Gossip Friday: Not a Citrus Scholar

From July 1938:

[H]ere’s where Carole Lombard was smart. The back to farm movement hit her right between the eyes, too, and there as nothing to do until her next picture script was completed and Clark Gable gone hunting in Mexico, so Carole drove out to the San Fernando Valley and bought herself ten acres of land. But unlike her confreres she just didn’t throw a bevy of cows, horses, chickens and seeds at it and expect miracles–not Carole. With all that merry madness, that priceless insanity that’s as exhilarating as a double martini, Missy Lombard is at times a very sensible young lady. “What do I know about agriculture?” said Carole. “Nothing. I can’t afford a farm just for the luxury. I want a farm that will pay for itself. I want to reap more than a crop of freckles.”

And that’s how the luscious Miss Lombard came to take a correspondence course. Now if I can just meet a murderer and a magician!

“Dear Sir,” Carole wrote to the Agricultural Extension Service of the University of California. “I am interested in your correspondence course in agriculture but before enrolling would like to get some advice on the studies. Could you tell me how to lay out fifty acres the most systematically to derive the most from my land? Also could you suggest how to make a farm of this size pay for itself? I would like to take all the courses in farming, so please let me know where I should start and the prices.”

And very soon the college of agriculture with a very cheery letter had mailed Carole their pamphlet which included the following valuable bits of information: How to enroll–Each student who wishes to enroll for a correspondence course in agriculture is asked to pay a fee of $2.00. On receipt of the application card and the fee, the first two lessons of the course will be mailed…Plan to Follow in Completing Course–On receipt of the first lesson in the course the student should study the lesson until he is able to answer the questions at the end without reference to the text. Then he should write out the answers and mail them to the Agricultural Extension Service.  When answers are received they will be corrected, graded and returned to the student.

“Thank you so much for your prompt reply,” wrote Carole most politely to the Service. “I wish to take all the courses that are available with the exception of numbers 17 and 23, Pear Culture and Grape Growing. I don’t like pears and grapes. Therefore, if I owe you more than the $2.00 fee please notify me and I will forward by return mail.”

…

The first course in the correspondence course finally got there, and Carole discovered that it concerned the classification and varieties of citrus fruits. She could almost taste her first oranges, sun-kissed and handpicked, as she read on and on through pages and pages of citrus. She drew herself an orange  grove on her drawing board–her friends comments regarding it were most unflattering–and she looked up all the botanical words in the dictionary–well, most of them. Relations in citrus fruits she discovered are almost as difficult as human relations. She sat up all night boning, and the next morning was ready to taker her examination. 

I was really very proud of Miss Lombard. After all, when you are a great movie star you don’t have to bother with such horrible things as examinations. And here she was slaving away with pencil and paper when she could be doing something pleasant like playing tennis, or buying clothes, or signing autographs. I was sure she would graduate cum laude from the Agricultural Extension Service. But what questions!

1. Give in outline form the seven horticultural groups listed under the genus Citrus.
2.  What breeds true (a) Species (b) Hybrids?
3. What is a Trifoliate Orange?

Now I ask you, can you answer these questions? Well, neither can I. And, if you must know, neither can Miss Lombard. I’m afraid she flunked her citrus.