Treatise and hand-book of orange culture in Florida, Louisiana and California

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TREATISE AND HAND-BOOK

OP

Orange Culture

FLORIDA. LOUISIANA AND
CALIFORNIA.

Rev. T. W. Moore

THIRD EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED

NEW YORK:

E. R. PELTON & CO.,

1884.

COPYRIGHT BT

E. R. PELTON,

i83i.

CONTENTS.

PACK

Preface to the Second Edition v

Preface TO THE First Edition vii

Chapter I.— The Profit of Orange Growing i'

Chapter II,— Of the Severai. Methods of Planting Orange

Groves '"

Chapter III.— The Wild Orange Grove Bidded 22

Chapter IV.— Groves from Transplanted Sour Stc-mps 30

Chapter V. — Planting the Orange Seed .. . 36

Chapter VI.— Budding 4'

Chapter VII.— On Selecting a Location for an Orange

Grove 47

Chapter VIII. — The Advantages of Partial Forest Shelter 54

Chapter IX. — "The Frost Line" and " The Orange Beli '' 60

Chapter X. — The Effect of Frost on Plants 63

Chapter XI. — Transplanting 68

Chapter XII. — The Distance Apart 72

Chapter XIII. — Cultivation 74

Chapter XIV. — Thorough Cultivation 79

Chapter XV. — Pruning 85

Chapter XVI. — Fertilizing 90

Chapter XVII.— Species, Varieties, etc 99

Chapter XVIII.— The Lfmon and Lime 116

Chapter XIX.— The Insects Damaging to the Orange Tree
— The N.'kTURAL Enemies of such Insects, and the Reme-
dies to be Applied 120

IV CONTENTS.

PAGE

Chapter XX. — Diseases to which the Orange Tree and

Fruit are Liable, and their Remedies 128

Chapter XXI. — Rust on the Orange 133

Chapter XXII. — Gathering, Packing, and Shipping the

Orange.. ... 138

Chapter XXIII.— Crops that may be Grown Among the Or-
ange Trees 144

Chapter XXIV.— Oils, Perfumes, Extracts, etc., from the

Citrus 147

Chapter XXV. — Conclusion 149

Appendix ^„ 153

Commendations ' 182

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.

fHE author's reason for changing the title of this
book so as to make it embrace the orange in-
terest not only of Florida, but also Louisiana and
California, is found in the fact that many corre-
spondents, residents of the last named States, and
the most skilful growers of the orange have ex-
pressed unqualified approval of the methods of cul-
tivation taught in this work.

Resting upon their judgment, we send forth this
third edition upon a wider mission to bear kindly
greeting to all orange-growers throughout the
Union.

Fruit Cove, Oct., 1882,

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

STHE author's reasons for publishing a second
^ edition are several :

1. The first edition of more than two thousand
copies is about exhausted, while orders for the
work are most active ; so that, to meet the demand
for information on the subject of orange-growing,
a new issue would be necessary even if there were
no need for emendations and enlargement.

2. A longer experience and continued -observa-
tion now enable the author to write with more con-
fidence on certain points left in doubt in the former
edition, as well as to give new matter in almost
every chapter.

3. Hundreds of letters have been received, mak-
ing inquiry concerning matters not noticed in the
first publication, also asking for fuller information
on subjects briefly mentioned. To give the in-
formation desired, and to extend it to others who
doubtless would have asked similar questions had
they not been restrained by a thought of the trou-
ble and expense necessary to answer each individual

VI PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

by letter, the author has availed himself of this op-
portunity to give, more thoroughly than he other-
wise could, the information asked.

To the Press, which has given so many favorable
notices ; to the public, who have given so hearty a
welcome ; and to the experienced orange-growers
who have noticed with more hearty commendation
than any others the little pamphlet first issued ; the
author would here extend his thanks, and again
send greeting and an earnest * ' God speed you. ' '

Fruit Cove, Fla., October, 1881.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

fHE writer for several years suffered greatly for
want of some reliable advice on Orange Cul-
ture. Could he have had such instructions as the
following pages contain he might have hastened
forward to profitable bearing by several years an
orange grove now crowning his labors with suc-
cess. He could have done this with half the
amount of money expended by him in experiment-
ing, in following unreliable advice, and in doing
what at the time seemed wisest. It is to save others
such useless expenditures and to help forward the
best material interests of Florida that he has un-
dertaken to give to the public the result of his ex-
perience and observation on Orange Culture in
Florida.

Nor has he undertaken this without the earnest
solicitation of many who are engaged in orange
growing, and have witnessed his success and dis-
cussed with him his plans.

The writer has not only had ten years of actual
experience in orange growing, but he has had be-
fore him a wide field for observing the efforts of
others engaged in this business. He has had
throughout his life a passion for horticulture ; in

vm PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION,

early life considerable experience as an amateur
cultivator of fruits. For twenty-five years he has
been accustomed to eat fresh from the trees the
orange grown in Cuba, in Central America, in Cal-
ifornia, in Louisiana, and in Florida. His admi-
ration of this *' queen of fruits" has led him to
observe and inquire after the methods of culture in
each of these several countries. During the ten
years of his experience he has frequently travelled
over the State of Florida, visiting, at all seasons of
the year, the various sections engaged in growing
oranges, discussing with growers their theories, and
noting the results of their efforts.

This little work, therefore, is not the result of
the experience of a single individual confined to a
single location, but the result of the experiments,
the successes, and the failures of many, extended
over the entire State of Florida.

The Press of Florida has done much to help for-
ward the knowledge necessary to success in orange
growing in this State. Its appreciation of this great
interest, and the readiness with which it has devoted
its columns to growers for the interchange of
thought and the discussion of theories, both false
and true, has given to persons widely separated
the benefit of each others' experience. For this
work the Press of Florida, and especially the Agri-
culturist 2Ci\A\h.^ Semi-Tropical, as more especially^e-
voted to this interest, is deserving of all praise ; and
whosoever would keep up with the rapidly growing

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITIOX. ix

knowledge of orange culture in our peculiar cli-
mate and soil must continue to read, as the Press
will continue to publish, every new light on this
subject. The Author here makes acknowledgments
to the Press of Florida as well as to the thousands
whom he has visited, and with whom he has dis-
cussed the contents of tliese pages.

All technical terms, as far as possible, have been
avoided in these pages. Where such terms have
been emplojed it has been solely to make the
meaning less questionable. This book is intended
as a manual for all who wish to best succeed with
the least expense in growing the orange. Such
terms as can be understood by the unlearned can
be also comprehended by those who can command
encyclopedias and the elaborate work of Gallesio.

With earnest desire for the success of the orange
grower in Florida, and with hearty good-will to
them and to others who may engage in this honor-
able and profitable business, this humble and little
book is submitted by the

Author.

ORANGE CULTURE.

CHAPTER I.

THE PROFIT OF ORANGE-GROWIXG.

^ HEN compared to the profit from other kinds
of business, that derived from orange-grow-
ing is so large that a statement of facts is often
withheld because the truth seems fabulous to those
who have only had experience with other kinds of
fruits. Those engaged in the business consider
each tree, so soon as it is in healthy and vigorous
bearing, worth one hundred dollars. Indeed the
annual yield of such a tree will pay a large interest
on the one hundred dollars — from ten to a hun-
dred, and in some instances one hundred and fifty
per cent per annum. Now'if we take into consid-
eration that from forty to one hundred trees are
grown on an acre, the yield is immense. In the
quiet country, breathing its pure atmosphere, with
fresh fruits and vegetables from January to Janu-
iLvy, with milk, butter, honey, and poultry, the
product of his farm and accessories to his grove,

12 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

the man who has once brought his trees into suc-
cessful bearing can enjoy all these and much more
besides, having at his command an income quite
equal to that commanded by owners of blocks of
well-improved real estate in our towns and cities,
with not one tenth part of the original cost of city
investments. Or, if the owner chooses, he is at
liberty to go abroad without fear of the incendiary's
torch or the failure of commercial firms. And
even if a frost should come severe enough to cut
down full grown trees — and but one such frost has
come in the history of Florida — the owner of such
a grove has but to wait quietly for three years, and
out of the ruin will come a second fortune as large
as the first, and without the cost of brick, mortar,
and workmen.

The age to which the orange tree lives, from
three hundred to four hundred years, is so great
that Americans do not know how to consider it in
the light of z. permanent investment. The fear has
sometimes been expressed that the business will be
overdone, that the supply will after a while exceed
the demand, and the price of the fruit so decline
that the orange will be unprofitable to the grower.
But those who entertain this fear have certainly not
considered the facts. The area of the States with
climate suitable for growing the orange is compar-
atively small. The southern portion of California,
a very small part of Louisiana, and the whole of
Florida, if devoted to orange culture, is but a trifle

THE PROFIT OF ORANGE-GROWING. 13

compared to the vast sections of the United States
which will be well filled with inhabitants long before
the orange-growing sections can be brought into
bearing. The present yield of fruit grown in the
United States furnishes hardly one orange a year to
each inhabitant. Our population will likely double,
judging the future by the past, in the next thirty or
forty years. To furnish such a population with
one orange or lemon a tlay will require no less than
thirty thousand millions of oranges or lemons per
annum. The skill in gathering, curing, and pack-
ing the late and early varieties now appearing will
enable the grower to furnish for the market at all
seasons of the year either oranges or lemons. The
wholesomeness of the fruit, together with its medici-
nal qualities, will increase its popularity as an arti-
cle of footl, until it will be universally used. At
present the production of Florida oranges is so
small that it is not known in the markets of many
of our largest cities. The foreign varieties offered in
those markets, even when fully ri])e and eaten fresh
in their own countries, will not compare with the
Florida orange. But in order to reach this country
in sound condition they have to be gathered when
green, and hence are not only unpalatable but un-
wholesome. When the Florida orange becomes
generally known, and the supply is adequate, it will
exclude foreign fruit, and, because of its excellence,
become universally used. Such will be the demand.
Already successful shipments have been made to

14 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

Europe, which at no distant day is to get its best
oranges in large quantities from Florida.

Now note the possibility of supply. Only a small
proportion of those sections with climate sufficiently
mild to grow the orange can ever be made avail-
able. A few of the more southern counties of
California and that portion of Louisiana along
the Gulf Coast can be made available for grow-
ing oranges profitably. In Florida the climatic
conditions are more favorable, but the land and
location suitable are not one hundredth part of the
State. Another fact lessens the possibility of yield.
Orange culture belongs to the class of skilled labor.
Hundreds engaged in the business will fail, because
success requires intelligence, application, patience,
and skill. Hundreds have already failed, from one
or all of these causes, and have left the State, never
dreaming that they alone are to be blamed for their
failure. Men in the very communities thus aban-
doned have succeeded because they were more pru-
dent in the selection of soil and location, and used
their intelligence and the intelligence of others, and
persevered in the face of partial failure brought
about by ignorance. But those men who failed
took no advice except that of the landowner who
offered to sell land cheaper than any one else.
They read nothing that had been written by men
who had succeeded. They took no warning of
those who had failed. Stilted on their castle of

THE PROFIT OF ORANGE-GROIVIXG. 15

self-conceit they stood, nor deigned to look down
to the humble but priidait laborer for advice, till
their castle fell, and they left the State imagining
that the " sand of Florida" had proven an unsta-
ble foundation and overthrown them and their cas-
tle. Such instances will repeat themselves. Who-
ever may succeeti, such men will fail. Whatever
may be written, and wisely written on the subject,
and however published, whether in book or journal,
will not be read by them. I?ul while the above
facts will lessen the general yield of oranges, it will
make the business vastly more profitable to the men
who possess the virtues necessary to success. The
orange will pay beyond any other fruit at half a
cent an orange on the tree. In Europe, where
lands are exceedingly high, a grove is considered a
most profitable investment, even when the fruit sells
at from two dollars to four dollars per thousand.
Ten years ago the Florida orange was considered well
sold when the grower could get one cent on the
tree. Few now sell for less than one and a half
cent, and some average at their groves as high as
four cents per orange, and the price still advances.

In no business can a young man with pluck, in-
telligence, and application, so certainly lay the
foundation for a competency and fortune as in or-
ange-growing in Florida. With the exercise of
these he ma}- in ten years be what the country would
call a rich man.

A young man from [Middle Florida borrowed

1 6 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

money enough from his father to buy a piece of
land. After paying for his land, located a few
miles above Palatka, he landed in Palatka with
three dollars in his pocket. These he paid for pro-
visions, and went to work growing vegetables on
about an acre and a half of cleared land. Six years
afterward he sold his place for twelve thousand
dollars cash, without owing a cent for anything.
Many instances could be given of young men, as
well as old men, who have done as well, and of
some who have done still better. Young men have
frequently written to the author to aid in securing
for them a clerkship. His advice has been invari-
ably given, " Go to work raising fruit in Florida, and
be independent and have a home.

ORANGE CULTIRE IN CALIFORNIA.

We clip the following statistics of making an or-
ange grove in California from the address of Mr.
L. I\I. Holt, Secretary of the Southern California
Horticultural Society. It will be observed that the
rates are far above those charged in Florida in some
of the items, land for one :

*' An orange orchard in full bearing will yield loo,-
ooo oranges to the acre. Five dollars per thousand
will pay all the expenses of taking care of the orchard
and picking and marketing the crop in San Francisco;
or to any other market to which the freights are no
greater. If the price should come down from the pres-

THE PROFIT OF ORAXGE-GROWIXG. 17

ent fipfure to ten dollars per 1000 — jobbing rates — there
will still be left live dollars per 1000, or five hundred
dollars per acre for the producer, which on a ten-acre
tract will satisfy the cupidity of the most avaricious.
There is scarcely a possibility that the price of good
clean oranges will reach so low a figure as ten dol-
lars per thousand yet, for years to come.

WHAT WILL IT COST TO GET SUCH AN ORCHARD?

" As a guide to those who may desire to figure on
the probable expense of starting an orange orchard.
I give below some figures which are applicable to
Riverside ; they must be changed somewhat for other
localities. Land in Riverside settlement is compara-
tively high. One year ago good wild land could be
obtained for seventy-five dollars per acre, and even at
sixty dollars per acre under the canals. To-day there
is none for sale at a less figure than one hundred
and fifty dollars per acre, and choice land in good lo-
cations is held at two hundred dollars per acre firm.
Lower priced lands can be had in other localities, and
in no place in Southern California does it command
as high a figure as here in Riverside. In applying
these figures to other localities the price of land can
be figured all the way from twenty-five to one hun-
dred dollars per acre. Following are the figures for
a ten-acre trac-t :'

COST.

Ten acres of land in Riverside $1500

One thousand trees, budded or seedling. 750

Planting and caring for same first season, at

tweniy-five dollars per acre 250

Caring tor orchard second year, at fifteen dollars

per acre 150

l8 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

Third year, fifteen dollars per year 150

Fourth year, twenty dollars per acre 200

Fifth year, twenty-five dollars per acre 250

Other expenses incidental to work 550

Total for five years $3800

Interest on investment 1200

Total $5000

" This is the expense account. There will be some
receipts. If good budded trees are planted, the third
year will give a little fruit, the fourth year still
more, and at the end of the fifth year there wiil be
quite a fine crop. In order to be safe in these calcu-
lations we will place the yield and prices at the
lowest possible estimate :

Third year crop, scattering oranges — a few hun-
dred or thousand — not counted.

Fourth year, an average of fifty oranges to the
tree — 50,000 oranges at twenty dollars per thou-
sand $1000

Fifth year, nx> to the tree — 200,000 oranges at

twenty dollars per thousand 4000

" If these prices are maintained the owner has his
investment all back again at the end of five years,
and is ready to ship oranges in large quantities every
year thereafter.

" All persons planting orange orchards do not do as
well as this, and some do better. Those figures
represent what can be done with good judgment and
thorough work. If a man thinks to save by getting
cheap and incompetent work, he may succeed in re-
ducing the cost a few dollars, and the receipts a few
hundred dollars, or even a few thousand dollars. If

THE PROFIT OF ORANGE-GROWING. 1 9

he buys a poor tree he can get it for twenty cents,
instead of paying the market price for a good thrifty
tree, he will rriake another saving in cost of orchard,
and in cost of boxes in which to ship the fruit,"

CHAPTER II.

OF THE SEVERAL METHODS OF PLANTING ORANGE
GROVES.

fHE question is frequently asked, " Which is
the best.?" The several methods are — ist,
the budding of the wild sour treec 'vithout mov-
ing them ; 2d, budding them first and planting
afterward in some suitable location ; 3d, plant-
ing the sour stumps and budding afterward ; 4th,
growing the trees from sweet seed without budding ;
5th, planting the sweet seedling and budding either
before or after removal from nursery ; 6th, bud-
ding on sour seedlings either before or after re-
moval from nursery ; and 7th, a grove of sweet seed-
lings.

Each of these plans has some advantage over the
others. They all have advocates, but which of all
has the greatest number of advantages is question-
able. I have tried them all ; but, after stating the
advantages of each, must leave to the grower to se-
lect for himself as circumstances and inclination
may control.

If one is impatient for returns, let him choose the
sour grove, if he can find it, and bud the trees
where they stand. With proper management he

SEVERAL METHODS OF PLANIIXG. 2i

may bcii^in to leather in two years. If he is still
impatient but cannot find a sour grove, let him buy
the sour stumps, plant them in some suitable loca-
tion, and he may begin to gather fruit in three
years from planting. But if he can wait a while
longer for fruit, with the hope of getting a longer-
lived tree and more abundant yield, let him plant
^xntngcr trees, either seedlings or budded stock. If
he wishes an early bearer and comparatively smaller
tree, he can select the sour seedling budded. If a
larger but later bearer, he can select the nveet seed-
ling budded. If he wishes an abundant yield and
the largest trees, and can wait a longer time, the
sweet seedling unbudded will suit With good
treatment such trees will begin to yield in eight
years, and after a longer time, in ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred, give him a fair quality
of fruit ; but perhaps he will have as many varie-
ties or sub-varieties as trees in his grove. The
sour stock for a few years grows more rapidly, but
will finally make a smaller tree than the swceL
The best quality of fruit can be insured only by
budding from the best varieties.

As to the relative advantages of seedling and
budded trees, each year's experience and obser\'a-
tion increase my appreciation of budded trees.
Were I to plant again, I think I would plant no
other.

CHAPTER III.

THE WILD ORANGE GROVE BUDDED.

Sp HIS grove yields so readily uijder so simple treat-
Gi ment that we shall consider it at once. Of course
nature has already determined the location, and
in many instances the location has been wisely
chosen, not only with reference to best protection
from frost, but also in many instances with refer-
ence to cheap and easy transportation, on the banks
of navigable rivers and creeks. Wherever a wild
grove can be found so located, the purchaser can
afford to pay a liberal price if he has to buy, or the
owner can afford to improve by the most approved
methods,

JNIany, however, have been the blunders made in
attempts to improve such valuable property. I
know of many groves greatly damaged, and some
completely sacrificed, by bad management. The
two mistakes most frequently made in the treatment
of such groves are, first, the reckless destruction of
the forest trees furnished by nature for the protec-
tion of the orange, and, second, the continued pull-
ing off of the young shoots from the stumps cut off
for the purpose of budding. The first and second
buds having failed, the cultivator continues to re-

iriLD ORAXGE GROVE BUDDED. 23

diice the vitality of tlic tree by pulling off tlie young
shoots, until at last the sap, for want of elaboration
through the leaf, becomes diseased, and the tree,
tenacious of life as it is, dies of the double cause of
exhaustion and disease. It may be well to caution
the orange-grower at once against the commission
or repetition of this frequent blunder. Few of our
forest trees will survive being cut down to a stump ;
still fewer will survive if the young shoots are kept
down for a few months. Every time the young
shoots are pulled off, the young rootlets, correspond-
ing to and starting at the same instant with the
shoots, die, and the effort of nature to restore vital-
ity is checked and weakened until the hardiest tree
is soon killed. \\\ budding <?/(:/ stumps I have found
it of great advantage to allow a few shoots to grow
along the trunk, bdmv the bud, pinching back
these shoots, allowing a few leaves on each shoot
to grow to full size, and so furnishing the tree w^ith
healthy sap, encouraging the development and ma-
turity of new wood and new roots, and keeping up
an active circulation. Continue this until the sweet
bud has so far advanced as to be able to furnish the
tree with sufficient leaf to enable it to collect suf-
ficient carbon from the atmosphere to insure the
health of the tree. After this point has been reach-
ed you may then pluck off all the sour shoots and
keep them off. In some instances where a sweet
bud has made an early start, a moi-e vigorous
growth of the sweet bud maybe obtained b\' i)luck-

24 ORAXGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

ing off all the sour shoots from the first, but this is
at the risk of the health of both the stock and the
bud. I will mention one other thing in this con-
nection : do not allow the sweet bud to grow too
long before pinching it back. If allowed to grow
two or three feet, as it will from a very vigorous
slump, it is liable to be broken off by the wind.
But even if it should be securely tied so as to pre-
vent such an accident, it should, nevertheless, be
pinched back in order to hasten the maturity of its
own wood and leaves. The viature leaves are nec-
essary to the health of both stock and bud, and
necessary to gain a controlling influence over the
circulation, and to draw it as early as possible to the
sweet bud. By this means also the mature wood of
the sweet bud is better enabled to resist the blight-
ing influence of both sun and frost. Still another
advantage is gained. By pinching back the bud it
is induced to branch near its junction with the
stock and thus enlarge and strengthen its connection
with the stock.

I again call the attention of the reader to the
other mistake mentioned in the beginning of this
chapter, and so frequently made by those who have
undertaken to improve wild groves. Nature has
not only planted these groves, found above the frost
line on the south side of bodies of water, but has
also taken the additional precaution to plant them
under the protection of forest trees. Thus doubly
guarded, these orange trees have grown, some of

ir/LD OKAXaE GROVE BUDDED. 25

thcni jirobably for a century. As the cciUl winds
from the north-wesl have swept down ujion them,
the frost has been tempered by passing over a body
of water of hi<::her temperature than the winds.
Tlie spreading brandies of forest trees, lianging Hke
canopies, have checked the radiation of heat pass-
ing from the surface of the earth, and inclosed the
orange grove in a vapor bath. And even if the
tempest has been too strong and cold, and swej^t
away the warm air-blanket thrown by nature over
the tender orange shoot, and the cold has frozen
the sap until the tender woody tissues have been
ruptured, still the forest trees have stood like foster-
mothers to keep off thera3's of the morning sun till
these ruptured tissues and sap vessels could be heal-
ed by the efforts of nature. The mother who has
suddenly plunged the body of her scalded chiki
into a bath of flour or oil to save the child from
suffering and death, has not shown a tenderer care
than the forest trees have extended for scores of
years over their charges. And yet the first thing
done by many of us who wished to improve our wild
groves was to cut down these natural protectors to a
tree. The wonder is, not that so many of these
wild groves have been destroyed, but that any have
been saved after such abuse.

But we will not now discuss the advantages of par-
tial forest protection. The subject is of too much
importance to be dismissed in a single paragraph.
We will consider this subject in a separate chapter

26 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

further along. I have thus early noticed this sub-
ject lest the reader may do what I and hundreds
of others have done — destroy these magnificent wild
groves when attempting to improve them.

Before beginning to bud a wild orange grove, first
cut down all the underbrush, and then the smaller
forest trees. This rubbish can be removed or
burned and the ashes used as fertilizer for the orange
trees, spreading a liberal quantity around the trunks
to keep off the " wood-lice'' — white ants — which
frequently attack trees where there is much rubbish
left on the ground. Or, if lime can be had, sprinkle
this around the trunks and let the rubbish rot on
the ground. The decayed brush will add greatly
to the fertility of the soil and will soon be out of the
way. It would add greatly, however, to the ease
with which you accomplish your subsequent work
to take all this rubbish out of the way.

The ground cleared of underbrush and small
trees, pass through and select at suitable intervals
the forest trees you wish to remain. Select a plenty
of these trees, and mark them so that they will not
be cut down. If afterward they are found standing
too thickly on the ground, some of them can be
felled. If felled too hastily, fifty years cannot re-
store them. I'll 3 number of these trees which are
to remain is to be determined by circumstances.
If the place is well protected by water, fewer treea
will answer. But be certain to leave enough trees
to keep off the morning sun after a frost, as it if.

ir/LD ORANGE GROVE BUDDED. 27

the sudden thawing more than the freeze which kills
the trees. Trees intendctl for shelter should be of
habits the opposite of those of the orange. You
wish the orange to have low-spreading branches.
Select as their protectors trees so tall that their lower
branches will not interfere with the foliage of the
orange. The orange tree sends most of its roots
near the surface of the ground. Select as their pro-
tectors trees that send their roots deep. I have no-
ticed several varieties of live oak in the State. Only
one of these is in the habit of sending its roots deep
into the soil. Whenever I have found this variety
growing I could plant the orange close to its trunk
without damage to the orange. The persimmon
has this habit of deep feeding, but unfortunately it
drops its foliage in the winter. The pine has this
habit only when grown in a well-drained soil.
There are some individual trees whose habits are
an exception to the general habits of the variety.
These can soon be discovered by the use of the
spade or hoe. But if trees without surface feeders
cannot be found, then select trees with other desira-
ble qualities and cut the surface roots by a trench
ten or twelve inches deep a few feet from and around
the base. After those trees have been selected and
marked which you wish to remain, you can now cut
next such trees as can be felled without damage to the
istanding orange trees. The work thus far should
be done during the fall or winter, so as to be ready
for the spring and summer work which is to follow.

