Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1884 — The Loquat. [ARTICLE]

The Loquat.

This fruit is rapidly taking rank as a popular favorite, many preferring it to the orange or lemon. The loquat crop is now in its prime, and at a most auspicious season—between the citrus and stone-fruit crops—and trees everywhere are looking their best after the heavy winter rains. It is gratifying that so many gardens are graced with this pretty, ornamental tree, in foliage quite as showy as the magnolia, only bearing a golden-hued plum as well as a blossom. Mr. O. A. Stafford, of Montecito, has what might be called a prize sample of each, growing in the grounds near his residence. A royal specimen of the magnolia, with great buds formed and just ready to flower, and not far away a Japanese loquat heavy from its crown to the earth on which the lower boughs rest with solid masses of rich, dark leaves, the center of each shining spray glowing with yellow clusters of fruit. The “apples of . the Hesperides ?” who knows ? Between the two as garden beantifiers neither could be Rejected nor preferred, the utility and beauty of the golden plum of Yeddo making it as desirable as the queenly magnolia.— Santa Barbara Press.