56 FLORIDA FRUITS ORANGES. 



It should be remembered that these trees have grown up 

 from earliest infancy to maturity beneath the protecting 

 shelter of these giant oaks, whose wide-stretching arms, 

 heavily draped with moss, ward off the high winds, frosts, 

 and the fierce heat of the mid-day sun ; alter these condi- 

 tions .by cutting down all the protecting oaks, the "Orange 

 Guard" they may well be called, and you at once give the 

 trees it is your interest to care for, such a shock as they 

 will never recover from, and expose them to hardships 

 such as they never encountered before. The thriftiest 

 young groves in the State have been grown under just 

 such shelter as the great oaks delight to bestow upon 

 them. 



The value of these "Orange Guards" was thoroughly 

 demonstrated two years ago, when groves supposed to be 

 too far south or too well shielded by water protection to 

 be imperilled by frost were severely damaged, and some of 

 the trees killed to the ground by a sudden nocturnal visit 

 from erratic "Jack Frost." 



These groves were not sheltered by overhanging trees ; 

 but further north by many miles was a far-famed grove on 

 Orange Lake that was thus guarded, and adjoining it an- 

 other wherein all the trees had been cut down. When 

 that disastrous frost came, the latter grove looked as if a 

 fire had swept through it, the trees being stripped of their 

 leaves, and thousands of dollars' worth of fruit lying under 

 them ; while the former was totally uninjured, its leaves 

 as green as in midsummer, its fruit untouched. The owner 

 of the unsheltered grove now declares that he would gladly 

 give twenty thousand dollars for a few of the stately forest 

 trees that once sheltered his domesticated wild grove. 



We have said enough to demonstrate the importance of 

 this point, so will pass on to the consideration of pine land 

 suitable for orange culture. 