2 8 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

In early spring, before the new growth of the
orange has started, begin to saw off the Hmbs of
the orange trees if they branch near the ground,
taking off all the top. If the trunks are long, cut
off the tree, leaving about two and a half feet of
stump. Immediately afterward fell the balance
of the forest trees that are to be cut.

So soon as the sap begins to flow freely, and the
bark to break, by the springing of new shoots, insert
sweet "sprig" buds, ranging from the top to six
inches below the top of the stump, inserting four
or more buds to the tree. I have sometimes has-
tened the development of the bud by inserting the
bud before cutting off the top, if the sap was flow-
ing freely, and so soon as the bud was known to
be living then cutting off the top. But this has
been with trees standing apart from others. Where
they stand thickly, as is generally thecase in the wild
grove, the felling of the tops usually knocks out or
so disturbs the bud as to cause it to die.

As the young sour shoots start, rub off all above
and in the immediate vicinity of the buds. Allow
a few shoots to remain along the trunk, but pinch
them back after growing a few inches. Be careful
to allow none to reach higher than the bud, as the
tendency of the sap is to flow in greatest abundance
to the highest point. I have already mentioned
some advantages to be derived from first allowing
sour shoots to grow and then pinching them back,
I mention one other advantage. This method

WILD ORANGE GROVE BUDDED. 29

soon furnishes new and mature wood on which to
bud if the first buds fail.

After the sweet buds have grown ten or twelve
inches, pinch back, simply taking out the terminal
bud. So soon as the buds have started fairly a sec-
ond growth, you may begin to lessen the quantity
of the sour shoots below, until you can safely risk
the tree's health with the foliage furnished by the
sweet bud. You may have to occasionally pinch
back the sweet bud. It is safest to hold it in such
check as will hasten the maturily of wood, and thick-
ness rather than length of branches.

In the after-cultivation of such groves, if the de-
posit of leaves is sufficient to keep down the grass,
do not disturb the soil with plow or hoe for the first
year or two. Pull up or cut down with a scythe
any weeds that may spring up. I believe such
groves can be most economically and successfully
cultivated by keeping up nature's method. I have
had several letters of inquiry as to the proper culti-
vation of such groves, correspondents dwelling upon
the difficulties of plowing and hoeing while roots
were so near the surface.

CHAPTER IV.

GROVES FROM TRANSPLANTED SOUR STUMPS.

SpHE next most expeditious way of getting a
^ sweet grove is from transplanted stumps of
sour trees. It is sometimes the case that per-
sons improving wild groves, having budded all
the trees and finding them too thickly set on the
ground, will sell those budded stumps at a fair
[■■rice. When this is the case a grove can be brought
into bearing in a short time. I have frequently
had such trees to fruit the same year of planting.
But this has been the case only where they have
been taken up with great care, with abundance of
root, and removed but a short distance. But even
where this early fruiting can be secured, the policy is
doubtful. The tree should not be taxed with efforts
to bear fruit so early after its removal and in its en-
feebled condition. It requires much greater effort
on the part of the tree to bear fruit than to produce
new wood. One of these budded sour stumps of
medium size, carefully taken up with good roots
and carefully cultivated, will begin the second year
to bear considerable fruit, if it has not been allowed
to fruit the year of planting. The third year such

GROVES FROM SOUR STUMPS. 31

a tree will begin to pay a good interest on the in-
vestment of purchase-money.

There are some objections to a grove of this kind.
These trees from old stumps never grow to be so
large as the unbudded seedlings, nor bear so
abundantly. They are believed also to be much
shorter lived. European writers tell us such is the
case, but I do not believe that our experience in
Florida has been of sufficient length to test the age
to which one of these trees will live and bear fruit.
Some of the oldest bearing trees in this State, of
such origin, are still fine bearers and in vigorous
health. One other objection I will mention. It
is generally believed that it is hard to make the old
stumps live. The sad experience of those of us
who, a few years ago, bought such stumps by the
hundred and had them die almost as fast as they
were set, has made this kind of business very un-
popular. But I am persuaded that most of this dis-
aster can be attributed to ignorance and careless-
ness. I am satisfied now that if I had handled
sweet seedlings as I and every one else then han-
dled sour stumps, the sweet seedlings would have
died almost as badly. There is no doubt that the
younger the tree the less risk there is in removing
it. But the early return to be gathered from these
sour stumps, budded either before or after removal,
will justify the risk in planting a few in ever)' new
grove, and if the stumps can be bought at a fair
price and are near at hand, so as not to be damaged

32 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

in transporting them, the grower would do well to
plant them liberally. In transplanting sour stumps
too much care cannot be exercised.

Many of the wild groves are found in low wet
land. The tap-root is small, and the laterals near
the surface, while reaching a considerable distance,
have few or no fibrous roots near the base of the
tree. They have also been accustomed to an
abundance of shade and moisture. One must see
at once that new and entirely different habits must
be formed by such trees transplanted into a drier
soil and with less shade and moisture. These new
habits have to be formed at a time when the tree is
least able to bear the change. It is better to select
trees grown in a drier soil. I have, however, suc-
ceeded in transplanting trees from a swamp, at the
time of taking them up flooded with water. Some
such are now healthy and fine bearers.

In taking up large sour trees, have at hand a
sharp axe, a sharp narrow-bladed saw, and two sharp
spades prepared especially for such work. The
spades shouW be made to order, narrower than
usual, with handle and jaws sufficiently stout to be
used in prying. With such tools the work will be
greatly expedited and done much more satisfactori-
ly. The time saved in one day's work with such
tools will pay for their cost.

If ready to begin, saw off the top, leaving a
stump five or six feet high to be used as a lever for
bending the tree out of its bed. Now drive down

GROVES FKOM SOUA' STUMJ'S. ZZ

the spade, cutting the roots in a circle two feet and
a half from the base or trunk. Shake the tree to
see if all the lateral roots have been cut. If not it
will be necessary to cut a trench the width of the
spade to enable you to cut deeper. In making the
second cut incline the point of the spade toward the
tap-root. Next cut the tap-root two feet and a half
from the surface and lift the stump from its bed.
Place the stumps at once in the shade and wrap
them well with wet green moss. Protect as far as
possible from the sun and drying winds. After
taking a stump from the soil plant it in position as
soon as possible. One great cause of failure has
arisen from keeping them out of the ground too
long, and allowing the roots to be exposed to wind
and sun.

In setting, have the holes freshly dug. Do not
allow the soil to dry before it is replaced around the
roots. Dig the holes, for resetting, five feet wide
and ten or twelve inches deep. If the holes are
dug too deep it is almost impossible to keep the
tree from sinking too deep in its position, as the
fresh soil settles. In the centre of the hole dig a
deeper hole the width of the spade for the tap-root.
With a sharp knife, and where the roots are too
large for the knife, with a sharp saw with fine teeth,
cut away all fractures and bruises from the ends of
roots. So set the tree that it will stand, after the
soil has been setded by showers, a little higher than
it stood in its oric:inal bed. It had better be higher

34 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

by two inches than lower by one inch than it origi-
nally grew. You cannot be too cautious at this
point. If the tree is set too deep, it may live, but it
will not flourish for some time ; it may be not for
years, but certainly not till it has sent out fresh
surface roots to take the place of those which have
been smothered by having been buried too deeply.
The tree having been put in position, replace the
soil, packing it first firmly around the tap-root.
Now press down the ends of the laterals so that
they will have a slight dip, and fill in with soil,
treading it firmly upon the roots. Finally cover
over with two inches of light soil and leave the
ground level. When the ground is sufficiently wet
it is not necessary to use water. But if the ground
is dry, use enough water to settle the soil firmly
around the roots, and especially around the tap-
root, but do not wet the top layer of earth. I pre-
fer planting after showers to using water. If the
planting is done in spring or summer, mulch at
once with one or two inches of litter, and if the
trees have been set in the open ground shelter them
from the sun by setting a pine bough to the south
of the tree. If the stumps have been taken from
a dry soil the above is sufficient to insure their liv-
ing, but if taken from a very wet soil, be careful to
keep the ground moist till the new roots have well
started and penetrated well into the soil. The
stump should be cut off two and a half feet high.
If the stumps have been budded, and the buds have

GROVES FROM SOUR STUMPS. 35

grown to considerable length, cut them back, leav-
ing here and there a few leaves to direct the current
of the sap into the sweet wood. If the stumps have
not been budded, so soon as the bark, begins to
break with new shoots and separate freely from the
wood, insert three or four sprig buds near the top,
and treat the tree as directed in budding the natural
grove. Fertilizers should not be added till the trees
are well established. When fertilizers are applied,
do. not place them near the trunk and above the
roots, but a little beyond their extremity.

CHAPTER V.

PLANTING THE ORANGE SEED.

fN selecting seed for the nursery, if you intend
budding the young trees, you need not be
careful as to the quality of fruit from which the
seed is taken. The plant from the sour seed,
as already stated, will for a few years grow more
rapidly, but make a smaller tree than the plant from
the sweet fruit.

If you desire to grow your trees without budding,
select only from the best fruit, and from trees not
grown in the vicinity of any trees bearing sour or
indifferent fruit. -AH the varieties" and even species
of the citrus family mix very readily, and if grown
in close proximity, seeds from the same tree will
give an endless variety of fruits, the tendency, how-
ever, being toward the kind produced by the tree
from which the fruit is plucked, as the pistils are
more apt to be fertilized by pollen from flowers
near at hand.

If sour seed are to be planted, the fruit may be
thrown into piles till rotted and the seed washed
out from the pulp. But whatever kind is used, do
not allow the seed to dry. Put them at once into
moist sand, to be kept till ready for planting.

PLANTING THE ORANGE SEED. 37

The seeds may be planted either in boxes, or in
the open ground, or under glass, as quantity or
oTlier circumstances may suggest. If fruit is eaten
in the early winter, the seed may at once be planted
in boxes and the boxes set in some warm place in-
doors, and the plants be so far advanced as to be
read}" to set in the nursery early in the spring.

In preparing beds or boxes for seed, have the bot-
tom soil covered two or three inches deep with fresh
leaf mould from the hummock. Place the seeds
about one inch apart and cover with half an inch of
soil — leaf mould. Finish by a covering of one inch
of mulching and a thorough watering. Keep the
soil moist, but not wet. If the seed-bed is in the
open ground it is well to hold the mulching in
place by laying a few brush on the bed.

I have sometimes succeeded very well by allow-
ing the seed to remain in a box of sand till they
have started to sprout and then planting them di-
rectly in the nurser}'. In this case select a place
partially sheltered by forest trees. Prepare the soil
thoroughly for ten or twelve inches deep. Open
the rows four feet apart and eight inches deep. Fill
to within two inches of the top with well-rotted
muck, drop the seed three inches apart, and cover
with one and a half inch of soil.

In selecting a position for the nursery, if your
place is well protected by water on the cold points
you may risk your nursery in the open field. But
if you are not satisfied about the protection, select a

38 ORANGE CULTURE IN ELORIDA.

position sheltered from the morning sun, to prevent
the too sudden thawing after a frost. I would pre-
fer shade on the south as well, as the sun some-
times breaks out suddenly during a cold snap about
noon. Under such circumstances I have known
serious damage done to young plants. A still bet-
ter plan is to clear away a half or a quarter of an
acre of ground in the midst of a tall forest. Around
this half acre or quarter acre sink a ditch two feet
deep, in order to cut the surface roots of the forest
trees. Plow or spade the land deep. Open the
rows four feet apart and eight or ten inches deep,
fill them with good muck or leaf mould clear of such
litter as would attract wood-lice. Over this muck
place an inch or two of soil to keep the muck
moist. A dressing of ashes or slaked lime will be
of advantage, especially if the muck has not been
previously well rotted in heaps. Your land can
now stand till the trees are ready to be taken from
the seed-bed. Some prefer putting the muck, or
whatever fertilizer is used, broadcast over the land.
But my reason for advising the muck to be put in
drills is that if well rotted it will not heat, but will
serve to keep the roots of the young plant in a com-
pact body. A great deal is saved by this means
when you come to transplant to the grove ; the roots
having grown in a compact body, very litde will be
lost by root-pruning. And where the distance from
the nursery to the grove is short, and the trans-
planting is done when the ground is w^et, the en-

PLANTING THE ORANGE SEED. Z9

tire ball of muck may be taken along with and ad-
hering to the roots, and the tree hardly feel the
shock of the removal. When the young plants in
the seed-beds are a few inches high and have four
or five leaves, they may be transplanted to the nur-
sery. In taking them up, cut off the ends of the
tap-roots so that they will not be apt to double up
in setting Uiem. I'he setting is better done in
rainy weather. The ground should be thoroughly
wet in order to insure a good result. The rows can
now be opened four or five inches deep, and the
young plants dropped at a distance of six inches
apart. Let a hand follow, and before the roots have
time to dry set them in an upright position, care-
fully spreading out the roots and packing the soil
around them. Be careful not to set the plants
deeper than they grew in the seed-beds. When a
row or two have been set, level off the ground with
a rake, leaving the sandy soil on the surface and
not the muck, as the latter hardens under the influ-
ence of the sun. If a shower does not follow soon,
it is well to water, in order to settle the earth well
around the roots. If the sun is hot, a little shade
for a few weeks would be beneficial. Pine boughs
can be laid over the ground, or palmetto leaves
stuck along the rows. The nursery should be
thoroughly worked and kept clear of weeds and
grass, and the soil frequently stirred to the depth of
two inches.

Eight or ten months before removing the plants

4°

ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

from the nursery, root-prune the young plants.
This can be done by pushing a sharp spade eight
OF ten inches deep on each side, and six inches
from the rows. This can be done more expedi-
tiously by placing a revolving cutter on a plow to
be drawn by a horse. This method of root-pruning
has all the advantage of replanting, with the addi-
tional advantage of great saving of labor and little
check to the growing plants.

CHAPTER VI.

BLDDIXG.

W7 HERE it is the purpose of the orange-grower
to bud his trees it is better that the budding
should be done before the trees are taken from
the nursery. The reasons are — ist, the sooner in
the hfe of the tree the budding is done the earlier
and more thorough the heahng of the wounds ;
2d, the budding is done with greater ease and ra-
pidity in the nursery than in the grove ; 3d, in
transplanting trees of considerable size it is impos-
sible to take up all the roots, and as it is necessary
that the top should not exceed in propoition the
roots in transplanting trees, it is beneficial to cut
back the top considerably. If the budding has
been done but a few months before transplanting,
the wounds will have healed and the proportion be-
tween the roots and top will have become about
right for tran?|)lanting without the necessity of in-
flicting new wounds upon the branches at a tim?
when the tree is in its most tender condition.

A good time to begin to bud is when the trees in
the nursery are one year old. By budding every
alternate tree the budded trees can be set the fol-

42 ORANGE CULTURE IX FLORIDA.

lowing season, leaving greater space for larger
growth of the trees left in the nursery. Those re-
maining can be budded when t\vo years old and
set the season following. Where trees are to be
bought from the nurseryman it is preferable to
plant trees older than one or two years, as older
trees come into bearing sooner. But where per-
sons are growing their own stock, the sooner they
are set, after the first year, in position, the more
rapidly they will grow, if the trees are properly
cultivated.

In budding nursery stock, but one plan, that of
inserting a single bud, is practised. The graft has
not done well. Grafted trees will live, but they do
not grow so thriftily as the budded tree. Grafting
is sometimes resorted to when one wishes to pre-
serve a new variety, and he has obtained a cutting
of this new variety in winter when the sap is not in
condition for budding. Sprig budding is not re-
sorted to for nursery stock, as the stem is usually
too small to admit the sprig. Do not attempt to
bud except when the sap is flowing freel}' — so freely
that the bud will readily lift the bark as you push
it downward into its position. The stock to be
budded should be trimmed so as to have as few as
possible of branches or leaves in the way of the oper-
ator. The trimming should be done several days
beforehand, so that the wounds may be in a healing
condition and the flow of sap not checked by too
much cutting at the time of budding. The bud-

B i -DDING. 43

ding-knife should be sliar]), that if may cut through
the hard wood of the bud without spHtting the fibre
of the wood or bark.

Select buds from healthy and vigorous trees of
the variety to be propagated. They should not be
too old or they will be slow in starting, nor too
young lest they perish. The wood from which they
are taken should be nearly mature, between the
angular and the round. Select buds v.'ith well-de-
veloped eyes. It is sometimes the case that insects
have eaten out the eyes. It is useless to put in
such buds. In cutting the bud from the branch, do
not hold the blade of the knife at right angles with
the branch, as in such a position it is likely to slip
in and out, following the grain of the wood, and so
giving an uneven surface to the face of the bud.
The face of the bud should be so level and straight
that when it is pushed into its position the cut sur-
face will at all points touch the wood of the
stock and so exclude the air. To prevent this ir-
regularity of surface, hold the blade of the knife
firmly in the hand and almost parallel with the
branch from which the bud is being cut. In cut-
ting, draw the knife to you, as the cut will be
smoother by this method than if die bud were sev-
ered from the branch by simply pressing the blade
through the wood. The knife should be inserted
half an inch above the bud and come out a half or
three quarters of an inch below. It is better to
insert the bud on the north side of the stock. The

44 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

incision in the stock should be made with a down-
ward cut and about three fourths of an inch long.
At the top of this incision make a cross incision,
each time only cutting through the bark. With
the point of the knife, turning the back of the blade
to the wood so as not to dull the blade, raise the
bark at the top of and on either side of the first in-
cision, so as to enable you to insert and push down
the bud. If the sap is flowing freely tne bud in its
downward motion will easily lift the bark, and as
it takes its position exclude the air from beneath it
and the wood of the stock. After the bud has
been pushed partly down with the fingers, place
the blade of the knife one fourth of an inch above
the eye of the bud and perpendicular to the line of
the first incision, press the knife through the bark
of the bud, and by a downward motion force the
bud dow^n till the knife comes directly over the sec-
ond incision. Tie in the bud with strips of cloth a
quarter or a half inch wide, or, what is better, with
strings of woollen yarn, as its elasticity will not al-
low the strangling of the bud so soon. In tying
do not bring the cloth or string in contact with the
eye of the bud. So wrap as to hold the bud firmly
in its place, and to exclude the rain if any should
fall soon after budding. Revisit the buds eight
or ten days after they have been inserted. If they
are living, take the wrapping from that part of the
bud below the eye. The wrapping above the eye
may be loosened, but it should not be taken off so

BUDDING. 45

soon. Wliere the bud is living, cut off the stock
three or four inches above. As the bud grows it
should be tied to this upper section of the stock for
support. After the bud has started on its second
growlli, if the stock is small it should then be cut
off just above the bud ; if larger, a longer time
should be allowed before cutting off the stock close
to the bud.

Before leaving this subject, attention is called to
the importance of having the top of the bud fit
neatly against the bark above. The law governing
the growth of trees is this : the sap passing upward
through the pores of the sap-wood is elaborated
through the leaf. It is only after the new sap has
entered the leaf and absorbed carbon from the at-
mosphere that it is ready to make new wood. The
sap having secured its carbon descends the tree
mainly between the bark and the wood. As it de-
scends evaporation is carried on through the j)ores
of the bark, and the thickened sap makes a deposit
along the line of its descent and around the trunk
of the tree just under the bark. This thickened
sap presently hardens into wood. It is this fact,
that new wood is generally formed by this dcavji-
ivard flow of sap, which makes it so important that
the top of the bud should come in close contact
with the upper bark. Placed thus it is put in con-
tact with and in the way of the direct current of
life. Placed othenvise, its chance of life is dependent
upon lateral circulation or absorption.

46 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

If the buds are from the INIandarin or Tangerine
varieties, insert them during spring or autumn, as
they do not hve readily when inserted during the
heat of summer.

CHAPTER VII.

SELECTING A LOCATION FOR AN ORANGE GROVE.

^FECIAL reference should be had to drainage,
W soil, water protection, forest protection, prox-
imity to fertilizers, and facilities for transporta-
tion. The soil for a grove should be thoroughly
drained, either naturally or artificially. Not only
should the surface water be carried off, but the
drainage should be so deep as to allow roots, and
especially the tap-root, to penetrate for several feet.
Some think that less than ten feet is not sufficient.
But there are in this State groves of fine old trees
and good bearers with considerably less than ten
feet of drained soil. The sour stock will flourish
on a much wetter soil than the sweet. And it may
be that these groves that have long done well in
such localities are sour stocks budded. Where
choice of location can be made, and especially if
sweet stocks are to be planted, select a soil well
drained by nature. Art and labor can accomplish
a great deal, but it costs something, and the effect
is not so permanent as when nature has done the
work. If no positive evil arise from a wet subsoil
in close proximity to the surface, still there are
reasons why a deep, dry, or moist soil is better.

48 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

While it is true that the principal feeders of the
orange lie near the surface, yet whoever will take
the pains to examine the roots of an old orange tree
grown in a deep and well-drained subsoil will find
that these roots have penetrated for many feet deep
into the earth and in all directions from the tree.
Now if trees have been set twenty feet apart in the
grove and the soil is drained but one foot deep, the
roots of each tree have but four hundred cubic feet
of soil in which to feed — 20 x 20 "^ 400. But if the
soil has been drained to the depth of ten feet, then
the feeding ground for the roots has been increased
tenfold, and instead of four hundred cubic feet of
soil in which to feed, the tree has four thousand cu-
bic feet — 20 X 20 X 10 = 4000. This advantage is
more especially to be considered where the subsoil is
sandy, as in such a soil air and other nutriment for
the roots penetrate to a greater depth. But there
are some of these wet soils found in our State that
are positively poisonous to the orange, as they con-
tain a large per centum of salt — chloride of sodium.
Such is the case with soils underlaid with " hard-
pan," a stratum seemingly of dark sandstone, un-
derlying many sections of our State, and generally
but a few feet from the surface. Analysis will
probably show this " hard-pan" to be a concrete of
sand, iron, and salt. The best surface indication
of the presence of " hard-pan'^' is an abundance of
saw palmetto with an abundance of roots above the
surface. The palmetto feeds largely upon salt, its

SELECTING A LOCATION. 49

roots containing an unusually large per cent. But
" what is fun" and life to the palmetto is death to
the orange, as well as to the pockets of hundreds of
those who have attempted in vain to grow oranges
on lands underlaid with "hard-pan." If your
land has on it an abundance of saw palmetto with
roots on the surface, do not select that location for
an orange grove until you have dug a few feet be-
low the surface in search of " hard-pan." If you
wish to ascertain the depUi of natural drainage, re-
visit the hole twenty-four hours after it is dug, and
measure the cHstance from the top of the water to
the surface of the ground. The distance is the
depth of the natural drainage of the soil.

The orange will grow in a variety of soils — in
clayey, sandy, shelly, or loamy soils ; in ham-
mocks black or gray ; on pine lands or black-jack
ridges. It does well on soil underlaid with clay or
sand. It will even do well on a light soil underlaid
with white sand if fertilizers are annually applied.
But whoever wishes to plant an orange grove should
be careful to select the best available soil. Perhaps
the poorest soil suitable for orange-growing is that
underlaid with a white sand, as such a soil leaches
ver>' readily the soluble manure. Perhaps the best
soil is found in our dark gray hammock with deep
soil underlaid with a yellow clay or yellow sand
subsoil. The natural growth should be tall and
large, with an abundance of live oak and hickory,
as such a growth would indicate an abundance of

50 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

lime. Of our pine land, that on which the hickory
is found mixed with the pine, with yellow subsoil,
should rank first. Such a soil is really a mixed
hammock and pine. Next to this is the pine
mixed with willow, oak, and black-jack. Consid-
ering the ease with which such lands as the last
two classes are cleared and planted, and the readiness
with which the orange grows on them, they deserve
a high rank, and especially if fertilizers are close at
hand. In selecting a location in the purely pine
lands, select that which is thickly set with tall trees,
well drained, and with a yellow subsoil. Such soils,
if occasionally dressed with alkaline manures, grow
the orange admirably.

