10 PREFATORY. 



a round trip of twenty to forty miles can be made with 

 a load in three or four days. If judiciously taken up, 

 carefully handled,, and properly planted, from January 

 until March, and the sweet bud put in in May or June, 

 they will grow three or four feet the same year, and 

 sometimes will bear the next. Nearly all will bear the 

 third year, with proper attention, and the fifth will 

 reimburse all expenses. From the present stand-point, 

 looking through the experience of others, and taking 

 success as a guide and error as a warning, a straighter 

 and shorter path (fast becoming a plain, well-beaten 

 highway) can be taken to success. Sweet seedlings, 

 from three to five years old, cost twenty-five cents to 

 one dollar each, according to age and size. They are 

 hardy, rapid growers, and usually bear the seventh year. 

 The effect of budding or grafting is the same on them 

 as the sour tree. Field crops are usually made three or 

 four years, widening each year the space between the 

 rows and trees. The past has presented no difficulty 

 in the way of orange culture, which energy and good 

 judgment will not overcome. 



One of the most useful improvements contemplated, 

 is the canal now being laid out by the United States 

 Coast Survey, across the narrow strip of dividing lands 

 between the Indian river proper and Mosquito lagoon, 

 where the present canal has been cut. This strip of 

 land is coquina rock, soft, and very easy to excavate, 

 about ten feet above the water, and only eight hundred 

 yards wide from this canal north to the head of naviga 

 ble waters. On the Tomoko the channel is open and 

 clear. The distance is about seventy-five miles. From 

 thence across the land to navigable waters of Haws 

 creek, the distance cannot exceed ten miles, and the 



