Fairchild: Testing for Hardiness 



371 



it was not until ten years later that I 

 visited the same spot and walked under 

 this same Mulgoba mango tree the 

 branches of which stretched ten feet 

 above my head and the trunks of which 

 were as large around as my thigh. 



Professor Gale had coddled his little 

 tree, and by protecting it during the 

 freeze had kept it from being killed 

 back quite to the ground, and when it 

 became fully grown the freezes could 

 not do more than severely prune it, for 

 the thick bark and the ])rotection of the 

 branches were sufficient to keep out the 

 cold from the growing inner bark or 

 cambium. 



This experiment established the prac- 

 tical limit of mango culture in Florida, 

 and although the freezes come too often 

 to make commercial mango-growing a 

 profitable thing around I^alm Beach 

 there are hundreds of trees there and 

 they bear delicious fruit. 



In the case of the trial of the Mexi- 

 can avocados which were planted at 

 Brooksville and which went through 

 two severe freezes, we have a rather 

 complete photographic record and it is 

 the main object of this note to publish 

 these photographs and give some idea 

 to those who have not had the experi- 

 ence themselves, of how a little care 

 given to a row of seedlings is repaid 

 by the growth of good trees which stand 

 a chance of weathering the severest 

 weather of the region. In June of 1915 

 there were sent to the r)rooksville gar- 

 den a hundred or so seedling trees only 

 a few inches tall and they were put out 

 in a nursery row. Arrangements were 

 made to protect them during the follow- 

 ing winter but the man in charge of the 

 garden was not familiar with the cli- 

 mate and he failed to cover them and 

 the result was that although the ther- 

 mometer went dow'U to only 24° F. at 

 the garden, which will not injure the 

 Mexican avocado when fully grown, a 

 large share of the little plants suc- 

 cumbed and the rest Avere severely cut 

 back. On February 20, 1916, imme- 

 diately after this first freeze, they ap- 

 peared as shown in Fig. 13. 



During the following summer these 

 trees grew and made a strong, vigor- 

 ous growth and by the following No- 

 vember appeared as in Fig. 14. 



These young trees were already large 

 enough to excite attention and when the 

 danger season approached Mr. J. E. 

 Morrow who in the interim had taken 

 charge of them saw to it that they were 

 thoroughly wrapped with straw and 

 over this straw a w^'apping of burlap 

 was put as shown in Fig. 13. The tem- 

 perature went this time to 18° F. and 

 killed outright every tree in the row 

 which had not been properly wrapped to 

 protect it and even with the protection 

 afiforded by the burlap and the straw 

 these young trees were killed back to a 

 foot or two above the ground (Mr.. 

 Morrow's thumb in Fig. 13 marks the 

 height of the living wood as it appeared 

 on February 2, 1917). By the follow- 

 ing December these trees had made a 

 very rapid growth and one of them ap- 

 peared as showai in Fig. 14 which was 

 made from a photograph taken Decem- 

 ber 17. 



In the course of the following sum- 

 mer this tree had grown into a good- 

 sized specimen, one wdiich any owner 

 would have been proud of and it stands 

 a really good chance during the com- 

 ing winter of weathering any freeze 

 which is at all likely to visit the region. 

 Owing to the nursing care which Mr. 

 Morrow gave to these seedling av^ocado 

 trees w^e have now arrived at a positive 

 result which is a very different thing 

 from the ordinary negative result 

 which might for years have discour- 

 aged anyone from even the attempt to 

 grow the Mexican avocado as far north 

 as this point on the west coast of 

 Florida. 



In the early days of Florida there 

 were thousands of failures reported. It 

 was always a difficult matter to sift out 

 those which really indicated an unsuit- 

 ability of the plant to the climate from 

 those which merely represented infant 

 mortality through neglect to .protect 

 during the danger period. 