While with proper care the orange may be grown
successfully in almost any portion of the State of
Florida, still it is wise to select a location which
may combine all conditions favorable to the best
results. Among the favorable conditions we would
mention water protection. Whoever has travelled
over the State, not by railroad or steamboat, but
through the country, and noted the effects of frost
here and there upon the orange trees, and es-
pecially at the close of a severe winter, must attach
great importance to water protection. Its advan-
tages were known to the old settlers, as witness their
frequent advice to those who in later years have
gone into the orange business. Its advantages
w^ere known to and made available by nature so far
back that " the memorv of man knoweth not to the

SELECTING A LOCATION. 51

contrary," as witness the many wild-orange groves
to the south-east of lakes and rivers. As our coldest
winds come from the north-west, the benefit of water
protection on any given location is in proportion to
the width of the water lying to the north-west, and
the proximity of such a body of water to said loca-
tion. There may be seeming exceptions to this
general rule. Air currents are governed by laws
similar to those governing water. Hence, when
any obstruction suddenly opposes a current, whether
of air or water, an eddy or circular motion is given
to the current. Bodies of timber with dense under-
growth standing on the north or north-west of a
grove and along the shore of the river or lake have
the effect of creating a rolling current of air like a
breaker from the ocean rolling over a sandbar, and
so, when the wind is from the north-west, bring
down upon the grove a stratum of freezing air from
above. The remedy for this is to clear out the un-
derbrush along the shore and allow the warmer air
from the surface of the water to flow through the
grove. The taller trees should stand to keep the
violence of the wind from the orange grove, and to
check the violence of the air current upon the moist
soil, which readily yields its moisture along with its
heat to a strong air current, and so intensifies the
cold. It is regretted that some good locations along
the St. Johns have been marred, and groves made to
suffer damage from want of attention to the above.
The above facts also account for the well-known

52 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

fact that the frost sometimes " strikes in spots or
streaks. ' '

Proximity to fertilizers is another favorable con-
dition to be considered. The orange tree is a rav-
enous feeder and an abundant bearer, and however
fertile the original soil may be, and even though it
should be sufficient to produce fine trees and sus-
tain them for a few years, any soil would finally
become exhausted and need to be replenished.
Commercial manures can be bought, but even when
transportation is cheap the cost is considerable.
The abundant and frequent deposits of muck in al-
most every locality have been shown by repeated
experiments to be a valuable fertilizer. It would
be well for the person looking for a location for an
orange grove to have an eye to such a deposit close
to the place for the intended grove. Leaves and
ashes from a hammock close at hand, a shell bank,
or limestone from which lime may be procured,
should also be considered.

Facilities for transportation is the last item to be
noticed in this chapter of favorable conditions to be
considered in locating an orange grove. One other
condition will be discussed in a separate chapter.
The orange will bear transportation well, whether
the expense of transportation or perishableness of
the fruit be considered. But it would be well for
the reader contemplating planting oranges to esti-
mate the cost of hauling, say five miles by wagon
or cart, an average crop of oranges grown on an

SELECTIXG A LOCATION. 53

acre, before he locates too far from a navigable
stream or from a railroad. He can make the esti-
mate for himself, and it will certainly have some
weigfit in determining the location.

Some of the finest young trees I have seen in the
State stand upon a sandy loam — the original growth
pine — underlaid with clay four or five feet below
the surface, on which rested a thin stratum of marl.
I have seen trees six years from the seed on such
soils produce from four hundred to five hundred
oranges.

CHAPTER VIII.

f

THE ADVANTAGES OF PARTIAL FOREST SHELTER.

HE frequent discussion of the subject consid-
^ ered in this chapter among orange growers,
its importance to all, and especially its impor-
tance to many portions of the State where suc-
cess must ever depend upon either forest or some
artificial protection, demands careful attention.
Many persons have heretofore considered it un-
necessary, and the idea even absurd. But years of
experience and observation, and especially the ex-
perience of the winter of 1876-7, have made many
converts. Let the reader consider some facts that
may be mentioned.

Wild groves have grown luxuriantly, have borne
abundantly, and lasted, no one knows how long,
not suffering, so far as the writer has been informed,
even from the severe frost of 1835 ; and all under
forest protection. Again, all through Florida
in almost every old settled community, and even
in the southern tier of counties in Georgia, there
are a few old trees standing and bearing well fine
fruit. Hundreds seeing these Lrees have thought
that what has been done once can be done again,
and have planted in the immediate vicinity of such
trees, but unfortunately in the open field, or, what

AD VANTAGES OF FOREST SHELTER. 55

is equally fatal, where the morning sun would
smite the orange tree after a frost ; and have fail-
ed. They have failed to consider that these
trees that have survived so long and done so
well were planted in almost a dense forest, when
only a few forest trees had been cut to give place
to the cabin of the early settler ; or that they
were planted on the north or west side of the house
and thus never exposed to sudden thawing ; that
under some such protection of house or forest they
passed through the tender age of their early life
until their own boughs could furnish their trunks
the protection needed. As to the questions of pro-
ductiveness and thrift under partial forest protection,
they are settled by the success of the few who in the
face of opposing theories have planted and succeed-
ed. Some of the most thrifty young groves in the
State, grown with less expense and equal to any of
their age in productiveness, have been grown under
the shelter of the pine or oak trees. INIany groves
in a most flourishing condition, and supposed to
be well located with reference to protection fiom
frost, some far south and with considerable water
to the north-west, were seriously damaged in the
winter of 1876-7, and many trees beginning to
bear entirely killed ; but the writer has not heard
of a single instance of damage to trees in that win-
ter where they were protected by forest trees stand-
ing to the south and east of the oranges.

Even the lemon, in ' 76-7, much tenderer than

5 6 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

the orange, was unhurt where so protected. One
other instance. On the south or south-east of Or-
ange Lake stood two beautiful and extensive orange
groves side by side. They were wild groves budded
and just coming into bearing. They both had the
snme water protection. One grove was judiciously
protected by forest trees left standing at suitable in-
tervals ; the other grove was without such forest pro-
tection. All the forest trees had been cut down.
A few days after the severe frost of the winter of
1876-7 the sheltered grove was still as green as in
midsummer, while the other appeared as though a
fire had swept through it. Its leaves were dead or
fallen, while thousands of dollars' worth of fruit,
frozen and spoiled, hung upon the naked branches.
The owner estimates that if he had left a few forest
trees in his grove they would now be worth to him
twenty thousand dollars. Are not such facts suffi-
cient to check somewhat the reckless destruction of
our noble forest trees and nature's chosen pro-
tectors .''

In leaving trees for purposes of shelter for the
orange, the direction given in Chapter III. on bud-
ding sour groves should be attended to. Suitable
trees at suitable distances should be left. Three
things are especially desirable : ist, the rays of the
early morning sun should be kept from falling di-
rectly on the frosted trees. As the sun hangs far to
the south during our coldest weather, tall forest
trees on the south and east would materially benefit

ADVANTAGES OF FOREST SHELTER. 57

orange trees standing from one to two hundreel feet
from them ; zd, the rays of the sun should be per-
mitted to fall, during some portion of the day, and
in summer during a considerable portion of the
day. ujwn each tree in the grove, as the rays of the
sun, director indirect, are essential to plant life and
health. But in our sunny climate and long sum-
mers, shade and sun alternating throughout the
day are found to be most favorable to many plants ;
3d, the roots of the forest trees should be kept out
of the way of the principal feeders of the orange.
Of course the orange trees should be as thoroughly
cultivated as if they stood in the open field. Fail-
ures in forest culture — and there have been some
abominable failures — have occurred only where
these p>oints have been disregarded.

The following plan is suggested as one to which
it is believed no reasonable exception can be made.
Select a forest of tall and thickly set trees, whether
of pine or hammock. Clear out the underbrush
so as to allow a free circulation of air and to enable
you to lay off more accurately your land. This
done, lay off a straight line as the base of operating.
Allowing your land to be a plat of five acres lying
north and south, let this base line run east and
vest fifty feet north of and parallel to your south-
ern boundary. Run a second line one hundred
and five feet north of and parallel to the first ; so
continue through the plat, running these east and
west lines at intervals between, alternating from

58 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

fifty to one hundred and five, and from one hun-
dred and five to fifty feet apart. Now begin on the
east side, and fifty feet from your eastern boundary
you can run your base Hne perpendicular to your
first base Hne. Go through the plat as before, alter-
nating the distances between the lines from fifty to
one hundred and five feet apart. You now have
your land laid off in smaller squares of fifty feet,
and parallelograms of fifty by one hundred and five
feet. The timber on these smaller squares and
parallelograms is to be left standing. You have
also a number of large squares 105 x IC5, or about
one quarter of an acre each. These larger squares
are to be cleared of the timber and made ready for
planting orange trees, and each square will be
found to be surrounded on all sides by a strip of
timber fifty feet wide. Around these squares next
to the timber cut a ditch two and a half, or, if you
wish, three feet deep, so as to cut all the roots of
forest trees that would interfere with the orange.
To prevent this ditch from draining the moisture
from the grove, fill it with the litter from the orange
land and leaves from the forest. The next year
clear out this ditch, use the rotten leaves as a fer-
tilizer for your grove, and fill the ditch again with
leaves from the forest around. By this means you
can have an endless supply of manure close at
hand, and you can have the benefit of the sun and
the benefit of forest protection without any damage
from the roots of the forest trees.

ADVANTAGES OF FOREST SHELTER. 59

In seclions where tlie frost docs not fall so heav-
ily these squares for the orange may be greatly en-
larged. But for the northern tier of counties in
this State, where there may not be sufficient water
protection, the dimensions given are large enough.

With such a system as the above no man in Flor-
ida who has the soil and the timber need hesitate to
plant largely of this valuable fruit, both for himself
and for market

In the cut below, the dark lines represent the
forest which has not been cut away ; the white spaces
represent the spaces cleared for orange trees.

iHBlB ■■■■ — -~- ^BBB

CHAPTER IX.
"the frost line" and "the orange belt."

tUCH has been said and written in certain por-
tions of Florida concerning " the frost Hne"
and " the orange belt." I regret to put into this
treatise a single line that savors of controversy. But
justice and truth demand that certain statements be
corrected, and the public informed as to the facts.
There are so many good places in Florida that
many men who have places imagine theirs to be
best. Now it is very fortunate that there are so
many good places, but it is very unfortunate that
one section should be praised by its inhabitants to
the detriment of another equally good. No good
has come to the State at large, and I doubt if any
will come, in the long run, to the special community
that pursues such an unjust course. The climate
of Florida is so excellent, her soil so varied, her at-
tractions so great, that multitudes will continue to
come, as they are now coming, from the Northern
and Western States, and from Europe, till all our
goodly land is filled with a thrifty and contented
population. Do not let any of her citizens say
anything that would injure the adopted mother of
us all.

"fROST L/XE" AND "OJiAXGE BELT." 6l

As to " the frost line," there is no portion of
the peninsula of Florida that is not subject to oc-
casional frost, I have seen the effects of frost as
low down as Fort Myers. Persons whose state-
ments are entirely reliable, and residents of the sec-
tion, have told me time and again that they have
occasionally had their vegetables killed on the ex-
treme southern capes of the peninsula. That frost
is modified by latitude there is no question ; that
the southern portions of the State are less liable to
frost than the northern portions there is no doubt ;
but do not deceive the immigrant by saying or im-
plying that any portion of the mainland of Florida
is entirely exempt from frost. And I do not know
that this is to be deprecated. For while " Jack
Frost" is an unskilled pruner, and by the little cut-
ting he does in Florida may do some hurt, yet I
think upon the whole both the orange tree and the
health of the inhabitants are the better for his visits.
I am sure my own orange trees were never so free
from insects and in so healthy condition as to-day,
eight months after the frost of December, 1880.
And the only trees of my grove now giving indica-
tion of rust on the fruit are those where the frost
left a few leaves, giving a wintering and start to the
rust insect.

As to " the orange belt," there is no " orange
belt' ' in Florida, unless those who so frequently use
that expression mean to embrace the entire State.
I do not mean to say that certain portions of the

02 ORANGE CULTURE IiV FLORIDA.

State are not more favorable to tl;ie growth of the
orange than other portions, but I do mean to say that
the orange is so hardy that it can be grown profitably
in. any part of Florida where proper cultivation is be-
stowed and available protection given against the
effects of frost. No finer oranges are grown than are
grown in West Florida. On Fort George Island, at
the mouth of the St. John's River, the thermometer
fell to 1 6°, and yet the young grove of Mr. Stuart,
planted according to the diagram given in the last
chapter, is at present writing in fine condition. A
few trees have done well on the mainland across
the line dividing Florida and Georgia, while on the
islands along the coast old groves in good condi-
tion are to be found as high up as South Carolina.
The frost of last winter caused the leaves to drop
from the trees of the last-named groves, but the
owners with whom I have recently conferred report
their trees in good condition.

I do not wish to be understood as advising per-
sons w^ho wish to come to Florida exclusively to
plant oranges to settle in INIiddle Florida. Other
portions of the State would suit better for this busi-
ness. But were I owner of some of the fine lands
of the above-named section, and had such excel-
lent protection as their fine forests and lakes afford,
I should not hesitate to plant largely of the golden
fruit

CHAPTER X.

THE EFFECT OF FROST ON PLANTS.

^^THIS is a matter of such moment that it needs
kjt to be closely studied, and, if possible, thoroughly
understood by all persons engaged in agricultural
or horticultural pursuits. Either extreme of heat
or cold is damaging to vegetation. Some plants
are hardier than others, and so are less easily affect-
ed by either extreme. Some families of plants are
so hardy that they extend over nearly the habitable
part of our globe. Some perennials are created
with reference to greater heat, and are so limited in
their natural condition to the tropics or the torrid
zone. Others are created with reference to extreme
cold, and hence are found in Arctic regions or on
lofty mountains. While others, annuals, reach
maturity within a few months, in order that their
growth may be extended over a wider area of earth.
These live in cold climates only during the warm
months. Some plants arc limited to a very narrow
belt. Humboldt gives the natural limit of the or-
ange from 12° to 40° north latitude. Of course
the orange can survive in this higher latitude only
where the climate is affected by warm ocean cur-
rents.

64 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

Cold and heat are nature's great agents in
breaking down rocks, disintegrating earths, and so
converting into soluble manures for the use of
plants what otherwise would be useless for plant -
life. In higher latitudes the effect of cold is to
suspend circulation during the winter months, in
order that the soil may store up during winter an
ample amount of plant-food for the great effort of
Nature to make fruit. It is owing to this that vege-
tation in cold regions puts forth more rapidly dur-
ing the short summers, and that fruit trees in such
regions are so uniform in the production of fruit.
This hint should be taken by the growers of or-
anges in the semi-tropics. When their trees fail to
put on asufficient quantity of fruit, let them manure
in the fall or early winter — sufficiently soon for the
manure to reach the roots before the buds begin to
swell. Thus stimulated, the bush that would only
put forth the less effort and produce a leaf or
branch may be forced to the greater effort to pro-
duce fruit. This fall manuring might prove inju-
rious to a young tree, with wood too immature for
the production of fruit, by forcing it to put forth
shoots so early as to be nipped by a late frost. But
it would have the opposite effect on a bearing tree,
by forcing the production of blossom and fruit in-
stead of tender branches, as both blossom and fruit
of the orange will stand much more cold than the
newly started leaves and branches. I have not infre-
quently seen considerable frost fall upon both bios-

EFFECT OF FROST ON PLANTS. 65

som and young fruit without any damage. In re-
gions where there is no frost, the orange tree, when
sufficiently fed, is in the habit of fruiting continu-
ously.

When water freezes it expands. It is owing to
this law that cold is so fatal to plants fully charged
with sap, mainly composed of water. The sap, by
expanding, ruptures the cellular tissue — the woody
cells containing the sap. The oxygen of the at-
mosphere penetrates these ruptures, and, combining
with the sap, induces fermentation. Unless pre-
vented, either by artificial or natural means, this fer-
mentation will extend itself to contiguous parts
until the whole plant is destroyed, when only a
small portion of the tender wood may, in the first
instance, have been frosted. Nature's method is
to close behind the rupture all avenues against the
penetration of the atmosphere by a deposit of glu-
tinous or gummy substance furnished by the inner
bark. When the old wood or bark decays or drops
off, this inner becomes the outer bark, and so the
damage is gready and sometimes wholly repaired.
The artificial remedy is to cut off the frosted wood
and at once apply an ardficial skin impervious to
the atmosphere. Many persons who have treated
frosted orange and lemon trees have failed at this
latter point. They have cut off apart or all the
frosted wood, but left a surface to be cracked by
the sun or drj'ing of the wood, and so only opened
fresh avenues for the penetration of the atmosphere.

66 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

It is better not to cut at all unless the wound is to
be covered at once. Shellac dissolved in alcohol,
or a coating of whitewash, or a soft paste made of
lime and fresh cow-dung, are good applications.
When a plant is frosted, the direct rays of the sun
will suddenly thaw and so contract the bark as to
enlarge the avenues to the atmosphere and make
the cold more fatal in effect. Hence, shading a
frozen plant, or thoroughly drenching with water, is
often a preventive of injury. 1 have seen orange
trees saved by setting a pine bough or other shelter
on the south and east, and when the thaw occurs
in the afternoon, on the west side of the tree.

It has before been mentioned that the sowing of
oats thickly upon the ground in the fall will check
the circulation of sap during winter by taking up
the soluble manures. Nature has two methods of
fortifying perennials against the effects of severe
frost. One method is to deplete the tree of sap
during winter. Deciduous trees are so rendered
hardy. Their wood during winter contains so lit-
tle sap that the expansion by frost is not sufficient
to rupture the cells. Another method is to so com-
mingle oil with the water of the sap as to counteract
this law of expansion universal to frozen water.
While frozen water expands, frozen oil or hydro-
carbonates contract. The clockmaker has faintly
imitated nature in this. By combining different
metals in the rod which suspends the pendulum he
has made the law of expansion furnish him with a

EFFECT OF FROST OX PLANTS.

C?

rod equal in length whatever the changes from heat
to cold. All resinous woods, such as the pine,
the fir, etc., are of the class so protected by na-
ture. Hence, though found in almost all habitable
latitudes, these are under no necessity of shedding
their folioge.

The orange tree approximates in the character of
its sap to this order of plants, and is therefore, though
a tropical plant, able to stand the changes of a semi-
tropical climate.

CHAPTER XL

TRANSPLANTING.

^ftOEFORE the work of transplanting begins, the
^^ soil for the grove should be well prepared.
It is most generally the case that the great hurry to
get the trees into the ground causes much neglect
at this point, but this policy is a bad one. The
haste should have reference to the early fruiting
and rapid growth of the tree ; and they are not
brought about by careless preparation of the soil.
The soil should be deeply and thoroughly broken,
and the ground cleared of the roots. To insure the
setting of the trees a proper and uniform depth, the
ground should be levelled with harrow or drag.
No manure should be used at the time of setting,
nor before, unless applied some months before set-
ting and thoroughly incorporated with the soil.

The best time for setting trees is the late winter
or early spring, before the new wood has started.
The ground is then cool, and the roots in as dor-
mant condition as at any time during the year. It
is better that the ground should be wet and the
setting followed by showers. But wet soil is not so
essential at this time of the year as it is when the
transplanting has been done later and the ground

TA'AXSPLANIVNG. 6g

and sun are warmer. If the work of transplanting
has not been completed before the warm, dry
weather of spring has set in and before new wood
has advanced far, it is best to defer the work till the
frequent showers of August and September begin
to fall. Good results sometimes follow summer,
fall, and winter planting, but these seasons are not
so good as the months of February, March, and
April. One exception to this rule should be stated.
Where trees are to be .set under forest protection so
that they will esca])e any damage from frost, the
late fall is the best time, as trees set at that time are
well established and ready to start by the spring.

In taking up the trees great care should be taken
to prevent breaking or bruising the roots. As
many roots as possible should be taken up. If the
distance from the nursery to the site of the grove
be short, and the nursery rows have been well ma-
nured with muck, and the ground is wet at the
time of lifting the trees from the nursery, much of
the soil can be taken along with the roots. Imme-
diately on lifting the roots from the ground they
should be trimmed with a sharp knife wherever they
are found to have been bruised or broken. The
lower part of the tap-root also should be cut off to
prevent its doubling up on being reset. Twelve or
eighteen inches is sufficiently long for the tap-root.
Put the tree under shade, and cover the roots with
wet moss as soon as possible. Do not allow the
fibrous roots to dr}', as they are very delicate and

70 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

soon perish. Should they die before setting, cut
them off, for if left on after they have died they will
only impede the starting of new rootlets. Keep
them protected up to the moment of setting, taking
but one tree at a time from its covering of moss.
To insure still further against damage to the tender
roots, have on hand a half barrel of muck made
into a thin paste, and as fast as the trees are lifted
and the roots trimmed, plunge the roots into this
paste, take them out, and wrap in moss.

The holes for the trees should be freshly dug.
The work of setting is easily and rapidly done by
three hands working together — one to dig the holes,
one to prune and set the tree, and a third to fill in.
The holes should be dug in the shape of an invert-
ed saucer or truncated cone with about two inches
of the top cut off. Proceed thus : Around the
stake which marks the place for the tap-root, with
a shovel or hoe take away the soil, letting the tool
strike the top of the soil at the stake, and continue
to dig deeper into the soil until at a distance of
eighteen inches from the stake it has penetrated six
inches below the surface. Proceed thus around the
stake until it is completed. This gives the greatest
depth of the hole on the outer edge or perimeter
of the circle. Now take up the stake, and cut two
inches of the top off the cone. Where the stake
stood, push down the spade by working it back and
forth until it has penetrated the ground about
eighteen inches, or the full length of the tap-root

7 '/'. / \SPLA XTIXG. 7 1

of the tree to be set. Now insert the tap-root in
this hole made by the spade. Be careful not to
set the tree deeper than it grew in the nurser}-.
With the hand pack the soil firmly around the tap-
rout. Next spread the lateral roots over the cone,
taking care to distribute them evenly over the cone.
Throw on two inches of dirt and press it firmly
with the feet. Finish by throwing in soil and lev-
elling the ground, leaving the last layer of soil un-
trod.

Before the tree is left it should be trimmed with
shears in proportion to the trimming done to the
roots.

If planting is done in summer or in hot -weather,
and the ground is not protected by forest trees, it is
better to mulch.

If trees are older than three years, and wild
grown, it may be necessary to dig the holes deeper
than directed above, but the point of this caution is
against deep setting. The writer is satisfied that
more trees have been diseased and retarded in their
growth, and frequendy killed, by deep setting than
by any other one cause.

CHAPTER XII.

THE DISTANCE APART.

mN the grove the distance apart at which trees
IS' should be placed depends upon the character
of the trees to be set. The seedling should have
the greatest distance, the sweet seedling budded
less, and the sour stock budded least of all.

In Europe, where budding on sour stock is gen-
erally practised, and land is much costlier than in
this country, trees are set much closer than is the
custom in Florida. In the former country, where
set in the open ground, they are frequently put as
close as ten or twelve feet apart, and where artificial
covering during the winter is resorted to, still nearer.
But in Europe orange trees never grow to the size
they attain in Florida. In some of the old groves
in this State where the trees stand forty feet apart
the ground is completely covered by the branches of
trees that have grown up since 1835. Thirty or
forty years, however, is too long a time to leave
the land uncovered. Trees planted nearer together
will soon protect each other.

The rule I have observed for some time is to set
budded trees on sour stock 21x21 feet ; budded

THE DISTAXCE APART. 73

trocs on sweet slock, 25 x 25, and sweet seedlings,
30 X 30 feet.

When the planter wishes to set the budded and
seedling in the same grove, a good plan is to set the
sweet seedling y^ x 30, and then in the centre of
the square formed by four trees set a budded tree.
The budded trees will come into bearing some years
before the seedling trees, and by so much lessen
the dead expense of the grove. Another advantage
of the last-named plan is, that space will be econo-
mized and the trees still be at a uniform distance
from each other.

CHAPTER XIII.

CULTIVATION.

7k

kji tion, but it will only be a sickly existence. I

know no plant, shrub, or tree that will pay better
for good cultivation ; none that will respond so
certainly to thorough cultivation.

The ground in the grove should be kept level, the
surface light. As far as the roots have extended the
surface should not be stirred deeper than three
inches. The more frequently it is stirred the bet-
ter. Beyond the reach of the roots it is well to cul-
tivate deep and frequently, but as the roots extend
themselves this area of deep cultivation should be
lessened. Alter the roots have extended themselves
well over the ground, the best plow to be used is
the sweep. A single thirty-two-inch sweep, or a
gang plow, the middle or front plow twenty-two
inches wide, and the two side plows fourteen inches
each, does excellent work. It is better than the
turning plow or cultivator. The sweep is much
more uniform in the depth of its cutting than either.
It is much more rapid in its work than the single
plow. It is more apt to cut off the weeds below
the surface and destrov them than the cultivator.

CULTIVATION. 75

With such an implement, a grove free from stumps
and httcr is easily and cheaply kept in fine condi-
tion.

While the orange trees arc young it is of advan-
tage to keep the ground planted in garden crops —
peas, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, anything that re-
quires frequent work and will mature within a few
weeks, partially shading the ground. Of course
noUiing should be taken from the ground without
making adequate return in the form of manures.
Suitable fertilizers will be noticed in a separate
chapter.

Where the trees arc planted far apart, and ten or
twelve years will elapse before the ground will be all
occupied by the orange, grapes and peaches will
do well and prove profitable, provided the soil is
well drained.

At no time should the roots of grass and weeds
be allowed to mat themselves on land growing the
orange. • Not only will they draw heavily upon the
soil while they are growing, but when turned over
the turf and malted roots w^ill necessarily leave the
surface very irregular, causing the ground to dry
rapidly under the influence of sun and wind. Some
have advised cultivation to cease during August and
September, alleging it to be better to allow the
weeds and grass to grow after these months in order
to check the fall growth, and thus allow the wood
of the orange to so harden as to resist the influence
of frost during the winter. But the writer has ex-

76 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

perimented extensively and expensively — considering
results — with the above policy, and where others
were pursuing the same policy he has advised them
to try clean culture or garden crops on a part of
the grove, and in every instance where the land
has been kept thoroughly cultivated the trees have
doubled, in size and thrift, those allowed to be left
to the mercy of the weeds and grass.

