In Tunis I have seen them in arid locations where the rainfall was about ten inches.
Unfortunately the carob is injured by winter temperatures of 20° F, or even a little above.[1] This limits the crop to approximately those lands where the temperature is suitable for the orange. However, as the orange is a water-lover, it requires good irrigable land, while the carob is a drought-resister, and it therefore occupics the rocky land above. The climatic relationship of the carob and the orange is well illustrated in the Valencia district of Spain, which contains four-fifths of the Spanish orange acres and two-fifths of Spanish carob acres.[2]
Nearly everywhere in the Mediterranean countries the carob is a supply crop. It is like corn on the American farm, something to be fed to the farm animals. A few localities export it. A few thousand tons are exported from Algeria, but it reaches its greatest commercial importance in Cyprus, where
- ↑ The Origin of Cultivated Plants, by Alphonse de Condolle, says, "It does not pass the northern limit beyond which the orange cannot be grown without shelter. This fine evergreen tree does not thrive where there is much humidity."
The following statement seems to show that carobs vary in resistance to frost:
"Eighteen degrees of frost do not injure the carob to any extent. Frost conditions that did marked damage to citrus trees made no impression on carobs growing within a few feet of them." (Monthly Bulletin, State Commission of Horticulture, Sacramento, Calif., Vol. V, No. 8, "The Carob," p. 292.)
- ↑ An unpublished report of American Consul C. I. Dawson at Valencia, Spain, January 28, 1913, "The carob is a leguminous growth, indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and particularly to the east coast of Spain, where for centuries it has been the principal forage crop of this intensely cultivated region. The tree is not frequently cultivated as a crop of primary importance. Except for a few well-kept plantations it usually occupies the least valuable parcels of land in the irrigated plain.
"The tree apparently flourishes equally well in any soil except stiff clays or other compact formations.
"The flowering period begins at the tenth or twelfth year, but forty or more years pass before the tree is in full bearing. Then under normal conditions the hardiest varieties will yield crops with little variation from year to year, for generations and even hundreds of years.
"The average annual yield of carobs per arce is placcd at no pounds,
