44 



The Horticulturist and Journal 



taining 17,816,795 oranges ; of this quanti- 

 ty 45 per cent, perished. 



At one cent per fruit, at place of produc- 

 tion, the oranges and lemons imported into 

 New York alone in one year would amount 

 to $2,446,876. In Florida the lowest 

 wholesale price for oranges is two cents 

 per fruit unpicked. If we would take advan- 

 tage of the soil and climate of Florida we 

 could supply our wants. If we consider the 

 amount of fruit that could find a market in 

 the other ports and cities of the United 

 States, the sum total for the crop that could 

 be annually raised in the State would proba- 

 bly amount to ten millions dollars annually. 

 Why send our needed gold to other countries 

 for that which can be produced at home? 

 Then again, instead of consumers being 

 compelled to use spongy and acid oranges, 

 and lilliputian lemons, they would be favor- 

 ed with such luscious fruit as can be pro- 

 duced in Florida alone. 



Our critic informs us that he is nearly a 

 semi-centenarian, and if age renders corres- 

 pondents authoritative " Al Fresco" can 

 assure your readers that his is on the shady 

 side of 49, and that from his childhood he 

 has been engaged in horticultural pursuits. 

 Mr. 0. refers to his experience of " five 

 summers " in the State, but unfortunately 

 omits to inform your readers what portion 

 of the State he has visited or resided in — 

 an important omission. A person familiar 

 with horticultural pursuits might spend fifty 

 and five summers in the piny barrens of 

 Ocean county without becoming acquainted 

 with the capabilities and products of Mon- 

 mouth or Burlington counties, N. J. My 

 first visit to Florida was in 1844, and the 

 dose has been repeated on numei'ous occa- 

 sions. My observations have not been con- 

 fined to the "piny barrens" of the eastern 

 portion of the State, but I have examined 

 it from the Apalachicola river to the Atlan- 

 tic, and from the gulf to the Gleorgia line, — 

 not neglecting the "piny barrens" east of 

 the St. John's river, or the attractive sec- 

 tion of the upper Ochlawaha, or the interior 

 between Tampa bay and Gainsvillc. 



Mr. 0. most learnedly refers to the " san- 

 dy foundation," with " a surface where much 

 sand exists." No one but a greenhorn, or 

 the embodiment of stupidity, would plant a 

 grove on such soil. Mr. O.'s observations 

 have evidently been confined to sections of 

 the eastern portion of the State where wire 

 grass struggles for a mere existence. He 

 has evidently not visited or examined the 

 rich soils with a loamy or clayey subsoil to 

 be found on the Apalachiopla, Ochlawaha, 

 Withlacoochie, Hillsborough, Manatee, 

 Crystal, Cheisowilsky and Wiccawachee 

 rivers, or the surprisingly productive and 

 almost inexhaustable lands near Sumpter- 

 ville, Tampa, Micanopy, Brooksville and 

 Orange lake. If your correspondent would 

 but visit, and carefully examine the soil in 

 the Annatalogga and Charcoochartie ham- 

 mocks in Heimando county, he would find 

 about 80 square miles of loamy soil with a 

 sandy loam subsoil that cannot be excelled 

 by any land in the United States, — a soil 

 requiring no manure and almost inexhausti- 

 ble. I have stood upon th^ tops of hills 

 three and four hundred feet high in the 

 neighborhood of Brooksville, and those hills 

 were covered to the top with a deep loamy 

 soil that would make a northern trucker 

 dance ; and on the very tops of those hills 

 I have gathered monstrous and luscious 

 oranges from as healthy and luxuriant 

 orange trees as can be found on earth. In 

 all the localities referred to the orange can 

 be grown with success. Such being the case, 

 the intending planter will not find it neces- 

 sary to search for the " shell mounds " or 

 rich " bottom lands " referred to by Mr. 

 Oliver. For size, color and marketable 

 properties of the orange, the neighborhood 

 of Brooksville cannot be excelled, yet 

 strange to say, in this very neighborhood 

 cleared and excellent land adapted to orange 

 culture can be purchased at from 6 to 15 

 dollars per acre. Water is excellent, health 

 unsurpassed, range of thermometer never so 

 high in summer as in our northern States ; 

 during the summer a daily sea breeze from 

 " the gulf but fourteen miles distant. These 