Another result should be considered in this con-
nection. Where grass and weeds are allowed to
grow in the grove they are generally killed by the
frost during the fall or winter. In this condition
they absorb and part with moisture very readily, ab-
sorbing moisture when the atmosphere is warmer
than the ground, and yielding it up when the at-
mosphere is cooler than the ground or the wind is
blowing. But to part with moisture is to part with
heat and increase the cold. In some sections of
Europe, before the invention of ice machines, con-
siderable ice was collected and stored away where
the general temperature was only 40°. The freez-
ing was induced by simply covering over lightly
and surrounding the ice ponds with wet straw. The
wind passing through the wet straw took up from
the exposed and larger surface of the straw its
moisture together with its heat and left the water to
freeze. To leave any dry straw, weeds, or litter on
the ground during the winter only intensifies the
cold and invites the frost. The writer knows of sev-
eral beautiful groves that were entirely frozen down

CULTIVATION. 77

from this cause, while others in the immediate vi-
cinity were unhurt. JNIulching during the winter
has a similar effect. In this immediate neighbor-
hood an old and beautiful orange tree was heavily
mulched during winter. It was the only tree hurt
by the frost in the grove that was hurt very badly,
taking two or three years to recover. While the
trees are young, keep the grove clear of grass and
weeds, summer and winter. If you mulch during
the summer, bury the mulching as the winter ap-
proaches ; dig holes and bury the litter. This in-
struction is for young and tender trees. When the
surface of the ground is well shaded by older trees,
general mulching is recommended, as will be seen
in another chapter.

In cultivating the grove with the plow there is a
constant tendency of the soil to pile up around the
trunk of the tree. This should be watched, and if
the crown of the lateral surface roots is a half inch
below the surface, from this or from deep planting,
the soil should be drawn from around the trunk till
the upper sides of these roots are brought to the top
of the ground. If the upper parts of these roots
are left bare for one or two inches, where trees are
five or si.x years old, and for a greater distance
where the trees are older, these roots develop very
rapidly, and not only furnish stout braces to the
trunk, but great arteries for conveying life and
food from the soil. This point is so little under-
stood and attended to bv many cultivators that it

78 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

may be well to explain further. This development of
the crown roots is nature's plan when it is not in-
terfered with. Whoever will visit and examine a
natural forest, whether of orange or other trees, will
find the top of the crown roots from one to several
inches above the ground and running in many in-
stances, as great braces, well up the trunk of the
tree. This development of the crown is slow at
first, but increases in proportion as the upper sur-
face of the roots lift themselves above the surface of
the ground. This development can be hastened by
taking away the earth from above the roots for a
short distance from the tree, as mentioned above.
The principle is the same as that adopted for the
development of the bulb of the onion by taking the
earth from around it. The root of the plant, being
more porous than the stem, parts more readily with
its moisture at the point where it is exposed, and
hence the thickened sap lodges more readily at that
point, and so hardens into wood and increases the
growth. As the upward circulation passes only
through the new or sap wood, this enlarged base
furnishes, at the very seat of life and strength, new
and increased capacity to the tree.

CHAPTER XIV.

THOROUGH CULTIVATION.

i^irHEX the preceding chapter was published,
^jV-. four years ago, the writer hoped he had put
the importance of good cultivation so forcibly as to
induce any reader of the iirst edition of this treatise
to fairly cultivate any orange trees that he might
jilant with the wish io make them productive and
profitable. But four years of additional observa-
tion and experience convince the writer that a large
percentage of those who are engaged in orange -
planting in Florida arc wasting time and means by
careless cultivation. Now let me drop this indirect
manner of speaking of the writer as the third per-
son. I want to look you in the eye, reader, and
say to you if you do not intend to cultivate your
trees thoroughly, or have them cultivated thorough-
ly, do not waste money by buying land and having
it planted in trees. In no business is the old aph-
orism truer than in orange-growing, " What is
worth doing at all is worth doing well." I would
add, what is poorly done in this business is apt to
bring poor return or no return to the owner of a
grove. I will give one or two instances of many,
ver)' many, that have come under my obser\ation.

8o ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

A little more than twelve months ago a gentle-
man from Middle Florida purchased a portion of a
grove that had been planted two or three years in
Orange County. At the time of the purchase I
could see no advantage in size or thrift of trees or
excellence of soil in favor of that portion of the
grove retained over that portion sold. Since the
division of the grove the purchaser has had his part
of the grove plowed once or twice. The other part
of the grove has been well cultivated and fertilized.
To-da}' the cultivated trees look as though they
were several years older than the uncultivated — this
difference thus brought about in one year. One
other instance : Some years ago a neighbor bought
several hundred trees from a nurseryman, who ad-
vised him to suspend cultivation in August, in order
that the growth of grass and weeds might check the
growth of fall wood as a prevention of frost.
Another party advised the planter to cultivate one
half his trees throughout the summer and note the
different results. He did so, cultivating small crops
among the trees. The advantage gained in half a
year is so marked that four years, so far from oblit-
erating the evidence, has made it only the more ap-
parent.

One word about this often-expressed opinion and
advice, " to stop cultivation in August, in order to
check the fall growth and give the wood time to
harden before frost." The orange tree, if well cul-
tivated, will make from three to four growths dur-

THOROUGH CULTIVATION. 8 1

ing summer. If not manured later than June,
thorough cultivation will only hasten forward the
seasons of growtli and ripening of the wood before
fall. Besides, vigorous health with well-ripened
wood is one of the best protections against damage
b}- frost. If the object be to prevent any winter
growth and suspend active circulation of sap during
winter, this can be better secured by seeding the
land heavily in oats. The growing oats will take
up all soluble manures in the soil and leave the
young, orange trees to rest till spring.

Various discussions have been entered into
throughout the State as to the relative value of deep
and shallow culture. The disputants on the differ-
ent sides have usually reached their conclusions
not by generalizing, but by "induction" from a
single experience or observation. One gentleman
who had met with marked success in orange-growing
wrote as the secret of success, " Deep plowing,"
" Tear up the roots." Convinced that there must
be something unusual about the soil that would
produce fine trees and fruit under such a method,
I visited his grove, found it j)lantcd upon an oak
scrub with no fertility in the upper soil, but under-
laid a few feet from the surface with clay, on which
rested a stratum of marl. The mystery was solved.
There being no nourishment in the upper soil, the,
roots had gone down to where they might find
food, and so were little disturbed by the deep plow-
ing. Indeed, the deep plowing only let in the

82 ORANGE CULTURE IX FLORIDA.

sunlight and air for the further penetration of roots.
But this case is exceptional. Nature's method is
to deposit the most valuable manures near the sur-
face of the ground. Trees, weeds, and grasses are,
by means of roots, reaching down to bring up some
of these manures from beneath, while the leaves
are reaching out to gather other manures from the
atmosphere, and so from these two directions nature
is gathering and combining in organized and useful
forms substance for plant-food to be deposited
upon the surface of the soil, to be carried down by
means of rain to the roots of the growing crops.
Hence with nearly all plants, and especially those
having yellow roots, the orange included, the most
abundant feeders lie near the surface. Hence the
most natural means of cultivating a grove is to
mulch the entire surface with suiTicient material to
prevent any growth of weeds or grass. This meth-
od gives a treble advantage — it secures sufificient
moisture for the roots of the orange, it avoids the
necessity of cultivation with either hoe or plow,
and gives sufficient fertility to the soil. This
method is especially adapted to natural groves that
have been budded and to groves planted on low
lands. In the first instance, nature has already placed
the roots near the surface, and it is poor policy to
disturb the roots by plow or hoe, and so attempt to
force nature from its long-established habit. In the
second instance the roots will not penetrate a wet
soil, but grow near the surface. The flourishing

THOROUGH CULTIVATIOiV. 83

condition of the groves at Federal Point, on the St.
John's, and other groves where the surface water
can be carried off by shallow ditches, sufiicicntly
demonstrates that the orange can be successfully
grown on low lands by mulching, or by shallow
cultivation with the hoe, or, as in some instances
where the soil is rich, by mowing the grass and
weeds twice a year and leaving them to rot on the
ground.

Where material is abundant and near at hand,
mulching is the cheapest method of cultivation, as it
is equivalent to both manure and frequent disturb-
ing the surface with hoe and plow. In many parts
of Florida abundant material is at hand. Leaves
from our forests can easily be collected and carted
to the ground. In many places a horse-rake can
be used for gathering them in piles. The wire-
grass can be cut by hoe, or better, where the forest
is open, by means of a mower and horse-rake. Our
marsh lands along our extended coast and the banks
of our numerous rivers and lakes in Florida are at
no distant day to be utilized and made valuable by
furnishing thousands of tons annually for the pur-
pose of mulching. The first year of my residence
in Florida, living on a lake with a margin covered
with grass growing above the water, I constructed a
flat-bottom boat with a mower attached in front
and driven by man-power, which enabled three men
working a half day in a week to furnish nine head
of horses with abundant and nutritious forage.

84

ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

Such a machine impelled by steam could be made
to do the work of a hundred men, and furnish
mulching to growers on the banks of our rivers at
a cost not exceeding one or two dollars per ton.

CHAPTER XV".

PRUNING.

fRUNING is universally adopted by nature. In
the forest all the branches of the little oaks and
pines are near the ground. But as the trees grow
these lower branches die and drop off. A few years
later we behold thousands of graceful, well-trimmcd
trunks. Where the oak grows up in the open field
its method is to prune the inner branches and ex-
tend the' surface, giving what fruit-growers call an
open head. The grape-vine prunes itself. Where
its branches are thickest the tendrils first strangle
and then cut off some of the excessive branches.
It is the Divine plan. " I am the true vine, and
my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in
me that beareth not fruit, he catteth away ; and
every branch that beareth fruit, he pruficth it that it
may bear more fruit. ' Wise is the man who will
follow such teaching. Happy is the man who has
a taste for such work and can take up the voca-
tion first taught man Avhen " the Lord God put him
into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep
it ;'' especially where he can dress a garden of this
golden fruit — a relic of Eden- -that is " pleasant
to the sight and good for food."

86 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

It may be said, " If nature prunes at all, let her
do it all." Yes, and it may be said, " If nature
plants and grows the corn at all, why should I take
the trouble to plant and cultivate?"' But such a
man will reap little more than the harvest of his
folly and indolence. Nature makes suggestions,
but does not propose to do all the work where
man's interest is especially concerned. Even be-
fore thorns and briers had sprung up, it was man's
duty and to his interest to " dresi the garden" so
perfectly planted. Again, where nature prunes,
knots and dead wood often become the starting
points for extensive decay. But where a living
branch is cut off with a sharp knife from a vigor-
ous tree, the wound soon heals over, leaving no scar
nor injury.

The writer has practised on a grove of about 4000
trees all the methods of pruning, and not pruning,
to satisf}- himself as to the best method. Nor has
he spared himself the trouble of visiting many of
the best groves in the State, watching the opera-
tions of others, and questioning them closely as to
their practice and the results. He will not trouble
the reader with the many theories advanced, much
less with discussing them. A few essential points
are all that are necessary to be attended to.

In pruning, the sharper the knife or saw, the bet-
ter. Let the cut be clean and smooth. When the
knife is used it is better to cut ///> than down, as
tlic downward cut is apt to split the wood and peel

PRUA'IXa. 87

off the bark. Do the principal pruning in the
spring. By all means avoid fall or winter pruning,
as it is apt to start new wood at a time when it is
most exposed to damage from frost. Cut off all
dead wood, and up to or a little into the living
wood. Thereby the wound iieals more readily. As
a general rule cut off all diseased branches, es-
pecially if tliey have become so far diseased as to fail
to develop healthy leaves. Do not trim up the
trunk too high. Encourage the lower branches to
extend themselves well around the trunk and far
over the surface of the ground. If they do not
touch the ground they are not too low. As the
tree grows these branches will continue to droop
nearer the ground until the lowest may have to be
cut off after a while ; but this late cutting off is
much better than to have the trunk exposed cither
to sun or cold.

Give and keep an open head to the tree. To do
this, select the most vigorous lateral branches, leav-
ing some on all sides of the tree, so as to obtain a
head as uniformly balanced as possible. After cut-
ting off the other branches close to the trunk, trim
up these selected branches almost to a point, leaving
onl\- a few oi the terminal smaller branches. When
this is done the tree will look like a skeleton, and
you will likely conclude you have used the knife
too freely. But if this pruning has been done in
the spring, and you keep ihe " water" shoots pulled
off the trunk, and cultivate well, you will find the

88 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

trunk by winter inclosed in a beautiful head, with a
. dense wall of foliage on the outside. The next
spring trim these laterals in a similar manner, al-
lowing the first laterals to rebranch a little distance
from the trunk so as to be able to fill up the larger
area by fall. Continue this method till your tree is
large enough to bear its first crop. You can then
slacken your pruning so as to encourage the fruit-
ing.

There are several advantages arising from judi-
cious pruning. Whenever a branch dies, it not only
ceases to benefit the tree, but becomes a drain on
its sap and vitality, as an ulcer to the human body.
The same is true, to some extent, with a diseased
branch. Moreover, as a branch begins to die, its
fermenting sap is slowly taken up into the general
circulation, and so the disease extends itself some-
times to the entire tree, unless it be cut off below
the sound wood. This is especially the case when
the frost has partially killed the young wood. The
writer has known quite vigorous trees to be killed,
not only to the ground, but entirely, by neglect at
this point. The open head not only gives room for
the free circulation of air through the branches, but
also enables the gardener to watch the trunk and
larger branches and remove from them insects that
might prove damaging. Another advantage, arising
from the open head is, it causes the lower branches
to extend themselves far out from the trunk, and so
gives a greater bearing capacity to the tree. Trees

PRUNING.

89

in the grove of the writer pruned after this plan have
doubled in development within two years, in their
surface area, others standing by their side witli the
same treatment, except that the latter were not
pruned.

CHAPTER XVI

FERTILIZING.

' ST HIS has never been sufficiently appreciated in the
O South. Her broad acres have always tempted
to planting too much land and using too little ma-
nure. Somehow, when Northern men come South
they, too, yield to the temptation and fall into the
Southern fashion. And yet no soil responds more
readily to the influence of manure than our warm
Southern soil. The manure put by Peter Hender-
son on a single acre would be deemed by any
Southern farmer ample for the broad fields of cot-
ton stretching around his decaying mansion. A
few men are wiser ; they have ceased to fell the
forest for more land, and are contracting the planted
area of the old land. They are endeavoring to in-
crease their crops by manuring. Such men have
succeeded, and are still succeeding. Some I know
have grown rich by such a policy.

No crop feeds more ravenously than the orange,
and none will convert so large an amount of suitable
fertilizers into fruit so profitably. INIuch of our
Florida land will produce and sustain fine trees for
a few years without the aid of manure ; but after
some years of fruiting the leaves will begin to turn

FEKTILIZIXG. 9 1

yellow, indicating a deficiency in the soil. Some
of our lanils considered poorest- — black-jack ridges
— in the vicinity of dwellings grow fine trees, and
continue to sustain fine crops of excellent oranges.
lUit these trees so located are almost daily replen-
ished with accitlental deposits of nitrogenous ma-
nures (the principal fertilizers needed on black-jack
lands), as well as considerable wood-ashes and soot
from the daily fires of the kitchen, and suds from
the washtub. The flourishing condition of these
trees only shows the advantage of manures.

It is not safe to manure trees at the time of ])lant-
ing. In some instances this has succeeded very
well, but only when the manure has been long
composted and frequently turned, so that no fer-
mentation will occur around the wounded roots.
When manuring 'tvill be done thus early it is better
to scatter it on the ground and turn it several times
in the soil some weeks before the tree is planted.

After the tree has been planted and once started
to grow, it is then well to manure it heavily till it
begins to bear. Begin with a moderate quantity,
applying near the outer extremity of the lateral
roots, and increase the quantit}' every year and en-
large the area to which it is applied. When garden
crops arc planted, scatter the manure broadcast.
Aim to make the ground rich — rich as a city garden.
It will pay for the manure and cultivation if the
ground be planted and well cultivated in crops, and
especially if planted in vegetables where a market

92 ORAXGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

can be readily reached. There are several advan-
tages derived from generous manuring when the
trees are young : not only is the development of
the tree hastened, but the tree is less liable to be
attacked by some of the insects, and when attacked
is better enabled to resist their ravages ; and when
in vigorous health, but not making new wood
during winter, it is less liable to be damaged by the
influence of frost. To prevent this last-named evil
the young tree should never be stimulated in the
fall or latter part of the summer. It is much bet-
ter to manure in the spring. Another advantage to
be noted is, when trees are pushed before coming
into bearing, the heavy manuring does no damage
to the fruit.

The kind of fertilizer to be used depends largely
upon the character of the soil. If the land planted
was originally heavily set in hard wood, and the
ashes of the wood, cut in clearing, have been scat-
tered on the ground, it is more than likely that the
soil for a few years will have a sufficiency of lime,
soda, and potash. In that case nitrogenous ma-
nures will be needed. But if all the hard wood has
been taken off the land and no ashes left, such a
soil will likely have become poor in calcareous
manures (as the readiness with which the pine
springs up in our worn hammock lands shows), and
should be treated as the piue lands, and manures
applied containing all the elements of vegetable
.life used bv the roots.

FERTILIZING. 93

Some of the commercial manures arc valuable,
when used in combination with other things, but
none of them contain in the right proportions all the
elements needed for the orange. The writer has
used and seen used a large variety of these fertil-
izers, and some benefit has been derived from most
of them. From others no advantage has been dis-
coverable. A good article of ground bone, where
the oils and phosphoric acid have not been too
generally expelled by burning ; Peruvian guano,
and potash, both the nitrate and sulphate, are very
good when combined with muck. These are es-
pecially valuable when early vegetables are to be
grown among the orange trees, as they highly stim-
ulate the soil and hasten forward both the vegetables
and orange trees.

Land plaster should be especially mentioned as
beneficial to our sandy soil, as it not only furnishes
an important element to the soil, but in the ab-
sence of clay in most of our soil furnishes a valuable
absorber and retainer of the volatile manures so
easily expelled by our abundance of sunshine. The
writer thinks he has seen another advantage in the
use of land plaster in the check which the sulphur,
contained in the plaster, has upon some of the in-
sects which damage the trees.

Green crops turnetl under arc highly beneficial
to young trees. Rye, oats, and barley, sown in the
fall and turned under in the spring and followed by
one or two crops of cow peas during the summer,

94 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

help forward a grove of trees wonderfully. It is
still better if this be accompanied by a liberal dress-
ing of wood-ashes. One ton to the acre is not too
much.

Manures from the stables, cow-pens, hennery, and
pig-sty, indeed from every place where waste is de-
posited, should first be deodorized by the liberal
use of land plaster or sulphate of iron — copperas —
dissolved in water and composted with muck, and
be carefully saved and utilized. As they are highly
stimulating, they should be composted with three or
four times the quantity of muck, and frequently
turned before using.

But of all the manures, that which is cheapest
and most abundant is the muck to bo found in our
rivers, creeks, lakes, and ponds. A good article
of muck is little less than decomposed vegetable
matter. Leaves, wood, weeds, and grass, as they
have fallen, have been washed into these deposits and
decomposed under water so slowly and so excluded
from the atmosphere that they have lost little of
their original elements. Here they have been pre-
served by nature, as in the crucible of the chemist,
for ages, and now lie in rich and vast deposits for
the use of the orange-grower. Some who have
supp>osed they were using muck have been mistak-
en. They have found a black sand with a little
vegetable matter with it, If they had taken a little
of it and washed it they would have found little else
than sand, and some of it, that of a brown granular

FEKTILIZIXG. 95

appearance, of a similar nature to " hard-pan."
Such a deposit is of no value, and that containing
the brown sand is actually injurious to the orange.
Some who have used this kind of material have
failed to discover any benefit and have cried out
against all muck. But the time has passed for
this. Too many have used muck and found it
valuable for its merits to remain longer unknown.
Where this deposit is close to the grove, an econom-
ical way to use it is to haul it at once from the bed
and spread it broadcast over the ground and plow
it in. It should not be allowed to dry in the sun,
as it then becomes lumpy. If turned under the
surface it soon incorporates itself with the soil.
After it is applied and turned under, a top-dressing
of ashes or lime would prove beneficial. If the de-
posit is some distance from the grove it is more eco-
nomical to throw it into heaps near the bed, but
under the shade, and still better to add a little lime
slaked with salt water or ashes, as it is thrown in
uniform layers. The pile soon heats and dries out,
leaving the muck as friable as a bed of sand. It is
then very light and easily handled and carted. In
this condition it can be used in almost any quanti-
ties ; the only danger to be feared from excessive
use is in piling it up so deep over the roots as to
smother them for a while. And yet if the crown
roots are kept uncovered the surface roots soon find
their wa\- to the muck near the surface. The writer
has had the orange roots penetrate, for several

96 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

inches above the general surface, a pile of muck
left for a few weeks near a tree.

Before trees reach the bearing state they should
be fed with nitrogenous manures, but after they
have begun to bear, potash and kindred manures
should be liberally used. Nitrogenous manures
encourage the development of new wood and foli-
age, while phosphate of lime and potash are neces-
sary to an abundance of fruit. The yellow leaves
of the tree indicate a deficiency of nitrogenous ma-
nures, while the dark green leaves show an abun-
dance.

Where trees are slow in coming into bearing, or
where old trees do not set sufficient fruit, give the
trees a liberal manuring sufficiently early in the sea-
son to enable the rains to carry the soluble manure
to the roots before the time of forming the button
for the bloom. By so doing you develop the bud,
that would otherwise only make foliage, into a fruit
bud. It requires more nutriment to make fruit
than wood, and hence the importance of this in-
struction.

In colder latitudes the frosts of winter lock up
the circulation of fruit trees that nature may have
sufficient time to store food for the greater effort
to bear fruit. But in the milder climate of the
orange regions this circulation is not always check-
ed sufficiently to prevent the consumption of the
soluble manures in the soil. And hence when the
time of fruiting comes, there is not a sufficient sup-

FEKTILIZIXG. 97

ply of fertility in the soil to make the blossoms set
the fruit, and so the tree makes the easier effort to
form wood instead of fruit. After growth has been
for a while suspended, by drought or poverty of
soil, I have brought trees into blooming and bear-
ing during midsummer by a liberal application of
soluble manure. I have seen a grove that had pre-
viously borne only a few scattering oranges brought
into liberal bearing by the application of a good
dressing of manure in November.

Once more before leaving this subject : While
commercial manures, properly combined and suffi-
ciently concentrated, are a great convenience, owing
to the ease with which they are distributed, the
temptation to adulterate with something worthless,
and sometimes something injurious to the orange,
is so great that there is much uncertainty as to their
real value. I .have occasionally used manures of
the same brand and from the same establishment
which differed so greatly in their real value that
while I have found one lot entirely satisfactory,
another lot has proven quite worthless. The intel-
ligent orange-grower can proceed with much more
certainty if he can make his own manures. For
this purpose no country can furnish better facilities
than Florida. In addition to the abundance of
material for mulching, already mentioned, there is
such a vast quantity of muck, leaves, and grass
from forests and marshes that with a few cattle or
horses a large amount of valuable manure can be

98 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

secured by those who are wilHng to take the trou-
ble. Some of our planters in the State have made
by this method as much as one ton of good manure
per head of cattle or horses per month. And noth-
ing is better for the orange than this well-rotted barn-
yard manure. If it is not convenient to keep stock,
a good compost can be made by adding 30c
pounds of ground bone and 200 pounds of muri-
ate of potash to one cord of muck. Turn frequent-
ly the compost, and when well rotted apply broad-
cast at the rate of 1000 pounds per acre, and har-
row.

CHAPTER XVII.

SPECIES, VARIETIES, ETC.

SLTITHERTO no mention has been made of any
Ci>->T of the Citrus family except the sweet orange
and. the wild or sour orange — bigarade.

The methods of propagation and cultivation of
all the family are so similar that no difference need
be mentioned, except the fact that the citron, the
lime, and the lemon, are much more tender than
the orange, and need to be planted in more shelter-
ed places.

Gallesio recognizes but four distinct species in
the family : the orange (sweet), the bigarade (sour
orange), the citron, and the lemon.

He justly remarks as to the varieties : " The
citrus is a genus whose species are greatly disposed
to blend together, and whose flower shows great
facility for receiving extraordinary fecundation ; it
hence offers an infinite number of different races
which ornament our gardens, and whose vague and
indefinite names fill the catalogues." Gray re-
marks : " The species or varieties are much con-
fused and mixed." Reese in his quotations from
authorities makes a similar confession. But if the
species and varieties are so confused in Europe,

lOO ORANGE CULTURE IX FLORIDA.

where the classification of the citrus family has been
principally discussed, and where the multiplrcation
of varieties has been somewhat held in check by
their method of propagating the orange, mainly by
graft or bud, what must be " the number of differ-
ent races" which are to be found in Florida, where
the general method of propagating the orange is
from seed ?

