S36 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[June i, 1886. 



'as lost much of its former estimation, in the market. 

 "urhiips a supply of fresh seeds from, Virginia is 

 u-sirHble to improve the stock. But a monopoly, we 

 .-re afraid, has led people both to scamp the work 

 iDil the curing. It is time that tliis lu-anch of agri- 

 culture should be better looked to. India is going 

 in for toljacco culli%'ation. Time was, when the 

 Pravancore Ivajah eng.iged the services of mercliants 

 n Colombo by sending large sums of money to purchase 

 •falfua tobacco. Many a Tamil broker and tobacco 

 :nerchant can look back to that period as the time 

 wlion they turned the corner on the road to fortune. 

 In Uva wliat was called Uadnlla cigars were looked 

 upon as quite wortli the money you paid for tl\em. 

 Till a monopoly of the trade, by Moomien and a 

 ready market for the le.aves, led to scamping, and 

 •libhouest preparation of cigars, green and inferior 

 tobacco being largely used. Those who were duped 

 it first in making large purchases, were disgusted and 

 from mouth to mouth the report spread that the 

 BaduUa cigars were an imposition and clicat : and so 

 both preparation of tobacco, and its agriculture, are 

 the history of the past. In trade, as in agriculture, 

 honesty is the best policy. Let our tobacco planters 

 and cigar-makers and merchants make this the rule 

 and not the e.vceptiou. — " Ceylon Patriot." 



ORANGE GROWING IN FLORIDA. 

 During the season of 1884-5 a few boxes of Florida 

 oranges were shipped, as an experiment, to England. 

 They sold, both in London and Edinburgh, at prices 

 which, though justified for the nonce by the novelty and 

 the unquBStionable superiority of the fruit to that com- 

 mon in the home mtirkets, were nevertheless " fancy" 

 prices. There is no doubt that the experiment, having 

 once succeeded, will be repeated on a larger scale, and 

 the time will jjrobably come, before long, when the 

 oranges of Florida can, and will, bo sold in England at 

 prices at once remunerative to the seller and within tlu^ 

 means of most consumers. The question, however, will 

 still remain wliether tlie price they will connnand in 

 any market can reasonably be called remunci'ative to 

 the grower. 



Apart from the many " English colonics" established 

 in recent years throughout Florida, there are few si)ots 

 in the peninsula which have not a few young English- 

 men among the number of their settlers ; and, while it 

 is not my intention to discourage such of my ytunig 

 fellow-countrymen as are inclined to seek a home and a 

 Jiving in Florida, I wish dispassionately to examine the 

 prospect which is iulluencinjj their choice of a new 

 country, liefore doing this, let me preface a word or 

 two defining my own position. Three points only need 

 be touched upon in this connection — (1) That my 

 choice of Floriila as a temporary home was dictated 

 solely by considerations of health, and was absolutely free 

 from any consideration.s of money-making ; therefore I 

 can justly claim to be impartial. (2) That I own a 

 tract of laud in Floriila, .and am thirefore interested iu 

 the ])rogress ami development fif the state ; and (3) 

 that I have not planted, and do not intend to plant, an 

 orange grove upon any part of my land, and have, there- 

 fore, nothing to gain or lose by competition, anil have 

 no interest Ijut that of a consumer in the success or 

 failure of the orange-growing industry. 



With this preface let me turn to the main question, 

 " Is it possible to make a living by orange culture iu 

 Florida?" I have asked this question hundreds of times 

 of older sett'ers than myself — men whose experience 

 should qualify them to answer it without hesitation. 

 As was to be expected, the answers have differed widely 

 in different cases; but when 1 have put the further 

 question, " Have you made, or are you now making, a 

 living V>y orange-growing ?" there has been much more 

 unanimity in the rephes. I do not, of course, protend 

 to say that there are not those iu l''lorida who are 

 making, not a mere living, but a handsome income, by 

 the produce of thoir orange groves. Several groves 

 coidd be mentioned whose fortunate owners are 

 netting twenty, thirty, and even forty thousand dollars 

 a year by the sale of their golden fruit ; but these are 

 exceptional cases. Inquiry will almo.st invariably elicit 



the facts that these men are amongst the earliest settl- 

 ers ; that they had the choice of the best land in the 

 State of Florida at a time when that laud was to be had 

 for the asking; that they went through years of toil, 

 privation, and anxiety, before they could see any return 

 for their outlay and their labour;" .and that their groves 

 are now costing them every year a small fortune in 

 wages and cultivation, to say nothing of the incessant 

 anxiety which makes the hanssonie return they afford 

 an uncommonly hard-earned income. 



