The ^/fj'lioxera. 301 



Orange Culture in Florida. 



A RECENT number of the Rural South Land contains a letter from a gentleman 

 who has been pensding the winter with Colonel Hardee, of •' concussion " celeb- 

 rity, near Jacksonville, Fla., from which we extract as follows : " Your correspond- 

 ent, J. B. E,,, makes inrxuiries relative to the budding and grafting of the orange. 

 Now, I cannot speak for your State, but budding and grafting is a perfect failure in 

 Florida, compared to the sweet seedling. The well known Dummett's grove on 

 Indian River has eighteen hundred budded trees in full bearing, being about twenty- 

 five years old, and the largest yield it has ever made was one quarter million oranges. 

 This year it only produced one thousand, while Hart's grove just opposite Pilatka has 

 only four hundred trees, sweet seedlings, occupying four acres, produced an average 

 of two thousand per tree, and brought Mr. Hart every year from $9,000 to $12,000. 

 " But persons planting the seed for seedling trees should be careful in selecting the 

 seed from seedling and not budded trees, for the latter is not reliable, often produc- 

 ing sour oranges. The seed from Hart's grove planted in Florida will produce a 

 better sweet orange than the original. The Mandarin orange does not succeed in 

 Florida, compared to the large Smyrna, which in my judgment is the largest, sweet- 

 est and finest orange in the world. I have made arrangements to plant a large grove 

 of this variety, and would respectfully advise your correspondent to do the same. 

 Colonel Hardee thinks that August is the best month for transplanting the orange, 

 and I should judge so from this fact: Last August Colonel Hardee contracted with 

 Mr. S. V. White to plant and warrant to live and to do well for one year one thou- 

 sand sweet Smyrna oranges, six months old, from the seed, then about eighteen inches 

 to two feet high. This month Mr. White ordered five hundred more of the same 

 oranges, and as there was sickness in the colonel's family, he requested me to take up 

 six hundred, the one hundred extra was to replace the dead ones, when I found to 

 my surprise that there was very few if any dead ; the few that looked badly no doubt 

 would have come out this spring from the roots. The rest were looking well and 



growing finely." 



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The Phylloxera. 



SINCE I wrote the article published in the last Horticulturist, I have been 

 anticipating the appearance of the insect ; but have been unable, to this date, 

 August 12, 1873, to find a single specimen, either on root or leaf of the vines in 

 Southern Cayuga Valley. Nor in my July visit to Washington, could I find a 

 specimen at Williamsport, Pa., where I saw fine grapes in door yards ; nor on the 

 way to and from Washington. Of this I am sorry, as it will prevent a more accu- 

 rate description of the insect from my pen. The consequence is, that the growth 

 of leaves and canes is very healthy and the clusters of grapes remarkably clean, large, 

 and with the promise of fine ripening, though in the Cayuga Valley the season is 

 backward and nights so far in August, cool. It, too, devolves on those situated in 

 any part of the United States, where the insect this year can be found in any 

 degree, to supply the information now so much needed of its habits, devasta- 

 tion and consequential ruin of all the hopes of the vineyard. I regret to see that 

 even the intelligent observers of Hammond's Port, N. Y., while they speak of the 