At the late meeting of our State Fruit Growers'
Association a committee was charged with the work
of naming our best marked varieties. They made
a short report on the few varieties which came under
their observation. But their work is not com-
plete, nor likely to be for the next year or two.
They are competent men, but their task is endless
as well as important. Almost every community
where the orange has been long grown from seed
has some excellent and well-marked variety. Some
of these varieties differ greatly. Some ripen early
and others late. Some have thick tough skins with
finely flavored fruit, and are well adapted to shipping
a long distance, while others are of such a delicate
skin and pulp that they will have to be eaten nearer
home. Some are large and light bearers, while
others are small and heavy bearers.

Many varieties differ greatly in color, from the
pale orange to a reddish orange, and even to blood
color. It would be well for those who intend
planting budded trees, or propose to bud trees
now growing, to select the .most excellent kinds.

SPECIES, VARIETIES, ETC. loz

whether they have yet been honored with a name
or not, as it is the quality of the fruit and not the
name wliich is needed. The name and classifica-
tion will come in time. Any new and remarkably
good varieties ought also to be brought to the no-
tice of the above-named State committee on no-
menclature. These gendemen will do their duty,
and Florida will be compelled to have her own
nomenclature, as she has her own varieties.

The orange of Portugal and the China orange are
two well-known varieties in Europe, and are fre-
quendy seen in Florida, but have changed some-
what by having been reproduced from seed.

The Orange of Portugal, or common sweet orange,
IS a tree growing to a great height when raised from
seed. Its leaf is green, having a winged petiole ; its
shoots are whitish, its flowers entirely white and very
odorous, though not equal in perfume to those of the
bigarade.

Its fruit, ordinarily round, is sometimes flattened,
sometimes a little oblong. The rind, less than an
eighth of an inch in thickness, is of a reddish yellow,
and full of aroma ; the inner skin is a sallow white,
spongy, and light. The sections, nine to eleven in
number, contain a sweet juice, very refreshing and
agreeable ; its seeds are white and oblong, germinat-
ing very easily and reproducing usually the species
with little change. There is a variety with no
thorns ; it i^the race cultivated mostly l)y grafting,
and is seen in all countries where this method of
pi^opagation is followed. In places where the orange

I02 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

is grown from seed it is rare to find it deprived of
thorns.

The China Orange is a variety excelling- all others
in the perfection of its fruit, of which the juice is the
sweetest, the most abundant, and the most perfumed.
The skin is always smooth, glossy, and so thin that
one can scarcely detach it from the pulp. This is
characteristic of this variety.

The Red-fruited Orange is a singular variety. Its
appearance, its leaf, its flower, are all exactly like the
common orange. Its fruit alone is distinguished by a
color of blood, which develops itself gradually and
like flakes. When the fruit begins to ripen it is like
other oranges ; little by little, spots of blood-color ap-
pear in its pulp ; as it advances to maturity, these en-
large, becoming deeper, and finally embrace all the
pulp and spread to the skin, which is, however, but
rarely covered by the peculiar color ; yet this some-
times occurs if oranges are left upon the trees after
the month of May.

This orange is multiplied only by grafts, having few
seeds, and those of little value. This is a proof that
it is a monster ; if it were the type of a species it would
yield more seed and reproduce itself by seed. Its
branches are without thorns, its fruit is sweet, but
less so than the China orange, and it has thicker
skin.

It is cultivated largely in Malta and Provence. In
Liguria it is found chiefly among amateurs and seeds-
men. — Gallesio.

So far as the Florida Fruit Growers* Association
has determined, through their committee, the no-

SPECIES, VARIETIES, ETC. 103

incnclature of our own varieties it is given below,
and such should be authority among the growers
in Florida.

Ci/ron—Civitmon.—YrwxX. very large ; color that of
ordinary lemon ; rind and pulp white, and almost
tasteless ; tree vigorous.

Orange Citron.— Yx\x\\. somewhat cone - shaped,
more pointed than common variety ; color that of an
ordinary orange ; rind cream-colored ; pulp yellow-
ish ; rind sweet and highly aromatic ; fruit possesses
less bitterness than the common variety ; tree a
small, stiff, erect grower. For home use or commer-
cial purposes this variety is in general cultivation.

Tangierine Orange ; synonyms, Mandarin, Kid
Glove, Tomato Orange.— 'B>\z& medium ; much flat-
tened ; color dark orange ; broad, irregular cavity,
with stem obliquely inserted and surrounded by a
knobbed eminence ; eye set in a large depression one
inch wide and five sixteenths deep ; longitudinal di-
ameter two and a half inches, transverse diameter
three inches ; skin irregularly ribbed or lobed ; color
of flesh very dark orange ; pulp adhering to skin by a
few filaments ; sections of pulp easily separated ; pulp
coarse ; juice sweet and highly aromatic ; aroma
marked ; quality first. Tree of original variety intro-
duced by Major Atway, from Bayou Sara, La., and
now growing in the grove of Dr. Moragne, at Palatka.

Dancy's Tangierine. — '6\zq small ; much flattened ;
color deeper and more brilliant than parent variety ;
longitudinal diameter one and three quarter inches,
transverse diameter two and one quarter inches ; the
eye set in a deep cavity seven eighths in diameter ;

I04 OKAXGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

stalk straight and inserted in a ribbed depression ;
thickness of the skin three sixteenths ; general prop-
erties of pulp same as parent, only superior ; fruit
nearl)'- seedless. In flavor and external appearance
this variety is superior to the original. Seminal vari-
ety of the Tangierine raised by Colonel F. L. Dancy,
Buena Vista, St. Johns county, Fla.

Citrus Japonica ; synonym. Dwarf Ora/ige. —
Dwarf-growing variety ; size of fruit small ; slightly
obovate ; color deep orange ; skin thin ; eye set in a
flattened depression ; fruit regularly ribbed, or lobed ;
longitudinal diameter two inches, transverse diam-
eter one inch and seven eighths ; color of flesh dark ;
grain fine and tender ; juice very acid. Useless, ex-
cept as an ornamental fruit.

Navel Ora7ige ; synonyms. Umbilical, Bahia,
Pernamhuco, Seedless Orange, E7nbigiio.— S\zQ large
to very large ; eye presenting an umbilical appearance
(from which it obtains its name) ; stem inserted in a
shallow-ribbed cavity with deep lines ; skin three
sixteenths thick ; longitudinal diameter three and
five eighths, transverse three and three quarters ;
flesh very fine, melting, and tender ; juice sweet,
sprightly, vinous, and aromatic ; quality first. Ori-
gin, Bahia, Brazil.

Citrus Myrtifolia. — Myrtle-leaved orange ; fruit
small and slightly flattened ; eye set in flattened de-
pression ; leaves like those of the myrtle ; flavor re-
sembling that of a bitter-sweet. Fruit useless for
table.

Sweet Seville {Hicks). — Size small ; slightly flat-
tened ; color comparatively deep ; eye small, without
depression ; skin very smooth ; thickness of skin two

SPECIES, VARIETIES, ETC. 105

sixteenths ; longitudinal diampter two iiirhes, trans-
verse two and three eighths ; color darker llian Navel
orange ; foliage differs from other varieties examined ;
leaves markedly obovate ; average length about three
and one quarter inches ; width aliout two and five
eigliths ; grain very fine, juicy, and melting ; juice
very sweet and sprightly ; quality best ; a superior
fruit in every respect except size. Supposed to be a
seedling raised at Arcadia, St. John's county. Florida.
Arcadia.— 'i'xie. large ; form somewhat flattened ;
color deep ; eye set in slight depression ; stalk in-
serted in a slight roughened cavity ; skin smooth
with marked pits ; thickness of skin three sixteenths ;
longitudinal diameter two and three quarter inches ;
transveise diameter three and a quarter inches ; color
of flesh deep ; grain coarse ; pulp melting ; juice
slightly sub-acid ; quality good. Supposed seedling
raised at Arcadia, and introduced by the Rev. Will-
iam Watkin Hicks.

Bergamot.—Yorm flattened, with projecting nip-
pie ; color deep lemon ; eye absent, and its place oc-
cupied by a nipple-like projection ; stem inserted in
a slight depression ; skin two sixteenths ; longitudi-
nal diameter through nipple three inches, transverse
three inches ; color of pulp nearly white ; juice sweet
and watery without any decided flavor ; rind possesses
a pear-like fragrance, from which perfumers obtain
their bergamot essences. Only worthy of cultivation
as a curiosity.

No!iparfz'l. — ?i\ze about medium; somewhat flat-
tened ; color ordinary ; eye broad and set in a slight-
ly depressed cavity ; stem inserted in a level, scarred
surface ; skin three sixteenths thick ; longitudinal di-

I06 ORA.XGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

anieter two and three quarters of an inch ; transverse
diameter three and a quarter ; color of flesh ordinary ;
grain fine ; pulp melting and tender ; juice sub-acid
and vinous ; quality good. Seedling raised by Mrs.
Mary Richard, Arlington River, Duval County, Flor-
ida.

Magnum Bonum. — Size large to very large ; flat-
tened ; color light-clear orange ; eye set in a slight
cavity ; stem inserted in a narrow depression ; skin
smooth and glossy ; thickness of skin two sixteenths ;
longitudinal three inches, and the transverse three
and five eighths ; color of flesh light ; grain very
fine, tender, and melting ; fruit ver}' heavy and juicy ;
juice sweet, rich, and vinous ; quality best. Probably
a seedling raided at Homosassa, Fla., the former res-
idence of the Hon. Mr. Yulee.

Old J'V;//.— Size about medium ; slightly flattened ;
color dark orange ; eye broad, and set in a sl'ght cav-
ity ; stem inserted in a narrow wrinkled depression ;
surface of skin rough ; thickness of skin three six-
teenths ; longitudinal diameter two and three quar-
ter inches ; transverse diameter three and one eighth ;
grain coarse ; pulp melting ; juice sub-acid and re-
markable for a sprightly vinous property ; quality
good. Seedling raised by Col. Dancy, Buena Vista,
St. John's County, Florida.

Buena Vista ; synonym. Sweet Seville. — Size me-
dium ; slightly flattened ; color dark crimson ; eye set
in a slightly depressed cavity ; stem inserted in a
slight depression ; skin smooth, with deep pits ;
thickness of skin nearly four sixteenths ; longitudinal
diameter two and three quarter inches, transverse
three inches ; color of flesh very dark ; pulp coarse,

SPECIES, VARIETIES, ETC. 107

but melting ; juice sub-acid ; sprightly with vinous
rtavor ; quality good. Seedling raised Ijy Colonel
Dancy.

No. 3 {Beach's). — Size above medium ; form ob-
long ; color light ; eye set in flattened surface ; stem
inserted in a s'.iglit, wrinkled cavity ; thiclsness of
skin three sixteenths ; longitudinal diameter three
and three eighths, transverse three and a qur.rter
inches ; pulp coarse, not melting ; juice sub-acid ;
quality fair.

' Osceola.— S\ze large; slightly flattened; color
bright ; skin smooth and glossy ; eye very small, and
set in a slight cavity ; stem inserted in small, shal-
low, wrinkled depression ; skin three sixteenths
thick ; longitudinal diameter three inches ; trans-
verse three and a quarter ; grain coarse ; pulp rather
melting ; juice sweet ; quality good. Seedling raised
by L. H. Van Pelt, Mandarin, Plorida.

Dixon Orange. — Size large ; somewhat flattened ;
color light ; eye small, insetted in a slightly depress-
ed cavity ; stem inserted m deep, narrow depression ;
thickness of skin four sixteenths of an inch ; longitu-
dinal diameter three inches ; transverse three and a
half ; grain coarse ; pulp not melting ; juice sub-
acid, wiihout any decided flavor; quality second.
Seedling raised on Indian River.

Sweet Seville {Tolma?i s).—Sv/.g below medium,
but larger than Hicks' vaiiety ; form flattened ; color
light orange ; eye large, without any cavity, and sur-
rounded by a dark circle ; stem inserted without cav-
ity ; skin smooth and two sixteenths thick ; longitu-
dinal diameter two and a quarter inches, transverse
two and five eighths ; pulp fine, melting, juicy.

Io8 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

sweet ; inferior quality to Hicks' variety. Origin,
Mandarin, Florida.

Sweet Lemon. —Size very small ; form much flat-
tened ; color lusty, grayish yellow ; instead of eye a
marked nipple set in a deep cavity ; stem inserted in
a slight depression ; thickness of skin two sixteenths ;
longitudinal diameter two inches, transverse two
and one eighth ; color of flesh dark lemon ; grain of
pulp coarse ; juice sweet and insipid, with slight
lemon flavor. Curious, but unworthy of cultivation.

The following appeared m the Florida Agricul-
turist, from the pen of A. H. JNIanville, one of our
most intelligent nurserymen :

SELECTION OF VARIETIES.

In planting for profit it would be almost impossible
for a person unacquainted with the many varieties of
the citrus to make an intelligent selection without a
more comprehensive guide than a biief description of
the different varieties.

Of the varieties of the Sweet Orange known
in Florida, the Bell, Du Roi, Egg, Blood, and
Navel are distinctly marked and readily distin-
guishable by their appearance. The Bell — which
must not be confounded with the insipid, thick-
skinned, early, oblong variety— and the Du Roi are
m every respect superior fruit ; their fine quality
will always command for them a high price, while
their distinctive characteristics will prevent deception
or confusion regarding their variety. The Navel
ranks among the first for size and quality ; and, like
the above, its peculiar mark will distinguish it in mar-

SPECfES, VARIETIES, ETC. 109

ket. Unlike the above, it is not a prolific bearer, on
which account many fear to plant ; it is however by
no means as shy a bearer as has been represented.
Tiie Blood has not been fruited long- enough m the
Slate to determine its market value. The Egg is val-
uable as an early fruit for home use ; its small size
and want of flavor render it unfit for market. The
Sweet Seville and St. Michaels, though not distinctly
marked, are to some extent distinguishable by the ap-
])earance of the fruit ; the former is one of the most
delicious for home use, though too small for profitable
shipment ; the latter is prolific and a good market
fruit. Acis, Arcadia, Beach's No. 3, Creole, Dum-
mit, Dixon, Excelsior. H.xmosassa, Higgins, MAG-
NUM BoNUM, Nonpareil, Osceola, Old Vini,
Peerless, Ahiti, and perhaps others having a local
name and celebrity, are native varieties recently
brought to public notice ; those in small caps are
best known and most highly esteemed. They are all
very similar, the difference, if any, being too slight
to distinguish them in market, and of little importance
to growers generally. The differences of description
have arisen from soil, location, and treatment rather
than from any intrinsic difference in the fruit. This
multiplicalion of varieties differing little in character
would seem at first to be useless, confusing the
grower and burdening the nurserymen ; in fact, they
served good purposes, placing a superior variety
within reach of every section, and being a safeguard
against the numberless inferior sorts. While, there-
fore, it is immaterial in planting which of these be
selected, it is highly important that a well-known ac-
credited variety be chosen. Tardiff does not differ in

110 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

appearance or quality from the above, but retains its
perfection until very late in the season ; if this habit
remains permanent it will be one of the most desira-
ble. Boteiha, Dulcissima, Jaffa, and other recently
imported varieties have not been fruited long enough
in the State to determine their qualities.

Of all the citrus tribe the Mandarin or Tangerine
orange is the most delicate and aromatic, though
scarcely as luscious as the Sweet Orange of Florida.
On account of its beautiful shape, color, and the ease
with which the rind and segments separate, it is
highly esteemed as a dessert fruit. Comparatively
few are shipped, and these bring an enormously high
price. The effect of increased production consequent
upon the large number being planted remains to be
seen. The trees are hardy and prolific. There are
two distinct classes — the first dwarfed, willow-
leaved, and yellow-fruited. Of this class there are
many inferior seedling varieties which have occasion-
ed a prejudice against it in some localities ; the trees
can be planted much closer than the Sweet Orange.
The second, full-sized, large-leaved, crimson-fruited,
much prized on account of its color. The China and
St. Michaels of the former class and the Bijou of the
latter are superior varieties.

Until recently Florida lemons have been regarded
as too large, thick-skinned, and bitter-rinded for
profitable shipment. The last few years have den\-
onstrated this to be erroneous. Heretofore com-
paratively unknown in market, a poor opinion was
formed from the inferior quality and improper prep-
aration of the specimens fowarded. The fruit is now
in demand, sought for by local buyers and consignees

SPECIES, VARIETIES, ETC. iii

in Northern markets, and commands a price equal to
tiie best P'iorida oranges and much greater than im-
ported lemons. As a result of this favorable condi-
tion of market, many are planting extensively. The
lemon is more prolific and an earlier bearer than the
orange, and its cultivation equally or more remunera-
tive ; the tree will not stand as great X degree of cold
as the latter, but is successfully grown as far north
as Putnam County. While much of the fruit pro-
duced in the State is superior in quality, there are
numberless coarse, inferior sorts ; to avoid these, as
with the orange, only well-known leading varieties
should be planted. The Sicily, or imported lemon of
commerce, French's Seedling, not the so-called
French lemon, and Lamb have fruited for some years,
and are far superior in every respect, the two latter
being equal to the imported fruit. The characteristics
of the fruit of these three varieties are essentially the
same. French's Seedhng is less thorny than the
others. Bijou, Eureka, Genoa, Imperial, and some
others recently introduced promise well. Ever-bear-
ing is valuable for home use rather than market.
Young trees of this species, even of the best varie-
ties, are apt to produce large, coarse fruit ; it becomes
smaller and finer as the tree grows older.

Extract from Ikirticullural Congress Papers, by
Thomas Rivers, England.

Dotclha and Dulcissiina, both thin rinds and very
rich. Ei^g, very large, rind thick, remarkably juicy,
but not rich ; a great bearer. Exqutsttc, a thin-rind-
ed, rich, and juicy fruit. Maltese Blood, large, oval.

112 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

with dark red pulp, exceedingly rich, good and dis-
tinct ; fruit from the same tree vary in color from
deep red to the usual pale yeliovv color, with faint
streaks of red. St. Michaels, thin rind, very juicy,
and bears abundantly. Silver Orange, color of rind
pale yellow, flesh pale, rind very thin, flavor piquant
and delicious. Sustazn, large, and remarkable for its
sweet juices. White Orange, large, rind pale yel-
low, flesh very pale, flavor rich and good.

The following is from the report of the Southern
California Horticultural Society :

FINE ORANGES.

T. A. Garey, from San Francisco, presented sev-
eral specimens of Carey's Mediterranean Sweet Or-
ange, to show in what a good state of preservation
this fruit will keep to so late a period as the middle
of August. The specimens were cut and tested by
those present. They were of a fine texture, solid,
juicy, of a good flavor, and looked as though they
would remam on the trees unimpaired in quality for
a month longer. Mr. Garey claims for this fruit the
following good qualities :

This orange commences to fruit the second year
from the bud.

It bears heavy and regular crops.

The fruit commences to ripen in December, and
remains sound and firm on the tree until the follow-
ing August.

It is of large size, symmetrical shape, and extraor-
dinary fine color.

SPECIES, VARIETIES, ETC. 113

A large proportion are entirely seedless.

The flavor is excellent, the grain very fine, and the
fruit is almost entirely free from the tough and
stringy membranous substances usually found in
oranges.

Its keeping qualities are superior to any variety
tested in thib country, rendering it a superior market
fruit.

The tree is a rapid grower, symmetrical in shape,
and forming invariably a round and beautiful head.

An entire absence of thorns, avoiding by this pe-
- culiarity the large percentage of loss usually sustain-
ed in the puncturing of the fruit by the thorns or
spines found on the common variety of orange trees.

In concluding this subject of varieties, I would
urge upon the orange growers of this State the ad-
visability of selecting and cultivating varieties with
reference to their time of maturing. The orange
naturally has the advantage of most fruits in point
of extending the time of ripening. It is a crop
that can be harvested as the market demands — be-
ginning ordinarily with November and ending with
INIarch. And this period might be extended so as
to embrace a still longer time, by gathering in
]\Iarch and carefully housing, thus preventing de-
terioration of fruit by longer hanging on the tree,
and giving relief to the latter.

This course has been advised by one who has
studied the methods of handling the orange in
European groves.

114 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

A dry packing-house, with numerous shelves and
frequent fumigation, will probably play an impor-
tant part in the future as a preventive of a tem-
porary market-glut, or the effects of a septennial
freeze. But this matter can be helped by an intel-
ligent selection of kinds for stocking a grove. Nor
have we even then seen the final result : if early
varieties have been propagated in this initiatory
stage of the study of the orange industry, others
will be introduced that are earlier ; if a freak of
nature has given us an orange that ripens in
March, the observant orchardist will not be long in
improving on this.

A late-maturing orange has already been mention-
ed in these pages, but there is an early variety that
nurserymen pass over in their catalogues, yet which
should not be despised. Like the lemon grown in
this State, its treatment has not been such as to
bring out its merits. Under no circumstances is it
as good an orange as the ordinary Florida fruit,
when the latter is matured. But the " Thornless
Bell"' is edible in September, and is best when
gathered then, before it yellows on the tree. When
permitted to turn on the tree it loses that sufficiency
of acidity which it possesses earlier, and which pre-
vents its being insipid — the common objection to
it. Instead of a thick rind, it then cures with a
skin as thin as that of the imported Sicily orange,
and with which it will probably compare favorably
as to general quality. Let it be understood that

SPECIES, VARIETIES, ETC.

Its

all that is claimed for this " September" orange, as
it mit^ht be designated, are its early ripening quali-
ties and its wonderfully jjrolitic nature.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LEMON AND LIME.

^Comparatively little attention has been

^5 given in Florida to the cultivation of the lemon
and lime ; and yet these are among the most val-
uable of the citrus family, whether we consider their
monetary value or their healthfulness. This neg-
lect has arisen from several causes.

The lemon is a more vigorous grower than the
orange, and when planted on strong or fresh land
the fruit grows to a much larger size and with a
thicker skin than in Europe. The rind, also,
when the fruit is permitted to yellow upon the tree,
is bitter, which destroys the commercial value of
the lemon. Other ill results are noticed when the
fruit is permitted to ripen on the tree. Such fruit
is comparatively light, the juice sparse, and charged
with a small per cent of citric acid. All this is the
result of a want of knowledge of proper treatment
of the fruit. INIy lemons have brought in New
York and Philadelphia more money per box than
my oranges, and have in these markets ranked as
first quality. I would mention also that as a gen-
eral rule the lemon tree is more productive than
the orange. This fruit which ranked so high was

THE LEMON AND LIME. lij

gathered (rom seedlings planted from seed of the
Sicily and Messina fruit of commerce. If the fruit
on these trees is allowed to ripen on the tree they
average three fourths of a pound in weight, but of
inferior quality, juice litde, and rind thick.

My method of preparing for market is to gather
the fruit when about one third larger than we find
the Sicily lemon when it reaches our American
market In curing, the fruit will shrink this extra
third. The fruit is gathered in latticed boxes hold-
ing about fifty lemons each and only two layers
deep. The fruit should be cut with short stems, and
so handled as not to be bruised. The boxes are at
once put into a close room one on top of another,
but forming a hollow square. If the room is large,
cover the pile of boxes Avith a cloth that will con-
fine the sulphurous gas with which the fruit is to be
treated. Place in the centre of the square, and suf-
ficiently remote from the boxes not to heat the
fruit, an oven of live coals. Throw on die burning
coals an ounce of flowers of sulphur, and fasten
down the cloths. If the room is small and tight the
cloth is not necessary. Allow the fruit to remain
in a dark room for a week, then expose to sun-
light— the direct rays of the sun a part of the day is
best — until the skin is yellow. The fruit is then
ready for market or to be stored for future use, for
when thus treated it can be kept for an indefinite
time. This sulphurous gas is of great benefit iu
the curing of both lemon and orange : First, it aids

Il8 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

in properly curing the fruit by toughening the skin
and drying up the watery particles ; second, it is
fatal to all parasites of the orange, whether vegeta-
ble or animal. I am satisfied that a very large per
cent of the speedy decay of the orange so fatal to
shippers is occasioned by the genns of fungi left
over from the former year in packing-houses, and
old boxes in which rotten fruit was conveyed.
These germs lie dormant, waiting for a moist at-
mosphere favorable to their development ; they then
develop and multiply with wondrous rapidity,
showing their work in the fomi of mould on any
moist surface, but especially on fruit. Some years
ago I put into a basket that had held some decayed
lemons, on the sides of which basket at the time of
gathering I noticed a little mould, some very line
Tangerine oranges. In two days' time half the fruit
was entirely worthless. The fruit that was left on
the tree, or that had been otherwise handled, was
entirely sound. This gave me a hint. It was a
very wet season ; most of our shippers were losing
heavily. Commission merchants were constantly
reporting " Fruit arrived in bad order,"' " Did not
pay expenses. " I knew that sulphurous fumes
were fatal to fungoids. I commenced to gather
and ship in the midst of the damp season. I fumi-
gated every box of fruit, and though mould had ap-
peared on the fruit as it hung on the trees, I heard
no report of decayed fruit, but on the contrary had

THE LEMON AND LIME. 119

the report ol "Arrived in good condition," and
" Good price. "

I have not had nuicli experience in handhng the
Hme, hut I am convinced that this fruit, most val-
uable because of its healthfulness and its richness
in citric acid, can be cured as easily as the lemon,
and preserved quite as long if subjected to the treat-
ment recommended for the lemon. This fruit
needs only to be known in our Northern market to
be valued even more highly than the lemon. When
once brought into notice it will prove truly profita-
ble to the grower. The yield is speedy and abun-
dant.