And such being the case with the old settlers, what 

 is the prospect for the new comer H Growers of oranges 

 in Florida are divided into two \'ery elearly-ilefined 

 classes. The one consists of that large aiul ever-increas- 

 ing body of wealthy Northerners whom the severity of 

 the Northern winter is driving yi'ar by year to the 

 sunny skies and mild climate of the southern peninsula. 

 Having spent one winter in Florida, they are fully 

 determined to spend niortr, and, with a view to creating 

 an interest for themselves in their .Southern home, they 

 buy a parcel of land, plant it with orange trees, and look 

 forward hopefully to reaping a golden harvest. With 

 most of them it is not a mere pastime to which they are 

 devoting a portion of their superfluous wealth ; it is a 

 speculation upon which they intend to make a hand- 

 some profit, and, considering it iu this light, they are 

 willing to lavish their dollars upon the preliminary 

 stages, looking to the future to recoup their outlay with 

 interest. During their absence iu the summer months 

 the grove is left in the hands of a caretaker, who sees 

 that it is duly ploughed, cultivated, and fertilised, and 

 that his own bill is duly presented and paid by his 

 patron. 



The other class consists of those who for various rea- 

 sons have chosen Florida as their permanent home, and, 

 induced by the example of those around them, look to 

 orange culture as a means of making a living. For 

 them the prospect, when reduced to hard practical fact, 

 is less hopeful. They have brought with them a sum of 

 money, large or small, which is really their capital, upon 

 the judicious investment of which they depend for 

 subsistence. They find that land in Florida h.as already 

 risen in the estimati' of its owners to prices far beyond 

 those at which really good arable land in other .States is 

 held. The owners are shrewd enough to know their 

 market, and to see that the ever-growing tide of winter 

 travel will enable them sooner or later to get whatever 

 they choose to ask for the commodity they otfer. In 

 many cases it cost them nothing at first, and they are 

 therefore sacrificing nothing by Imlding it till the •■ good 

 time" comes. The bona fide settler must therefore ])ay 

 their price or go without, and, having once made up his 

 mind to do the former, he finds that he has made a 

 considerable hole iu his capital when he comes into 

 possession of his title deeds. 



<!)range-growing lands may bo roughly divided into 

 two classes, pine laud and "hammock." The former, as 

 its name implies, is in its natural state covered with pine 

 trees, more or less thickly, and generally, too, has an 

 undergrowtk of what is known as scruh-p.ilmetto and 

 scrub-oak, or " Tdack Jack." Hammock is the name 

 given to the mi>re densely-wooded land lying upon the 

 margin of laki\s <ir rivers, ami covered with cabbage 

 palms, wild orangi*. magnolia, .and oaks, ami other deci- 

 duous trees and shrubs, forming a perfect jungle, and 

 mated with vines of every description. Hammock ]:uid, 

 owing to the nature of its growths, is far the more 

 valuable for cultivation, as the decay of countless gener- 

 ations of plants and leaves have supplied the soil with 

 the rich Ino/iv^ which is the one thing wanting to the 

 soil of the rest of Florida. It therefore commands 

 much higher prices than pine land equally well situated 

 as regards facility for transport, and iu another way, 

 shortly to b(^ touched U))on, the preliminary expense of 

 a purchase of hammock comes heavily upon the would- 

 be orange grower. TIutc is also the important con- 

 sideration prior to purchase of land, that, whereas the 

 " high pine" is the healthiest locality in Florida, stand- 

 ing above tho reach of marsliy exhalations, and allording 

 as a rule a plentiful supply of wholesome water twenty 

 or thirty feet beneath its surface, tho hammocks are 

 most invariably uninhabitable — the very richness of soil. 



