298 FLORIDA FRUITS ODDS ANT) ENDS. 



and that their leaves were stiff, that the lemon and lime 

 trees were, in nearly all cases, killed to the ground, that 

 bananas, pine-apples, guavas were also generally destroyed ; 

 all these things showed at once. 



Then, as the days and weeks rolled on, and the beautiful 

 Florida climate resumed the even tenor of its way, little 

 by little it began to be realized that the worst that had 

 been feared, the loss of the great staple, the orange trees 

 themselves, was mercifully spared her heavily stricken 

 people. 



In many cases even the large bearing trees were seriously 

 injured, a few killed to the ground, but these were excep- 

 tional, and due either to unduly exposed locations or to 

 the fact of the trees being in active or very recent growth, 

 a condition which every one knows is always detrimental 

 to a tree at the approach of cold weather. 



The freeze extended over the whole State, even the 

 most southern sections feeling its influence. There was 

 ice in Monroe County and beyond it ; Key West saw it ; 

 even Cuba awoke to the possibility, nay, reality, of a gen- 

 uine freeze, the first in her history. The wonder is that 

 the orange tree throughout the State was not universally 

 killed, since the temperature was as severe and the cold 

 more protracted than during the famous " freeze of 1835," 

 which did kill them all. 



There was a reason for their wonderful escape, however. 

 It is a matter of record that the coldest temperature of 

 the Florida winters occurs between December 20th and 

 January 15th, and the weather for several weeks prior to 

 the Ice King's harvest was emphatically of this description, 

 thus checking the flow of the sap in the trees and putting 

 them to sleep as it were, and in excellent condition to meet 

 the advancing though unsuspected enemy. 



Another reason why more damage was not done lay in 