The Florida lemon, marketed during the latter
part of August and all of September and October,
meets with little competition from foreign fruit.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE INSECTS DAMAGING TO THE ORANGE TREE THE

NATURAL ENEMIES OF SUCH INSECTS, AND THE
REMEDIES TO BE APPLIED.

§UT few insects injurious to the orange tree have
appeared, but their ravages have now and
then done considerable mischief, and awakened
still greater apprehension. The insect which at
one time was considered the most injurious was
the long scale insect, resembling one side of a dis-
torted muscle-shell, and was called by Packard As-
pidiotus Gloverii. When it first made its appear-
ance in Florida it threatened universal destruction
of the orange groves. It first made its appearance
at Mandarin, Florida, about forty years ago, to
which place it was brought on some China orange
plants freshly imported from China. The insect is
very diminutive, and under a glass" of strong power
has the appearance of a white louse. It is very
quick in its motions (its movements resembling
those of the chicken-mite), and conceals itself, dur-
ing the presence of an enemy, under the scale
erected for the shelter, first of the egg and then of
the young insect. The eggs are purple and laid in
two parallel rows. The insect when hatched at

INSECTS DAMAGING ORANGE TREE. 121

once begins to suck the sap — like the aphis — from
the bark and leaf of the tree wherever the scale
happens to be fastened. It finally develops into a
diminutive fly undiscoverable with the natural eye,
except when late in the afternoon they can be seen
between the observer and the declining sun when
the tree infested is suddenly jarred. The effect pro-
duced by their sucking is first to deplete and finally
to e.xhaust and kill tlic branch and leaf to which
they cling. Several remedies have been found effect-
ual. The most effective yet known to the writer is
a decoction of tobacco with sufficient carbolic soap
to make a strong suds. Apply with a garden syringe
or pump, through a perforated nozzle. Kerosene,
in the proportion of one part of kerosene to eleven
of water, applied in the same manner, is effective.
But there is danger if too much be used. A mod-
erate amount is a good fertilizer and stimulant to
the tree. As there is no chemical affinity between
the kerosene and water, the mixture has to be kept
vigorously stirred during the time of applying it.
Either of these applications has to be repeated two
or three times, at intervals of ten or twelve days.

Another insect similar to the one just consid-
ered, but with scale of lighter appearance and of
rounder form, is also damaging to the trees. This
insect seldom attacks either the leaves or the tender
wood, but confines itself mainly to the bark of the
wood from one to four years old. They are easily
and effectively removed bv washing the trunks

122 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

with wood-ashes and water in the proportion of
one quart of ashes to three gallons of water. If
found generally on the tree in positions not easily
reached by the hand, syringe as before with " white
lye" — lye prepared by boiling wood-ashes.

A most formidable enemy to both these insects
named has appeared within the last two years in
the grove of the writer. It is a lady-bug with a sin-
gle red spot on each wing case. In both the pupa
and perfect state it is ever busy devouring these in-
sects. Of course they are allowed full freedom of
the grove, and are increasing very rapidly.

Another enemy, noticed for the first time and
during the present year in the grove of the writer,
of the long scale insect, has appeared in the form
of a small hang or basket worm, " named by ]\Ir.
Packard as the writer has been informed through
the entomological department of the Agricultural
Department), Platoecitus Gloverii,'' but later
named Psyche Confederata. The female remains
in her case and devours insects inclosed under her
web. The male is a small dark- colored moth.
These insects are not a very formidable enemy to
the scale, as the female confines herself closely in
her operations under her web. But some small
trees have been entirely rid of insects by their help.
But if " these insects," as the entomologist of the
Agricultural Department writes, " in their habits
resemble the basket or drop worm of the North,"
they might prove an enemy to the orange tree as

IXSECTS DAMAGING ORAXCE TREE. 123

well as to the scale insect, and if so should not be
encouraged.

Another insect resembles, when young, fine
corn-meal dusted over the tree, but when the case
in which the insects are inclosed is full grown it
resembles the small barnacles clinging to a wharf
built in salt water. When these cases are turned
over and examined with a glass they disclose
under each a multitude of small insects resembling
lice. They do not exhaust trees so rapidly as the
scale insect, but their presence is damaging. The
leaves of the trees infested change after a while to a
dark sooty appearance, and the tree docs not grow
so rapidly.

An enemy to this insect also has appjeared. I
am informed by the entomologist of the Agricultu-
ral Department, to whom I sent specimens of this
and the other insects mentioned, that the " insect
is tlie Evagoras Rubidus, which destroys the plant-
lice on the cotton and orange, at least I have found
it in the act of sucking out the juice of a plant-
louse." As I finished the above sentence I laid
my pen down to go out and capture some of these
insects, that I might give a more accurate descrip-
tion, and found a full-grown insect which had just
pierced with his proboscis a full-grown house-fly.
He continued his feast for a few moments as I
watched, and when frightened retreated, carrying his
prey with him. This insect when young resem-
bles a red spider. As it increases in size it changes

124 ORAKGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA. ■.

to a salmon color with white spots. When haU
grown, or about one half inch in length, two small
black wings are visible. When full grown, or three
fourths of an inch in length, two pairs of wings
show themselves, the smaller or under pair black,
the upper pair black, with salmon-colore<l marking
on the forward halves of the wings. When fully
grown the insect is ready for fiight and is very ac-
tive. When young it is very busy feeding upon
sviall insects ; when grown it seeks for larger prey.
Since writing the above I find a description of the
above insect in Agricultural Report of 1875, page

131-

The wood-louse, or white ant, has occasioned se-
rious trouble and sometimes death to many fine
young trees where the preventive was not used-
ashes or slaked lime around the base of the trunk.
When a tree begins suddenly to show yellow leaves
examine a few inches below the surface at the base
of the trunk for wood-lice, especially ii a stake has
been driven near the tree for its support, or if litter
from the forest or mulching of leaves has been used.
If wood-lice are discovered, clear them away care-
fully, and pour boiling water into the cavity around
the tree until all the cavities in which the lice could
have concealed themselves have been reached. If
the tree has been but partially girdled it will re-
cover, ii the soil be placed above the wounded part
But if the tree has been completely girdled, get
well rotted muck and pile it for three or four inches

INSECTS DAMAGING ORAh'CE TKEE, 125

above the wound, and cover over with sand. Fin-
ish with a top-dressing of fresh wood-ashes or
slaked Hme. If the tree is not too far spent it
will send out young roots above the wound and
finally recover.

Another insect to be noticed resembles the squash-
bug, and is called by the entomologist of the De-
partment of Agriculture Euthoctha Galeator. This
insect is very bold in its attack. 1 have watched
them frequently in their operations as they were
lying in the hot sun basking, while their probosces
were inserted in the tender shoots. I have held my
magnifying-glass within a half or three quarters of
an inch from them, and had the finest opportunity
of observing the operations of this bold enemy of
the orange. I have seen the tenderer shoots wilt
when the insect was sucking them, from the ex-
tremity to the point at which this insect had insert-
ed its proboscis. As this insect is large, the injury
inflicted by it is speedy. But when the shoot is
older and more vigorous the effect is very similar
to that produced by die-back. These insects are
more apt to attack trees starting young shoots at
periods of the year when the grove is not generally
making new wood. As they cannot pierce the old
wood they seek for the tenderest. This accounts
for the impression that stimulaimg or forcing a tree
produces the die-back.

The Euthoctha Galeator is fond of concealing
itself under litter of any kiml during the night or

126 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

cold weather. Mulching around a tree is an at-
tractive covert from which they start forth, when the
sun begins to shine warmly, to the nearest tender
branch. This has caused others to conclude that
mulching was the cai ise of die-back.

There is another fq)rm of this disease, arising from
an entirely different cause, to be noticed in the next
chapter. As no natural enemies of these insects are
known, watchfulness on the part of the orange
grower is alone to be relied upon for their destruc-
tion. They should be caught by hand or in a net
and killed. The insect last described is very apt
to conceal itself under litter during the winter.
Pieces of bark, boards, logs, stumps, litter of every
kind offer them shelter. In early spring when the
weather is cold everything of the kind in the vicin-
ity of the orange grove infested should be burned.
The insect is very fond of sucking the cow-pea,
and lays its eggs near its field of operation, often
on the under side of the leaf of the plant on which
it feeds. If the orange grower will grow cow-peas
in his grove and bury them in trenches or holes
dug at the extremity of the orange roots, a few days
after these insects have commenced to feed upon
the peas, he can destroy them at a most important
time. Both these plans were adopted by the
writer during the present year, and his grove is now
quite clear of this pest.

When trees have been damaged seriously by
these insects the knife and saw must be freely used.

INSECTS DAMAGING ORANGE TREE. 127

Cut away all diseased wood. Let the cutting be so
heavy that the tree will start strong shoots. Watch
these young shoots carefully, when the sun is
warm, for the bug resembling the squash-bug.
Kill all that make their appearance. If the extrem-
ities of the shoots have been stung, pinch them back.
They cannot be saved if the wood is very tender.
If blisters appear in the harder wood, puncture them
with a knife. It will relieve the wood, which will
readily heal, and the branch will soon recover its
vigor.

The writer has allowed some trees to go almost
to the last extremity, and brought them out by fol-
lowing the above plan.

The most effective insecticide known to the
author is kerosene and soap — whale-oil soap being
preferable — but if this is not convenient, common
washing-soap is effective — combined in the propor-
tions of six pounds of soap to one gallon of kero-
sene. Bring the soap to a boil, pour in the kerosene
and stir thoroughly until the two are fully com-
bined.

This preparation can be diluted with water to suit
the character of the insects to be exterminated.

As an ordinary' wash, forty gallons of w-ater added
to the above preparation will leave the solution suf-
ficiently strong.

For the red scale insect not more than twenty
gallons of water should be added.

Some prefer an emulsion of kerosene and milk
diluted with water.

CHAPTER XX.

DISEASES TO WHICH THE ORANGE TREE AND FRUIT
ARE LIABLE, AND THEIR REMEDIES.

fEW fruit trees are less liable to disease than the
orange, but the fruit and trees are so valuable
that no enemy should be allowed to attack them
unopposed. Perhaps the most formidable disease
which has yet made its appearance is the ' ' die-back. ' '
One cause producing this disease has already
been noticed in a preceding chapter. The name
' ' die-back' ' is a general term, used for want of a
better and more specific name or names, for at least
two diseases arising from three and perhaps four
different causes. But as it is descriptive of the
symptoms of one or more diseases arising from sev-
eral different causes, its meaning is readily com-
prehended. The symptom is the dying back of the
new wood to the old. It is sometimes confined to
a few branches of the tree. When this is the case
the inference is that it is caused solely from the
sting of an insect. If, however, the symptom is
general to the young branches, and they come forth
feeble and yellow with no marks of stings, the
cause ?nay originate near the roots.

Deep planting will produce such symptoms.

DISEASES AND THEIR REMEDIES. 129

Trees do not depend solely upon their leaves for
the supply of carbonic acid. The roots gather a
very considerable part of this gas, so essential to
plant life, not in a pure state, as is done by the
leaf, but in chemical combination with other ele-
ments. This is the case especially with trees which
have very yellow roots. Such trees send their
roots either into a very porous soil easily penetrated-,
by the air, or else send them near the surface, where
they find a greater abundance of air, which decom-
poses manure and is essential to the formation of
carbonic acid. Such is the case with the orange
tree and roots. If the tree is planted too deep or
the crust on the top of the soil has become very
compact, these roots, dependent upon air for health
and ability to perform their functions, are virtually
smothered. They make an effort to grow, but as
often as they form roodets and root.hairs, these die,
and convey no nutriment for the formation of the
woody structure of young shoots, so the new and
tender cells, which are but the frame-work of the
plant, perish for want of support. And hence the.
light cellular structure, in the form of young shoots, :
dies back as certainly as if it had been cut from
the older wood. I have occasionally dug up trees
so afflicted and found them wanting in new roots.
The remedy is to reset, or else take away the top
soil till the lateral roots are brought near the sur-
face, and to keep the soil well cultivated. Cut away
all diseased wood and roots. When the extremities

130 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

of roots of trees come in contact with poisonous
earth or fermenting manures, a similar symptom is
produced, as in planting upon hard-pan or over a
stratum of salt earth.

Where moss appears on the trunks of trees, it is
easily removed by any alkali wash. Soap-suds, or
what is better, wood-ashes, will both fertilize and
cleanse.

The cracking of the fruit is occasioned by any
suspension of the growth of the fruit, and a conse-
quent hardening of the rind, followed by a sudden
flow of sap from any stimulating cause, as highly
fertilizing a bearing grove, especially during sum-
mer, or a wet spell following a dry. This cracking
is more apt to follow the rains, if trees have been
highly manured even in winter. This can be pre-
vented by keeping the ground well stirred during
dry weather. The soil thus stirred absorbs moist-
ure and keeps the fruit growing.

Two other diseases have of late years shown
themselves in Florida, and occasioned great fear
and trouble among orange growers. One is known
as the ' ' foot-rot. ' ' The symptoms are the decay
and sloughing of the bark around the crown and
tap-roots of the tree. I have had no experience in
my own grove with this disease, but have watched
its effects in many portions of the State. It has
occasioned much trouble and loss in Louisiana,
from whose orange growers I have had many letters
of inquiry, some of whom have confounded the dis-

DISEASES AND THEIR REMEDIES. 131

ease with another, presently to 1:)C mentioned. I
am convinced that this trouble is occasioned by one
general cause — the fermenting of sap in the vicinity
of the " rot." The sap of the orange abounds in
oil and starch, which, in combination with watery
particles, favor easy and rapid fermentation, especial-
ly when the circulation is slow. So far as I have
discovered, this fermentation is induced mainly
from two causes — first, fermenting manures around
the base of the trunk. Of course, this should not
be allowed. Second, stagnant water around the
roots. If water is allowed to flow or drain slowly
from the ground it is not likely to ferment. I
have known it to flow for weeks above the surface
of the ground with no seeming damage to the trees,
but if allowed to stand on the surface, or a little
below the surface, under the influence of a powerful
sun fermentation speedily sets in, and a few weeks
or months thereafter the roots of the tree resting
therein begin to show signs of decay. The first
symptom is a darkening of the sap, next loosening
of the bark of the roots, and last rot of bark. The
prevention is, to underdrain, and keep the crown-
roots well exposed to air and sunlight. If under-
draining is impracticable, carry off the surface water
and keep the ground well mulched, that a lower
temperature may check the tendency to fermenta-
tion. In localities where this disease is troublesome,
sour stock, as it is better adapted to wet and acid
soils, do better than the sweet stock.

132 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

The other disease to which reference has been
made is " bleeding," an exudation of sap, harden-
ing into gum, from the trunk of the tree. As this
trouble is more frequent after a severe winter, I am
persuaded it is occasioned by a rupture of the sap-
vessels, inducing, as in " foot- rot," fermentation
beneath the bark, under which the diseased sap
collects, first forming a blister and then breaking
through the bark, corroding and hardening into
gum. The remedy is to cut away the diseased
bark as far as there is any discoloration of sap, and
whitewash the wound, or apply fresh cow-dung.
Thus treated, if the cutting has been to the sound
brfrk, the wound soon heals. It is not infrequently
the case that the bug, the same or similar to the
one that stings the deadened pine tree, attracted
by the fermenting sap, deposits its Q^g beneath the
bark. This t%g develops into a borer which feeds
upon the fermenting wood, and may sometimes ex-
tend his operations into the sound wood. But the
presence of this borer is the result and not the
cause of the disease. When this invader appears
he must be hunted and taken out with the knife.
Dead limbs or dead wood on a tree will invite a
similar borer, which feeds on the dry wood of either
the orange or oak, but I have not known of this
insect doing any damage to the growing wood.

CHAPTER XXI.

RUST ON THE ORANGE.

|b UST has been the cause of considerable annoy-
&2 ance to the growers of the orange in Florida.
The writer has for years been engaged in experi-
ments for the purpose of ascertaining, first, the
cause of, and then the remedy for, the rust. Some
years ago he reached the conclusion that the rust
was nothing more than the oxidized oil from the
skin spread over the surface. This discovery was
first made through the microscope, and afterward
confirmed by chemical tests. The cause of exuda-
tion of oil was first attributed to some peculiar con-
dition of the soil. Different remedies were applied
with the hope of getting rid of such matter as would
produce an excess of hydrocarbonates. Among
other things, caustic lime was applied broadcast
through the orangery. The rust disappeared for
two or three years, and again returned. Eighteen
months ago the writer's attention was called, by
Mr. W. C. Hargrove, of Palatka, to a microscopic
insect first noticed by Mr. J. K. Gates, and believed
by them to be the cause of the rust.

This led me to investigate in another direction.
Knowing I\Ir. William H. Ashmead, of Jacksonville,

134 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

Fla. , to be investigating orange insects, I sought his
co-operation. He found the insect new to ento-
mologists, but belonging to the order Acarina, and
family Phytoptidce. ]Mr. Ashmead gave to the insect
the name Phytoptus oleivorous, or oil-eating. He
has given a very interesting chapter on the subject
in his pamphlet on "Orange Insects." The wri-
ter, during the two summers last past, has tried
a number of experiments, hoping to find a destroy-
er of the insect and a preventive of rust. He
found a strong decoction of tobacco with whale-oil
soap, one pound to ten gallons of the decoction,
the most effective. This decoction was applied by
means of a pump, forcing the liquid through a rose
nozzle and drenching the foliage and fruit. The
application should be made monthly during May,
June, and July, as there are monthly generations
of the insect. The present year I found them at-
tached to the fruit as late as October. When there
is no fruit on the trees the insects attach them-
selves to the leaves. Lime, sown broadcast when
foliage is damp, is beneficial.

The insect is microscopic, and only discoverable
with the unaided eye when they are in great abun-
dance upon the fruit or leaves. Then the fruit and
leaves have the appearance of having been slightly
dusted with the finest flour. I copy description
from Mr. Ashmead' s work : ' ' Whitish flesh-color,
elongated ; gradually increasing in size near the head
it becomes twice as thick as posteriorly ; abdomen

RUST OX THE ORANGE. 135

finely and transversely striate, apparently consisting
of numerous very thin segments ; at the extrem-
ity is a biped appendage that evidently assists it in
clinging to the orange ; just above it protrude two
caudal filaments ; head almost hidden in thorax ;
four legs rather short with one claw, a long hair
springing from the knee."

When the insect attacks the orange before the
fruit is grown it is dwarfed in size and blackened ;
when attacked later, the color is changed to a dark
bronze ; if still later, to a light bronze. The fruit
is not otherwise damaged by the ' ' rust. ' ' Some
claim a benefit from the rust, since " rusted" fruit
keeps better and is shipped with less damage.
Such fruit is also sweeter, as the watery particles are
allowed to escape through the punctured skin and
the saccharine matter thus concentrated. As the
oil exudes from the punctures made by the insect
and spreads over the surface, it hardens into a var-
nish which protects the fruit against atmospheric
influences.

The most available time to attack the rust insect
is during the winter, before the trees have put on
their new crop of fruit. At that time the insect has
fastened itself to the under side of the leaf. It does
not transfer itself to the fruit until the oil-cells are
well formed. By lodging on the under side of the
leaf it is more difficult to attack. But if caustic
and well-slaked lime is applied when the leaves are
well dampened with dew (dew is better than the

136 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

rain, as the rain does not wet the under side of the
leaf) the fine particles of lime adhere to the leaves
and destroy the insect. The application should be
made from beneath the tree, the operator standing
near the trunk and throwing the lime in handfuls
up among the branches. The same rule should
be observed when the tree is washed with a decoc--
tion of tobacco and whale-oil soap. It should be
first syringed from beneath ; afterward it may be
showered from the side, and thus by drenching
every part of the tree insure a more effectual appli-
cation and remedy.

Another reason why the application of remedies
should be made in winter is, the insect does not
seem to be multiplying during the colder weather.
It certainly is much more active during the warmer
months. It should be attacked when at a disad-
vantage. Every tree in the grove should be treat.
ed, and if possible every leaf of every tree in the
grove. What would be better still, communities
ought to combine and operate at the same time, •
that the enemy may be exterminated. When once
they have obtained a lodgment in a grove they mul-
tiply very rapidly during a hot dry spell. An opin-
ion prevails that wet weather increases the rust.
This is true to a limited extent. The oil does not-
exude from the punctures made by the insect till
it has removed itself from the puncture or died.-
As long as it continues to suck the oil the orange-
does not rust. Should the orange be stimulated

J^rST ox THE OKAXGE. I37

to active Circulation of sap, the pressure from within
induces a more active flow of oil. Hence the rain
makes the show of rust the more speedy by first
stimulating to an increased flow of oil and then
hastening its oxidizing. The rust does not appear
simultaneously with the insect, but follows its opera-
tions. Hot weather is favorable to the development
of the insect, but wet weather increases the show
of rust.

Sulphate of lime I have found to be a specific
for the rust-insect. Two applications should be
made during the year, one in the spring before the
blooming of the trees, the other during the month
of June. The sulphate of lime or land plaster
should be applied while the tree is wet, at the rate
of from one to two quarts to the tree. The whole
of the trunk, branches, and foliage should be well
dusted.

CHAPTER XXII.

GATHERING, PACKING, AND SHIPPING THE ORANGE,

fN Europe these branches of the business belong
to the merchant, and are studied as an art. The
merchant buys the fruit on the trees either in bulk
or by the thousand, counting 1040 as an M. But
in this country, and especially thus early in the his-
tory of orange growing, it is well for the grower to
understand this part of his business so well that he
can gather, pack, and ship his own fruit without be-
ing left to the mercy of speculators, many of whom
are concerned only so far as they may get the great-
er part of the profits. Ignorance of these things
has already occasioned large annual loss both to
the producer and buyer. The oranges from many
groves have generally been pulled off, the rinds of
many torn in gathering them from the tree, and
these oranges piled into a boat or cart and offered
in bulk upon the streets or in the markets for sale.
They have never been cured nor assorted. They
are in no condition to be shipped. They cannot
be long kept in such a condition. The huckster or
buyer sees this, takes advantage of circumstances,
sometimes combining with others of his class to
put down the price, picks out the most indifferent

GATHERING, PACKING, AND SHIPPING. 139

fruit, and offers for the whole a price based upon
this inferior sample. So far as the producer is con-
cerned the fruit is sacrificed, and especially if the
market be full. The grower should never put him-
self at the mercy of such men, for even the tender
mercies of such men are cruel. If the grower will
so gather, assort, and pack his fruit that it will
keep for weeks or for months, as may be done, he
need not be driven to such sacrifices.

• As the fruit of a grove begins to ripen, let the
gardener pass through, and, taking tree by tree, take
from it all fruit that shows such defects as will lead
him to conclude that it will never come to perfec-
tion. Let him gather all specked fruit. This can
be done week a^erweek, always selecting the ripest
of such fruit. As such is the first to ripen there is
always a market for it, and, rightly managed, at a
paying price. If such fruit is allowed to remain
on the tree it will get no better, and its presence
will damage the fruit which should remain longer
on the tree. Before the better oranges begin to
ripen the gardener should be well acquainted with
the quality of the fruit of each tree, so that he can
classify them according to quality of flavor, from the
acid to the swe^t, from the dry to the juicy, and
various varieties. In gathering, cut the stem close
to the orange, handle in boxes containing not more
than 75 or 100, which boxes place on shelves in the
packing-house until the surplus moisture has escaped
from the rind, leaving it tough and pliable. This

i4o ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

drying process will require not more than five
days. Always select a dry day on ivhich io gather
the fruit. When the orange is thoroughly ripe —
during and after January — its hold on the stem is
not so tenacious ; it can then be plucked more ex-
peditiously without the aid of the knife, a skilful
hand with a practical double jerk being able to
break the stem in the eye with no danger of tearing
the skin.

The boxes for packing should be of light mate-
rial, neatly made, tolerably close, and hooped. Di-
mensions 8 X i6 X 27, with partition in the middle.
In making these, one side should be left open. In
packing, the open side should be turned up, and
the box lined with sheets of paper laid on the bot-
tom and resting against the side. Each orange
should be wrapped separately in tissue-paper con-
taining as little oil as possible, so that it wull readily
absorb and throw off moisture. The wrapper
should be careful to reject every bruised or other-
wise injured orange. The packer should be care-
ful not to put different varieties in the same box.
The buyer should know when he has tasted any or-
ange from a box or brand that all others of the same
brand or box are its equal. In packing, the or-
anges should be placed closely together in layers, so
that there can be no rolling or sliding of the fruit
in the box. The last layer should project three
fourths of an inch above the sides of the box, so
that the top when nailed on should hold the layers

GATHERING, PACKING, AND SHIPPING. 141

firmly in their places, even after there has been
some shrinkage of the fruit. This is all-important
when the fruit is to be transported a considerable
distance, and especially when transported by rail.
The box should now be marked with the number
of oranges and the brand of the fruit.

