64 CITI'.US AURANTIUM. 



caused by frost, it may bo observed, that there are more standard trees planted 

 in Florida, at the nresent time, than thert? ever wen; at any Inrmer ])eri<)d. J^re- 

 vious to l^:i."), St. AMizustiiif prodiK^ed anntuilly from two milhoii lo two million 

 five hundred thousand orantres. which were eipial in l)ulk to about (ifteen thou- 

 sand barrels. They were shi|)|)ed to Charleston, IJaltimore, .New York. IJoston, 

 &c., and usually brought from one dollar to three dollars per hundred, or 

 about three dollars per barrel, producing in the aggregate, a little short of fifty 

 thousand dollars j)er annum. During the orange season, the port of St. Augustine 

 formerly ine.sented quite a connntM-cial aspect, there being fre<[uently from fifteen 

 to twenty vessels in it at a time, loading with fruit. A person who was the owner 

 of one hundred standard trees, coidd safely rely on a yearly income arising 

 therefrom of two tliousand dollars, sometimes three tliousand, and even four 

 thousand dollars! In 1829, Mr. A. Alvarez gathered from a single tree, six 

 thousand five hundred oranges ; and it is said that there was a tree on the St. 

 John's, which bore ten thousand fruits in one year ! Hut ordinarily each tree 

 produces about two thousand fruits. 



The orange has also been an object of cidturc for a long time in Carolina and 

 Georgia ; and in 1762, it will be seen by the London " Annual Register'" for tliat 

 year, that there were four barrels of this fruit shipped from Charleston to Eng- 

 land. 



Soil and Situation. The orange is found to flourish best in a warm, fertile 

 soil, composed of sand and loam, or sand and clay, not too dry, and sheltered 

 from chilly and parching winds. But it is cultivated in varied soils, and will 

 thrive in any country, with a mean annual temperature of 62 to 84 F. 

 Hence the locality favourable to the growth of this species depends fully as 

 much upon soil and situation as upon latititde ; and we are induced to infer, 

 that, if the temperature be sufficiently high for maturing the flavour, the fruit 

 is delicious in proportion to the uniform salubrity of the air ; and that those 

 high temperatures which often force a very large expansion of fruit are 

 against the fineness of its quality. For instance, we will contrast the fruit 

 of St. Michael's, in the Azores, of Bahia, in Brazil, or of some of the West 

 India Islands, with that of Malta. The former is always exposed to the 

 equalizing breezes wafted across the Atlantic, while that of the latter, lying 

 near the arid and sultry coast of Africa, is subject to more changes of season, 

 and a greater and higher range of temperature. There is also some diflerence in 

 the soil of these places. The artificial earth, which forms the soil of Malta, was 

 originally brought from Sicily ; and by the decomposition of the rock, or of the 

 saline particles brought by the same " pestilent sirocco" that blasts the fruit of 

 the south of Italy and Sicily, a crust is formed, which, if not removed by trench- 

 ing, at the end of a: certain number of years, ceases to be productive, or the 

 oranges become so bitter, that they are neither palatable nor healthful. But St. 

 Michael's, Bahia, and the other places referred to, have no such disadvantage ; 

 the soils in those places are native, and deposite nothing calculated to injure 

 their fertility or impair the qualities of their fruit. The same fact may be corrob- 

 orated in comparing the climate of the slopes and valleys of the Estrella, near 

 the lower Tagus, and that of the maritime Alps, and the Apennines, in Provence 

 and Liguria, with that of Andalusia. At St. Augustine, in Florida, the fruit is 

 generally of a superior quality, owing to some peculiar influence of the soil and 

 climate. The mean annual temperature of that place in 1842, was 73 F., 

 and in 1843, 72. The extreme heats from June to September are usually as 

 high as 92 ; but they have been known to reach 97. The extremes of cold 

 generally range from 38 to 40 ; but sometimes the mercury has fallen as low as 

 30**. On the 9th of February, 1835, the time that nearly all the orange- 

 trees of Florida were cut off by frost, it is said that the thermometer indicated a 



