Orleans, it is my belief that orange-growing could be made profitable in this country, but until then it would be useless to consider the orange-growing industry.