In shipping, water transportation should be pre-
ferred to rail, especially during the first part of the
trip, as such transportation is not so apt to jar and
rub the fruit as rail. When the producer knows a
respojisible merchant who will buy his fruit and sell
it by retail, it is better for him to make the arrange-
ment with him to furnish him oranges at a stipulated
price for each brand throughout the season. It
w'ill lessen the expense of a commission to a third
party ; besides, commission merchants as a class
have not dealt fairly with the Florida fruit and veg-
etable grower. Bad packing, poor transportation,
and dishonest commission merchants have done
more to keep back the progress of Florida and dis-
courage fruit and vegetable growing than any other
three causes combined. And of the three the dis-
honest commission merchant has made himself the
largest but the lowest of these evils. There are
some honorable exceptions, and such should be
liberally patronized. But it is a vocation offering
such opportunities for rascality and such bribes for
dishonesty, it would be well for the producer to be
cautious as to whom he makes consignments.

Transportation from Florida to the North and

142 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

North-west is yet inadequate, and the lines aheady
in existence are badly managed ; many of the offi-
cers on these lines have not done their duty to
their employers, and they have done much to dis-
courage fruit and vegetable growing in Florida.
This grave charge can be proved by a multitude of
facts. A few should be mentioned, to show some-
thing of their general character. Some crates of
strawberries, to be packed in ice and destined for
New York, were thrown upon deck after the man-
ner of a traveller's trunk. Remonstrance was
made by the owner. "Got angel in dar .?" was
the ready reply of the deck-hand, emphasizing his
wit with an additional thump of the crate. The
captain of the boat laughed at the wit of the negro,
and left him to repeat his damage and wit on the
next victim who should take the pains to grow fruit
for such fun. About thirty-three per cent of the
melons which are shipped from the St. Johns to
New York never reach their destination. There is
no excuse for this. The watermelon, well cared
for and handled, will easily keep from six to ten
days. A cargo of twenty thousand melons shipped
from Fernandina to New York reached the latter
port well cooked. Unfortunately it is not the fash-
ion to eat cooked melons. West and Middle Flor-
ida should have direct communication with the
North-west. That beautiful, rich, and attractive
country would in a few years become like the gar-
den of the Lord. This is a seeming digression

GATHERING, PACKING, AND SHIPPING. 143

from orange culture, but it is pardonable ; for while
the orange is not so perishable as some other things
needing transportation, the increasing production
is such as will demand, in addition to semi-weekly
lines of steamers from Fernandina and Jacksonville
to New York, a daily orange train from Florida to
the North-west.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CROPS THAT MAY BE GROWN AMONG THE ORANGE
TREES.

^HE question is often asked, " How can I make
& a living while the orange trees are coming
into bearing ?" The answer is, " Just as you would
make a living if you were doing nothing else but
farming or gardening, or growing fruits that come in
bearing sooner than the orange. " ' If you are a
city clerk, and know nothing about hoeing and
plowing and chopping, you would find it rather
tough, for the first year or two, to make your bread
in the valley of the Nile, or your meat and bread in
the blue-grass region of Kentucky. In either case
you would have to deny yourself, for a year or two,
of " luxuries" dear to you, among the most valued
of these, o/iu?n cum dignitate. You would have to
pull off your coat and go to work. You would
have to consult the natives to learn practical and
common sense, and you would be surprised at the
profound depth of your ignorance of the means of
making the bread you have been eating all your
life. But knowledge, even this humble knowledge,
is good for the soul and the man. And you can
learn, and even learn to love to work. The sweet

CROPS AMOXG ORAA'GE TREES. MS

sleep and refreshing rest under the soothing ano-
dvne of labor ^vould come Avithout the learning.
After a Nvhile ^vould come the noble independence
of ^/ree man. I'rv it, young man, try it ! Come
from the crowded city to the country ! Come
South, come to Florida ! You will regret it for
the first year or two. and apply hard names to your
adviser 'think him and his book a great humbug ;
but if you have the virtue of continuance you will
after a while bless him for the advice, and your
children will bless you for your wisdom. But from
this digression to the subject in hand.

It has already been noticed that garden crops
may be grown among the trees profitably to the
laborer and the trees. Grapes and figs can be
brought into bearing within three years from the
cutting, and peaches in three years from the seed.
Guavas can be grown under shade of trees in the
latitude of St. Augustine, and abundantly and
profitably farther South. Plums do better in Flor-
ida than anywhere I have ever seen them grow.
The Japan and wild-goose plum will bear transpor-
tation to Northern cities. They are both excellent
fruits and bring a good price. Sweet potatoes can
be grown in young groves. But as they require
deep cultivation and to be planted in ridges, the
rows should not run too near the orange trees
^u-ar-cane can be planted profitably, but should
never be planted among orange trees. The smaller
varieties of Indian corn can be profitably grown

I4<^ ORAMGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

among the orange trees, both for bread and forage.
It is better, however, to grow it for forage, as it is
not so exhaustive to land when cut in a green state.
Indeed the names of crops that may be grown profit-
ably, if the land is kept rich, is legion ; as our cli-
mate and soil will grow almost everything that can
be grown in the temperate zone as well as all the
semi-tropical plants. Sheep and poultry can be
raised with great profit in Florida. In almost every
neighborhood sheep will find an excellent range in
the pine forest. They should be penned at night
in the grove. For this purpose a movable pen of
light boards four inches wide, the sections of twenty
and sixteen feet in length, so that when sections
are put together they will be self-supporting, is a
great convenience. The writer has one such which
requires only a few moments to move, so that stock
penned can have fresh land on which to rest every
night or two. It is a good way to fertilize a grove,
if the pen is not allowed to remain too long in one
place. A similar arrangement can be had for poul-
try, so that they can always be confined at the
right spot. If too heavy to lift, they can be made
to roll on wheels made of sections of a round log.

CHAPTER XXIV.

OILS, PERFUMES, EXTRACTS, ETC., FROM THE CITRUS.

f^HE subjects mentioned above need to be care-
t lully considered by the orange growers of
Florida. In Europe the manufacture of these
products of the citrus is about equal in value to the
exported fruit. Essential oil is distilled from the
tender shoots, rinds of the fruit, and leaves of the
trees. The most delicate perfumes and oils are
obtained from the flowers, especially from the flower
of the wild orange. Marmalade is made from the
sour fruit, citric acid and concentrated lemon-
juice from the lemon, while the citron yields that
most delicate conserve bearing the same name, for
^vhich we pay high prices. ^lany of these delicate
and truly valuable products of the orange can be
prepared on the orange plantation at comparatively
little cost. It would be better if some enterprising
firm would locate at Jacksonville or some other or-
an-e centre, and combine in one establishment all
the^se interests. There would be no difficulty in
obtaining ample material for a large establishment,
even thus early in our orange growing. These
materials— leaves, tender shoots, flowers, young
fruit dropped, imperfect fruit, and sour fruit— would

148 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

alone, if such an establishment were erected, pay for
the cultivation of the grove and leave the fruit as a
clear gain.

Such a business would be a source of vast wealth
to the firm which should engage in it with sufficient
capital and skill. These articles manufactured from
the citrus would be put in a durable form and
made ready for exportation to any part of the world.
With this profit added to the profit arising from the
sale of the fruit, at one cent for the orange and
half a cent for the lemon, the citrus crop in Florida
alone could, in a score of years, be made to exceed
the value of the entire cotton crop grown in the
South. Florida certainly has a bright future before
her if her sons are wise enough to labor for that
future. In her broad acres there is ample room,
not only'for her natural and adopted sons, but for
the hundreds of thousands of their fellow-citizens
to whom these sons of Florida extend a hearty in-
vitation to come and occupy with them these broad
acres, this genial climate, and this vast wealth,
enough for all, and quite as good as can be found
this side of Heaven.

CHAPTER XXV.

CONCLUSION'.

^ O those who arc thinking- of engaging- in this
ii> important branch of industry, I would say a
few words in concluding. It is evident that Florida
is destined to take the lead as a fruit-growing State.
Land is rapidly increasing in value. The sooner
you buy the better. But before purchasing, learn
all you can of the different portions of the State.
If possible, travel over it with an eye to finding that
section which will best suit you, so that after lo-
cating you will never be made to regret your first
choice. Each portion has its advantages. IMiddle
Florida has fertile soils, and with its rolling lands
is perhaps the most beautiful section of the State.
The orange has received too little attention in IMid-
dle Florida. Those who have made the attempt
with proper care and protection ha\^e grown fine
oranges there.

The country through which the St. Johns River
flows, having at once one of the grandest streams
in America, and with it ample facilities for transpor-
tation, has, as yet, attracted the most attention.
The eastern shore of this river, especially, is ad-

150 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

mirably adapted to the culture of the orange. Be-
ing protected from, the severe north-westerly winds
by this wide expanse of water, it is as little liable to
the injuries of frost as counties one hundred miles
farther south. The counties in the lower portion
of the State have generally fine lands, and grow the
orange successfully.

Having settled, plant your grove of one or more
acres ; let the size be determined by your means,
nev^er undertaking more than you can keep in the
highest slate of cultivation. As to choosing be-
tween the budded and seedling tree, decide as you
wish fruit sooner or later. A budded grove would
perhaps best suit a man well advanced in age. If,
however, the seedling is your choice, make yourself
entirely satisfied as to the quality of the orange
from which the seed were taken, and also the re-
moteness of the original tree from trees bearing
fruit of poor quality. Better plant the seed your-
self and wait, rather than have doubt on this point.
Keep the land rich and Ihoroughly tilled. The best
remedy for drouth is to have the plow and cultiva-
tor or sweep continually going. It is a great mis-
take to plow only with respect to the grass. The
intervals between cultivating should not be so great
as to give the grass an opportunity for growing.
Where the ground is frequently stirred there will be
fewer insects, their eggs, which are often deposited
in the earth, not being permitted to hatch. Examine
your trees often and closely. If insects attack them,

CONCLUSION. 151

treat at once. Study your soil, .note what it is de-
ficient in, and supply the deflciency.

Your grove having come into bearing, your toil
is over and your fortune made. You can now have
the pleasure of eating this most healthful of fruits
of your own raising. An eminent physician has
said that if each of his patients would eat an orange
in the morning before breakfast, his practice would
soon be gone. If France is sought by the invalid
for the grape cure, Florida will be resorted to for
the orange cure as well as for its unrivalled climate.

Do not be afraid of glutting the market with •
the orange ; it can never be done. There are thou-
sands of persons who have never seen an orange,
and many more who have to pay exorbitant prices
for them where they are rarely seen. If there is a
supply the demand will be created. When Florida's
oranges are counted by the hundred million she
will have adequate means for transporting them to
the best markets and to a// markets, without a doubt.
The peop-j of this country know very little about
eating the orange. They have not yet acquired a
taste for this queen of all fruits.

If the orange growers of Europe find it profitable
to send their indifferent fruit to us, after having to
pay a tariff (for which we are indebted to General
Sanford of this State), how much better can we
afford to sell at home, even for the same price.

The above-named gentleman, after his tour
through the orange- growning portions of Europe,

152 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

States that they claim to be able to raise the orange
profitably when getting only one dollar per thou-
sand, their average price now being about three
dollars per thousand. Is there any probability of
the luscious Florida orange being reduced to this
price, even if her market be restricted to the limits
of America ? But the day is not far distant when
our oranges will be found on the tables of the rich
in Europe in preference to the inferior fruit they
now get there.

The orange grower should not be contented with
his present knowledge. This is a progressive age ;
orange culture is in its infancy. If we would keep
well posted we should study our.* vocation no less
diligently than others do theirs. The papers of the
State have done much good in this direction, giv-
ing the successes and results of experiments of dif-
ferent men. Every orange grower should take the
paper published in his own section ; these papers
should have a department devoted specially to fruit
growers, who should make it a repository for mutual
information.

Finally, to be successful, the fruit grower must
watch and work ; but not always, for soon golden
harvests may be had for the gathering.

APPENDIX.

GALLESIO ON THE ORANGE.

fN his valuable and standard work on ' ' The
Citrus Family," which I have already quoted
from several times in the preceding pages, Gallesio
gives the following highly interesting account of
the origin of the orange and its introduction into
Europe :

The orange and lemon tree were unknown to
the Romans ; therefore they could only have been
indigenous in a country where this great people
had never penetrated. We all know the vast ex-
tent of this empire, yet commercial relations ex-
tend themselves always far beyond political bounds.
If these trees had been cultivated in places open
to the traffic of the Romans, these fruits would
have become at once the delight of the tables of
Rome, given up to luxury. They could not,
then, have been cultivated at this period, except in
the remote parts of India, beyond the Ganges.
The north of Europe and of Asia, it is true, were
equally unknown to the Romans, but their climates
were not at all suited to these plants. The interior
and west coasts of Africa, although in great part
deserts, and destitute of the moisture necessary to

154 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

the orange, inclosed, nevertheless, fertile districts
where it might have thriven. But the state of cul-
ture of the tree at the present time in that country,
and the historic facts proving to us that it was not
naturalized there till long after, make us certain
that it was entirely unknown there as well as in
Europe. It is true, that at the time of the dis-
covery of the Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese
found many citrons and bigarades upon the eastern
coast of Africa, and in the part of Ethiopia where
Romans had never penetrated ; but they found these
trees only in gardens, and in a state of domesticity,
and we do not know but that the Arabs, who had
cultivated them in Egj'pt, in Syria, and in Barbary,
had penetrated into these countries in the first years
of their conquests. There remains, then, for us
only to seek the native country of the orange in
Southern Asia — that is to say, in those vast coun-
tries known under the general name of East Indies.
But these regions were in part known to the
Romans, who, since the discovery of the monsoons,
made by Hippalus, carried their maritime com-
merce as far as Muziro (Massera, an island off the
south-east coast of Arabia), by way of the Red Sea,
the navigation of which employed a great number
of vessels, and whose commerce, according to
Pliny, should have been valued at fifty million
sesterces (^2,000,000) per annum. Their fleets
had penetrated even to Portum Gebenitarum,
which appears to have been the present Ceylon ;

APPENDIX. 155

and, although these voyages cost them five years of
fatigue and danger, nevertheless the thirst for gold
and luxury of Rome had multiplied to the last de-
gree the vessels engaged in this trade. We must
believe, then, that the lemon and orange did not
exist in all that part of the country this side of the
Indus, and perhaps not even in all the part lying
between that river and the Ganges ; otherwise these
fruits would have been extolled by the Roman
merchants, where the citron was so much valued ;
and we should find at least some mention made of
them in narratives and voyages descended to us
from those ancient times. If we consult the de-
scription of the coasts of India, from the river In-
dus to the Euphrates, which we have in the voyage
of Nearchus, one of Ale.xander's captains; that of
the Troglodytes, and coasts of the Indian Sea, by
Arianus, the voyage of lambolus, reported by Dio-
dorus of Sicily, where he gives a description of an
isle of the Indian Sea unknown before him, where
he had been thrown by a storm ; or, finally, the
Indian voyage of Pliny— we find not the least in-
dication of either orange, or even citron ; yet
Nearchus carefully notes the plants found in his
course, and speaks of palms, myrtles, and vines ; of
wheat, and generally of all the trees of Asia except
the olive. Arianus enlarges upon the vegetable
productions of those districts, gixing the descriptions
of those found in public roads.

lambolus saw in the unknown island, which ap-

156 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

pears to have been Sumatra, a grain that we recog-
nize as maize, which has been introduced into
Europe since the passage round the Cape of Good
Hope. We must then admit that the lemon and
orange trees could not have originated but in the
region beyond the Ganges, and that, in early cen-
turies of the empires of the Caesars, they had not
yet been brought from those climates- where they
were indigenous. They increased perhaps still
without culture in the midst of the woods, the hand
of man not having yet appropriated thern as orna-
ments for his garden. But this event could not
long be delayed. The beauty of the tree, and the
facility with which it reproduced itself, would
naturally extend the culture to adjoining provinces,
and the European, quick to seize the productions
of all the rest of the globe, would not fail to enrich
himself from these regions.

Facts prove that this result has been reached, but
we know not the date of passage, or the circum-
stances favoring it. We will now make this the
object of our researches. The Romans, at the time
of Pliny, had extended their commerce on the side
of India as far as it was ever carried during the
empire ; the power of Rome, instead of increasing,
only became weaker from this period ; and the fall
of the Western portion was accompanied in Europe
by the decay of letters, art, agriculture, and com-
merce. In this general overturn, the Greeks pre^i
served, it is true, with a taste for arts and luxury,

APPENDIX. 157

some relation!? Avith India, but trade with those
countries had never taken other course than by way
of the Red Sea, and this was closed from the seventh
century by the Arabian invasion of Egypt, which
soon followed the invasion of Arabia by the bar-
barians of the west (Ethiopians).

The commerce of these rich lands must then
have taken a much longer and more dangerous
route. The traders were obliged, after going down
the Indus, to reascend that stream, and by the
Bactrea (Bolkh) to reach ihe Oxus, and finally,
by the last pass into the Caspian Sea, from whence
they went into the Black Sea by the river Don.
But this long and dangerous voyage was never un-
dertaken by the traders of Constantinople ; they
would not have been able to traverse with safety
such an extent of country, partly a desert, and in
part inhabited by wandering tribes, most of them
nations with whom they were nearly always. at war,
who were destined in the end to swallow the Greek
Empire,

They therefore limited themselves to receiving
upon the borders of the Caspian Sea the mer-
chandise of India, brought to them by intermediate
people. One can scarcely realize that in such a
state of affairs the orange tree could pass into
Europe, for this beautiful part of the world had
never been in so general disorder or had so little
intercourse with India. Her luxury and commerce
were nearly annihilated, and the Arabians, whom

158 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

the new religion of Mahomet rendered fanatics and
conquerors, menaced on one side the tottering em-
pire of the Greeks, and on the other threatened to
plunge into barbarism the West, just beginning to
be civilized. Yet it was precisely at this point of
time, and by the conquering spirit of this people,
that the great changes were prepared which should
revive and extend farther than ever before the com-
mercial relations of Europe with Asia, and of Asia
herself with the more distant regions of her own
continent.

The Arabs, placed in a country which binds
together three grand divisions of the globe, have
extended their conquests into Asia and Africa much
farther than any people before them. Masters
of the Red Sea and Mediterranean, they had in-
vaded all the African Coast this side of Atlas
and penetrated beyond to the region of the Trog-
lodytes (Ethiopians living in caves), the ancient
limit of the Roman establishments on the east
coast of this continent ; they had made settlements
there, and according to the testimony of a historian
of the country, cited by Barros, they had populated
in the fourth century of the Hegira (a. d. 944) the
towns of Brava, Mombas, and Quiloa, whence they
extended themselves to Sofalo, INIelinda, and to the
islands of Bemba, Zanzibar, Monfra, Comoro, and
St. Laurent. On the side of Asia they had carried
their conquests, in the third century of the Hegira,
to the extremities of the Relnahar, and toward the

APPEXDIX. 159

middle of the fourth century, under the Selucidae,
they had established a colony at Kashgar, the usual
route of caravans to Toorkistan or to China, and
which, according to Albufeda (a geographer and
historian of Damascus), is situated in longitude 87°
{11° 57' ' consequently they had penetrated very
far into Asia.

Never had there been in Asia an empire so vast,
and never had the commerce of nations so near
Europe been pushed so far into India.

A position thus advantageous and favorable to the
commercial spirit and love of luxury which succeed-
ed, among the Arabs, the fury of conquest, would
naturally cause them to learn of and to appropriate
many exotic plants peculiar to the regions they had
conquered, or to the adjoining countries. Fond of
medicine and agriculture, in which they have
specially excelled, and of the pleasures of the open
country, in which they have always delighted, they
continued to profit with eagerness from the advan-
tages offered by their settlements, and the hot cli-
mates which they inhabited. Indeed, it is to them
that we owe the knowledge of many plants, perfumes,
and Oriental aromatics, such as musk, nutmegs,
mace, and cloves.

It was the Arabs who naturalized, in Spain, Sar-
dinia, and Sicily, the cotton-tree of Africa and the
sugar-cane of India ; and in their medicines we for
the first time hear of the chemical change known
as distillation, which appears to have originated in

i6o ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

the desire to steal from nature the perfumes of
flowers and aroma of fruits.

It is then not surprising- that we are indebted to
them for the acclimatization of the orange and
lemon trees in Syria, Africa, and some European
islands. It is certain that the orange was known to
their physicians from the commencement of the
fourth century of the Hegira. The Damascene has
given in his Antidotary the recipe for making oil
with oranges, and their seeds {oleum de dirajigula, et
oleum de ci/rangulorum seminibus. Mat. Silv. , f. 58),
and Avicenna, who died in 428 of the Hegira
(1050), has added the juice of the bigarade to his
syrup of alkedere et sued acetositatus diri (otrodj), et
sued acetositatis dtra7iguli (narendg)." These two
Arabians seem to have first employed it in medicine.

I have examined with care the authors of this
nation who preceded these, and find in no other the
least hint relating to these species. Mesue, even,
who speaks of the citron, says not a word of orange
or lemon. I have observed, on the contrary, that
Avicenna, in giving his recipe for making syrup of
alkedere, in which he puts juice of the bigarade,
announces it as a composition of his own invention.
This circumstance would indicate that this fruit had
been known but a short time in Persia, but it
suffices that it was cultivated there to prove that it
might, at once, pass into Irak (probably Irak-
Arabee, in Asiatic Turkey, comprising Bagdad),
and into Syria.

APPENDIX. i6i

These countries, wliich joined, were also con-
nected by political tics, which facilitate communica-
tion, and their inhabitants were more civilized then
than before or since. A passage by Massoudi, re-
ported by the learned M. deSacy in the notes to his
translation of Abd-Allatif, a writer of the twelfth
century of our era, seems to confirm our ideas upon
this subject, and to determine the date of this event.
It accords with all the data just given, and with his-
toric facts that we have collected. He expresses
himself thus : ' ' The round citron otrodj vwdawar
was brouglit from India since the year 300 of the
Hegira. It was first sowed in Oman (part of
Arabia), from thence carried to Irak (part of Old
Persia) and Syria, becoming very common in the
houses of Tarsus and other frontier cities of Syria,
at Antioch, upon the coasts of Syria, in Palestine,
and in Egypt. One knew it not before, but it lost
much of the sweet odor and fine color which it had
in India, because it had not the same climate, soil,
and all that which is peculiar to that country."
The lemon appeared perhaps a little later in these
different countries, for we see no mention of it either
in the Damascene or in Avicenna, but its descrip-
tion meets our eye in all the works of Arabian
writers of the twelfth century, especially Ebn-Beitar,
^vho has given to it an article in his dictionary of
simple remedies. The Latin translation of this
article was published in Paris in 1702 by Andres

i63 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

Balunense. The Imperial Library contains several
manuscripts of this dictionary.

I had thought to have found proof that the lemon
Avas known by the Arabs in the ninth century, hav-
ing seen in a history of India and China, dated 238
of the Hegira (a. d, 860), of which a French transla-
tion was printed in Paris in 1718, the writers had
spoken of the lemon as a fruit found in China.
But M. de Sacy, who examined the original,
ascertained that the word limoii was inserted by the
translator. In the Arabian text one finds only that
of oirodj, which signifies merely citron. Therefore
this history, far from proving that the Arabs knew
the lemon tree at this period, proves quite the con-
trary. It was not until the tenth century of our era
that this warlike people enriched with these trees the
garden of Oman (in South-eastern Arabia), whence
they were propagated in Palestine and Egypt. From
these countries they passed into Barbary and Spain,
perhaps also into Sicily.

Leon of Ostia tells us that in 1002 a prince of
Salerna presented citrine apples (/ow/a «/'r/«a) to the
Norman princes who had rescued him from the
Saracens.

The expression poina ciirina, used by this author,
appears to me to designate fruit like the citron rather
than the citron itself, then known under the name
of «'//'/, or of mala medica.

It is thus that we should recognize the orange in
the citron rotid spoken of by Massoudi in a passage

APPENDIX. i6j

already quoted. This conjecture accorded with
known events and data. The Arabs invaded Sicily
about the beginning of the ninth century (828), the
orange was taken from India to Arabia after the
year 300 of the Hegira — that is to .say, early in the
ninth century of our era. The citrine apples of
Leon d'Ostia dates from 1002, and were regarded
as objects rare and precious enough to be offered as
gifts to princes. Thus we have between its intro-
duction into Arabia and propagation in Sicily an
interval of nearly a century. In order to conform
to the expression of Massoudi, let us suppose that
the orange tree was brought from Arabia some thirty
or forty years later — say about 330 of Hegira. If
we allow fifty years for its propagation in Palestine,
Egypt, and Barbary, and finally twenty years for its
naturalization in Sicily, we fill precisely the interval
between one epoch and the other.

A passage in the history of Sicily, by Nicolas
Specialis, written in the fourteenth centurj', gives
still more probability to this opinion.

This writer, in recounting the devastation by the
army of the Duke of Calabria in 1383, in the
vicinity of Palermo, says that it did- not spare even
the trees of sour apples /'r^wwfj acidcs, called by the
people arangi, which had adorned since old time,
the royal palace of Cubba. (Nicolas Specialis, bk.
7, c. 17.)

The name Cubba given to this royal pleasure-
house seems to refer to the time of the Arabic rule ;

164 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

it is probably derived from the Arabic word Cobbah,
meaning vault or arch ; perhaps some grand dome
upon this country-house gave the place its name.

These data, however, do not appear to me
sufficiently strong to combat the authority of a very
reliable historian, who says expressly that the lemon
and the orange trees were not known in Italy or
France or in other parts of Christian Europe in the
eleventh century. Such are the words of Jacques
de Vitry, in speaking of Syrian trees in his history
of Jerusalem. The testimony of this bishop, who
ought to have known these countries, would appear
to have more weight than simple conjectures based
upon reasonings from analogy. Whatever be the
authority of this historian, compared with the pre-
sumptions advanced by us with regard to Sicily, it
will always be decisive respecting Lake Garda and
the coasts of Liguria and Provence.

There is not a doubt that in these last-named
countries the lemon and orange were unknown,
not only in the tenth but even in the eleventh cen-
tur}-. But an extraordinary event, destined to
change the face of Europe, was to open anew to the
people of the West the entrance to Syria and Paless-
tine. This was also the time when the Crusades,
which began at the close of the eleventh century
(1096), reawakened among Europeans the spirit of
commerce and a taste for arts and luxury.

The Crusaders entered Asia Minor as conquerors,
and thence spread themselves as traders into all

APPEXDIX. 165

parts of Asia. They were not mere soldiers, but
brave men drawn from their famiHes by religious
enthusiasm, and who, in conse([uence, would hold
fast to their country and their homes. They could
not see without coveting these charming trees which
embellished the vicinity of Jerusalem, with whose
exquisite fruits nature has favored the climates of
Asia.

It was, indeed, at this time that Europe enriched
its orchards by many of these trees, and that the
French princes carried into their country the dam-
son, the St. Catharine (a pear), the apricot from Alex-
andria, and other species indigenous to those regions.

Sicilians, Genoese, and Provincials transported to
Salerno, St. Remo, and Hyeres the lemon and
orange trees. Hear what a historian of the thir-
teenth century says to us on this subject ; he had
been in Palestine with the Crusaders, and his word
should have great weight.

Jacques de Vitry expressed himself thus : " I^-
sides many trees cultivated in Italy, Genoa, France,
and other parts of Europe, we find here (in Pales-
tine) species peculiar to the country, and of which
some are sterile and others bear fruit. Here are
trees bearing very beautiful apples — the color of
the citron — upon which is distinctly seen the mark
of a man's tooth. This has given them the com-
mon name of pomme d' Adam (Adam's apple) ;
others produce sour fruit, of a disagreeable taste
{pon(ici), which are called limcus. Their juice is

l66 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

used for seasoning food, because it is cool, pricks
the palate, and provokes appetite. We also see
cedars of Lebanon, very fine and tall, but sterile.
There is a species of cedar called cedre maritime,
whose plant is small but productive, giving very
fine fruits, as large as a man's liead. Some call
them citrons, or' pommcs citrons. These fruits are
formed of a triple substance, and have three differ-
ent tastes. The first is warm, the second is tem-
perate, the last is cold. Some say tliat this is the
fruit of which God commanded in Leviticus :
' Take you the first day of the year the fruit of the
finest tree.' We see in this country another species
of citrine apples, borne by small trees, and of which
the cool part is less and of a disagreeable and acid
taste ; these the natives call oreiigts."

Behold, then, the Adam's apple, the lemon, the
citron, and the bigarade found in Palestine by the
Crusaders, and regarded as new trees foreign to
Europe !

This passage does not accord, as far as the citron
is concerned, with what Palladius says. He tells
us that this plant was, in his time, cultivated in
Sardinia and in Sicily. But we see, by Jacques de
Vitry, that the citron of Palestine was distinguished
by the extraordinary size of its fruit, equal to a
man's head, and it must be that this last was a
variety unknown to Europe.

It is, indeed, only since this epoch that we find
in European historians and writers upon agriculture

APPENDIX. 167

any mention of these trees. Doubtless the Arabians
had already naturalized them in Africa and Spain,
where the temperature favored so much their growth.
Doubtless Liguria is the part of Italy where the cul-
ture of the Agrumi has made most progress. We
have certain testimony to this in the work of a doc-
tor of medicine of ]Mantua, writing near the middle
of the thirteenth century. lie says :

" The lemon is one of the species of citrine
apples, which are four in number. First, citron.
Secondly, orange {ciiranguluui), of which we have
spoken before. Thirdly, the lemon. Fourthly,
the fruit vulgarly called lima. These four species
are very well known, principally in Liguria. Tlie
lemon is a handsome fruit, of fme odor. Its form
is more oblong than that of the orange, and, like
the orange, it is full of a sharp acid juice, very
proper for seasoning meats. They make of its
flowers odoriferous waters, fit for the use of the
luxurious.

" The trees of these four species are very similar,
and all are thorned. The leaves of the citron and
lime are larger and less deeply colored than those
of the orange or lemon. The lemon is composed
of four different substances, as well as the citron,
lime, and orange. It has an outer skin, not as deep
in color as that of the orange, but which has more of
the white. It is hot and biting ; thus it shows its
bitter taste. The second skin or pith, between the
outer skin and the juice, is white, cold, and difficult

1 68 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

to digest. The third substance is its juice, which is
sharp and of a strong acid, which will expel worms,
and is very cold. The fourth is the seed, which,
like that of the orange, is warm, dry, and bitter."
(See Mat. Silv., " Pandecta Medicinae, " fol. 125.)

This testimony of Silvaticus is strengthened by all
the authors who have written upon the citrus. There
is not one but is convinced that these trees were for
a long time very rare in Italy and in France, and
that Liguria alone has traded in them since they
were first known there. Sicily and the kingdom
of Naples cultivated, perhaps before the Ligurians,
the citron and orange trees ; but in spite of the ad-
vantages of climate, it was only as objects of curi-
osity, limited to some delightful spots. This fact
is established by the manner in which most writers
of the twelfth century express themselves on this
subject. Hugo Falcandus, who wrote of the ex-
ploits of the Normans in Sicily, from 1145 to 1169,
saw there liimies and orangers, and points them out
as singular plants, whose culture was still very rare.
(Hugo Falcandus, See Muratori, Rerum Italica-
rum Scriptores. )

Ebn-al-A\vam, an Arabian writer upon agricul-
ture at Seville, near the end of the twelfth century,
and whose work, translated into Spanish, was pub-
lished at Madrid in 1802, speaks as if the culture
were very much extended in Spain. Abd-AUatif,
who was contemporary with the last-named author,
expresses himself in like manner, and describes also

APPENDIX. 169

a number of varieties cultivated in his time in Kgypt
— a circumstance showing that tliese trees had
greatly nuiltiplicnl. Their progress was slower in
Italy and France. It appears that the lemon tree,
brought first into these parts as a variety of citron,
was for a long time designated by European writers
under the generic name of citrus, although in Italy
and the South of France the people had known it
from the beginning under the proper name of limon
— a name which has come down to us without sub-
mitting to any change. In fact, wc find it in botan-
ical works called citrus limon, or mala limonia, and
sometimes citrus medica. The last was indefinitely
used to designate lemon, citron, and orange, and
ver}- often the genus citrus.

The orange appeared in Italy under the name of
orenges, which the people modified, according to
the pronunciations of the different sections, into
arangio, naranzo, aranza, aranzo, litronc, cdrangolo,
viclaraticio, mclangolo, arancio. One meets succes-
sively all these names in works of the thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, such as those of
Hugo Falcandus, Nicolas Specialis, Blondus P'lavius,
Sir Brunetto Latini, Ciriffo Calvaneo, Bencivenni,
Boccaccio, Giustiniani, Leandro Alberti, and several
others. The Provenfals also received this tree un-
der the name of orenges, and have changed it from
time to time, in different provinces, into arra?igi,
airange, orcnge, and final!}- orange. (See Glossar\- of
the Roman Language, by Roquefort.)

lyo ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

During several centuries the Latin authors tound
themselves embarrassed in designating this fruit,
which had no name in that language. The first
who spoke of it used a phrase indicating its charac-
teristics, accompanying it with the popular name of
ara7igi, Latinized into onngcs, arangias, arantim/i.

Thus, Jacques de Vitry, who calls the oranges
poma citrina, adds, " The Arabs call them orcnges."
And Nicolas Specialis designated them as ponunes
aigres [acnpomorum arbor es), observing that the
people call them arangias. These have been fol-
lowed by Blondus Flavins and many others.
]\Iatheus Silvaticus first gave to the orange the name
of citranguhim, and this denomination seems to have
been followed for a long time by physicians and
translators of Arabic works, who have very gen-
erally adopted it for rendering the Arabic word
arindj.

Thus, citraiigulum was received for more than a
century in the language of science. Finally,
little by little, were adopted the vulgar Latinized
names in use among other writers, such as authors
of chronicles, etc. , and they have written succes-
sively, arattgm?n, aranciiim, araniiiDn, anarajt/iiwi,
nerantium, aurantium, pomen aiircum. The Greeks
followed in the same steps. They have either
Grecianized the name of fiarefigi\ which was in use
among Syrian Arabs, or they received it from the
Crusaders from the Holy Land, and have adopted
it in their language, calling it nerantzion. These

ArrEXDIX. 1 7 I

have, however, always been considered vulgar names,
and in general the belter Latin writers have maile
use of the geueric name, ci/rus, for designating the
AgTumi.

This usage, followed by most of the writers on
history and chorography. often occasions uncertainty
and difiiculty in researches concerning the begin-
ning of this culture in the different countries where
these trees have been introduced. The use of it as
seasoning for food, brought from Palestine to
Liguria, to Provence, and to Sicily, penetrated to
the interior of Italy and France. The taste for
confections was propagated in Europe with the in-
troduction of sugar, and this delicate food became
at once a necessary article to men in easy circum-
stances, and a luxury upon all tables. It was,
above all, as confections that the Agrumi entered
into commerce, and we see by the records of Savona
that they were sent into cold parts of Italy, where
people were very greedy for them.

After having cultivated these species for the use
made of their fruits, they soon cultivated them as
ornaments for the gardens. The monks began to
fill with these trees the courts of their monasteries,
in climates suited to their continual growth, and
soon one founel no convent not surrounded by
them. Indeed, the courts and gardens of these
houses show us now trees of great age, and it is
said that the old tree, of which we see now a rejeton
in the court of the convent of St. Sabina, at Rome,

172 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

was planted by St. Dominic about the year 1200.
This fact has no other foundation than tradition,
but this tradition, preserved for many centuries,
not only among the monks of the convent, but
also among the clergy of Rome, is reported by
Augustin Gallo, who, in 1559, speaks of this
orange as a tree existing since time immemorial.
If we refuse to attribute its planting to St. Dominic,
we must at least refer it to a period soon after — that
is, to the end of the thirteenth century, at the
latest.

Nicolas Specialis, in the passage cited on an-
other page, in describing the havoc made by the
besiegers in the suburbs of Palermo, regrets the
destruction of Grangers, or trees of sour apples
{pof}i?/iiS aigres), which he regards as rare plants,
embellishing the pleasure-house of Cubba.

Blondus Flavins, a writer of the middle of the
following century, speaks of the orange on the coast
of Amalfi (a city of Naples) as a new plant, which
as yet had no name in scientific language (Blond.
Flav. , Ital. Illus. , p. 420); and he extols the val-
leys of Rapallo and San Remo, in Liguria, for the
culture of the citrus, a rare tree in Italy. " Cugus
ager (San Remo)," these are his words, " est citri,
palmaquae, arborum in Italia rarissirarum, ferax"
(Blond. Flav., Ital. Illust., p. 296). Lastly,
Pierre de Crescenzi, Senator of Bologna, who wrote
in 1300 a treatise on agriculture, speaks only of the
citron tree. We find in his expressions no hint cf

APPENDIX. 173

lemon or orange. The culture of these trees, then,
had been begun in the fourteenth century only
in a few places, but was extended in proportion
as arts and luxury advanced the civilization of
Europe.

I'he orange was from the first valued not alone
for the beauty of its foliage and quality of its fruit,
of which the juice was used in medicine, but also
fpr the aroma of its flowers, of which essences were
made. Pharmacists have employed with success the
juice of the lemon in making medicines.

The orange tree must have been taken to Provence
about the time it entered Liguria. It is to be pre-
sumed that the city of Hyeres, so celebrated for the
softness of its climate and the fertility of its soil,
received it from the Crusaders, because from this
port the expeditions to the Holy Land took their
departure. We see, indeed, that it was greatly
multiplied there, and in 1566 the plantations of
oranges within its territory were so extensive and
well grown as to present the aspect of a forest.

The territory of Nice, so advantageously placed
between Liguria and Provence, would necessarily
receive from its neighbors a tree so suited to the
sofmess of its climate, sheltered by the Alps, and to
the nature of its soil, fertilized by abundant waters.
It appears that the culture had already greatly ex-
tended toward the middle of the fourteenth centur}-,
as we find in the history of Dauphin}- that the Dau-
phin Humbert, returning from Naples in 1336,

174 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

bought at Nice twenty plants of orange trees.
(Hist, of Dauphiny, bk. 2, p. 271.)

From Naples and Sicily the orange and lemon
trees must have been carried into the Roman States,
into Sardinia and Corsica, and to Malta. The
islands of the Archipelago perhaps first received
them, because, belonging in great part to the
Genoese and Venetians, it is probable they were
the intermediate points whence the Crusaders of
Genoa and Venice transported the plants to their
homes. From these isles the trees afterward
spread into the delightful coast of Salo on the
shores of Lake Garda, where, in Gallo's time
(1559), they were regarded as acclimated from
time immemorial. Finally, tlie orange and the
lemon penetrated into the colder latitudes, and per-
haps one owes to the desire of enjoying their flov/-
ers and fruit the invention of hot-houses, afterward
called orangeries. (The name of orangerie is a
modern word in the French language. Olivier de
Serre does not use it — he calls this kind of in-
ciosure orange-houses (p. (y^^. The Italian lan-
guage has no word responding precisely to
orangery. We find in some modem authors,
equivalent words, such as arana'era, cedroniera,
citronera. (Fontana, Dizionario rustico, bk. i, p.
74.) But the ancient writers styled these places
for preserving these trees by the phrase, ' ' Stanzone
pericedri." In Tuscany and the Roman States
they call them rimcsse. In other places they are

APFEXDIX. 175

known under the name of serre (inclosure).
Matioli says that in his time they cultivated the
oranges in Italy on the shores of the sea and of the
most famous lakes, as well as in the gardens of the
interior, but he says nothing of the places for shel-
tering them. Gallo speaks of rooms designed to
receive the boxes of orange trees, which were very
numerous at Brescia, but he does not designate
them by any particular name. The Latin writers
also used a periphrase. Ferraris calls an orangery
kctum hihcniiim. Others call it cella citraria. )

This agricultural luxury was unknown in Europe
before the introduction of the citron tree, ^^'e
find not the least trace of it either in Greek or Latin
writers.

It is true that from the time of the Emperor
Tiberius in Rome they inclosed melons in certain
portable bo.xes of wood, which were exposed to the
sun in winter to make the fruit grow out of season.
These inclosures were secured from the effects of
cold by sashes or frames, and received the sun's
rays through diaphanous stones {spccularid), which
held the place of our glass. But it seems they used
no fire for heating them, ami that they merely in-
closed thus indigenous plants, of which they wished
to force the fruiting out of season, it being a spec-
ulation of the cultivator rather than a luxurious
ornament for embellishing the gardens. (Pliny,
bk. 19, chap. 5, p. ii^i, and Columell, bk. 2,
chap. 3, p. 42.) It is after the introduction of

176 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

the citron tree into Europe that we begin to find
among the ancients examples of artificial coverings
and shelters against cold. Palladius is the first who
speaks of these coverings, but only as appropriate
for the citron, and gives no description of them.
Florentin, who wrote probably after him, describes
them at more length, and it seems by his expres-
sions that in his time the citron was covered in the
bad season by wooden roofs, which could be with-
drawn when there was no occasion to defend them
from cold, and which also could be arranged to
secure for them the rays of the sun. (Florent., bk.
10, chap. 7, p. 219.)

This agricultural luxury, which began to appear
about the time of Palladius and Florentin, must
have been entirely destroyed in Italy by the in-
vasion of the barbarians. I have remarked that
Pierre de Crescenti, who wrote a treatise on agricul-
ture in 1300, while treating of the citron, speaks
only of walls to defend it from the north, and of
some covers of straw. Brunsius and Antonius,
quoted by Sprengel, have thought to find in the
Statutes of Charlemagne indications of a hot-
house. 1 have closely examined the article cited
by those writers (in Comment, de reb. Franc.
Orient, bk. 2, p. 902, etc.), but have not found a
word that could make me believe this means of
preserving delicate plants was employed at that
period. I have even remarked that in these ordi-
nances many plants are named which Charlemagne

APPENDIX. 177

wished to have in his fields, but no word to be con-
strued into ordering a shelter for any, unless the
fig and almond. It is astonishing that, having
spoken in detail of all the parts of the house, of
laboring utensils the most ordinary, and even of
those of housekeeping, he forgot an object of such
great luxury as a hot-house. But in proportion as
civilization and commerce increased riches and ex-
travagance, the fruit of this tree became more
sought for, and at the same time more common ;
while, above all, the properties of the new species
just introduced extended its use in medicine, in
agreeable drinks, and as a luxury of the table. At
first they were in cold countries only a foreign pro-
duction procured from the South, but afterward the
people began to covet from the more happy climates
the ornament of these trees, and to wish, above all,
to embellish with them their gardens. In temper-
ate climes they began to cultivate them in vases,
depositing them during winter in caves ; and in the
cold latitudes the necessity of struggling against na-
ture gave the idea of constructing apartments which
could be heated at pleasure by fire, and which
would shelter the plants from the rigor of the
season.

It is difficult to fix the date at which they began to
build edifices for protection of oianges. The oldest
trace of it that I have been able to find is furnished
by a passage in the histor}- of Dauphiny, dated 1336.
(We find in this histor}-. printed at Geneva in 1722,

1 78 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

an extract from an account of expenses made by
Humbert, the Dauphin, in his voyage to Naples in
1336. In the expenses for the return we see the
sum of ten tarins — the tarin was the thirtieth part
of an ounce of Naples — for the purchase of twenty
orange plants. " Item pro arboribus viginti de
plantis arangiorum ad plantandum taren. " X. Hist,
of Daup., bk. 2, p. 276.) This, it is true, offers
few circumstantial details for fixing the fact that the
princes of Dauphiny had really, at that time, an
orangery ; but as this historian tells us that Hum-
bert bought at Nice twenty roots of oranges for a
plantation [ad platitandum), it is to be supposed that
he had in his palace at Vienna a place designed to
preserve them in the winter ; for without this pre-
caution they certainly would have perished in the
rigorous climate of Dauphiny (in the south-west part
of France.)

This luxury must have passed immediately into
the capital of France, and though I have not yet
found in history indications of these establishments
before 1500, it is very probable that they were
known there about the middle of the fourteenth
century.

The celebrated tree, preserved still in the orangery
at Versailles under the name of Francis First, or
Grand Bourbon, was taken from the Constable of
Bourbon in the seizure made of his goods in 1523.
And this prince, who, it is said, possessed it for
eighty years, could not have kept it except in an

APPENDIX. 179

orangery. (The orange tree at Versailles, known
as Francis Premier, is the most beautiful tree that I
have seen in a box. It is twenty feet high, and
extends its branches to a circumference of forty feet.
Spite of that, I scarcely believe that this fine stalk
dates from the fourteenth century. It is too vigorous,
and the skin is too smooth, to be able to count so
many years. It is probable that in so long a course
of time it has been cut, and that the present tree is
a sprout from the old root. This might have oc-
curred after the frost of 1 709, which penetrated even
into sheltered places. One circumstance gives
foundation to this conjecture. This tree is com-
posed of two stalks, which both come out of the
earth, and have a common stock. This is never the
way the tree grows by nature, still less in a state of
culture, and from roots held in vases. I have
mostly remarked it in the greater number of trees
growing upon a stump which had been razeed at
the level of the ground. In such case one is forced
to leave two suckers, because the sap, being very
abundant, could not develop itself in one shoot.
It would experience a sort of reaction, which would
suffocate the stump and make it perish. This is a
well-known fact in the South, where we cultivate
largely the orange, and where the trees of double
stems are generally recognized as rejetons, or suck-
ers from old roots. )

After all these data we are authorized to think
that in the fourteenth century they had begun already

i8o ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

to erect buildings designed to create for exotic plants
an artificial climate. But at the beginning of the
fifteenth century orangeries passed from kings' gar-
dens to those of the people, chiefly in countries
where they were not compelled to heat them by fire,
as in Brescia, Romagna, and Tuscany. (See INIatioli,
who says that in his day the orange was cultivated in
Italy, in all the gardens of the interior, where cer-
tainly it could not live, unless in orangeries (Diosc.
c. 132). We also find in Sprengel's History of Bot-
any that in this country there were at that time
many botanical gardens where they cultivated
exotic plants — a circumstance which presupposes
the necessity of hot-houses. )

About the middle of the seventeenth century this
luxury was very general, and we see distinguished
by their magnificence and grandeur the orangeries
of the Farnese family at Parma ; of the Cardinal
Xantes ; Aldobrandini and Pio, at Rome ; of the
Elector Palatine at Heidelberg (Oliv. de Sen, p.
^Z^ j of Louis Xni. in France ; and even at
Ghent, in Belgium, that of M. de Hellibusi, who
imported plants from Genoa, and carried his estab-
lishment to the last degree of magnificence. (See
Ferraris, p. 150, where he describes the orangery of
M. de Hellibusi at Ghent, and that of Louis XIH,
at Paris. The latter has been replaced by that of
Versailles, of which the magnificence renders it
perhaps the finest monument of this kind to be
found in Europe.)

APPEXDIX.

i8l

We now see orangeries in all the civilized parts
of Europe, it being an embellishment necessary to
all country-seats and houses of pleasure.

COMMENDATIONS.

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and is the result of close observation and careful experi-
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is one dollar, which may be considered as high for a
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time and money to every new-beginner in oarnge plant-
ing."— The Senii-riopical.

" Editor Eastern Herald :

" In your last issue you inserted a paragraph copied
from the Sun and Press, relative to a book on orange
culture, which will soon make its appearance, written by
Rev. T. W. Moore, of Fruit Cove.

" Mr. Moore has over fifty acres in fruits of various
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tend engaging in the cultivation of the orange on the St.
Johns. To all such I recommend it.

" Respectfully yours,

" W. C. Hargrove."

COMMENDATIONS. 183

Mr. H., of Palatka, has been one of our most success-
ful cuUurists, and skilled as he is, he says " he has
learned many things of value from the book."

" The author gives every step from the planting of the
seed through all the stages of growth and manipulation,
till the tree is at full bearing age. I feel certain that
this little book is destined to work a vast change in the
manner of treating the orange tree, and the new-comer
will find in it directions, plainly given, which will en-
able him to go at once to work in the right way to make
an orange grove. "--77^^ East Florida Banner.

Mr. A. I. Bidwell, of the Arlington Nursery, and one
of the most successful and reliable in Florida, says :
" I heartily recommend it to all my correspondents ask-
ing information on orange growing."

Mr. Pillow, a successful orange grower near Manda-
rin, and horticulturist from Rochester, N. Y., says :
" If I could have had such a book when beginning to
grow oranges, it would have saved me over a hundred
dollars."

Mr. Greenleaf, jeweller, of Jacksonville, and who is im-
proving one of the largest wild groves in the State, says :
" The book, if I could have had it one year ago, would
have saved me a thousand dollars."

Mr. Bishop, who is president of the Fruit-Growers*
Association of Florida, and owner of three of the finest
groves in the State, says : " It contains all the informa-
tion necessary for success."

" I have been planting and cultivating orange trees for
forty years, but have learned more from your book than
I had done from all my experience." — Geo. Acosia, of
Mandarin, Fla.

1 84 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA.

" Best English work ever published on the subject." —
Methodist Quarterly Review.

" This compendious treatise, on a subject which is
every year attracting wider attention, is recommended
by the State Bureau of Immigration, and has every ap-
pearance of being written with both candor and knowl-
edge. The author's experience as an orange grower cov-
ers a period of more than ten years, and his range of
observation has included not only the whole of Florida,
but nearly all the orange-producing regions of Europe
and America. His book furnishes the needed corrective
to the exaggerated and somewhat fantastic stories that in-
terested parties now and then set afloat through the press,
and demonstrates — what every discriminating reader
might readily have guessed — that in orange growing, as
in all other occupations, success is the result, not of blind
chance, but of patient and well-directed labor. There
can be no doubt that many hundreds of would-be orange
culturisls have failed because they did not know the con-
ditions and methods of success. To all such, Mr.
Moore's treatise would have been invaluable ; and it will
greatly aid those who may now (or in future) be contem-
plating a similar attempt. It contains precise and prac-
tical information on location, soils, planting, budding,
cultivation, manures, packing, preserving, and the like,
and it is noticeably free from mere padding or purpose-
less writing." — Eclectic Magazine, N. V.

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FORESTRY

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