ITS CULTURE. 543 



doors are opened and air is admitted freely if very severe, a 

 few pots of charcoal are placed within the enclosure. This 

 covering remains over them four or five months, and in this way 

 the orange may be grown as far north as Baltimore. 



SOIL AND CULTURE. The best soil for the orange is a deep 

 rich loam. In propagating them, sow, early in the spring, the 

 seeds of the naturalized or wild bitter orange of Florida, which 

 gives much the hardiest stock. They may be budded in the 

 nursery row the same season, or the next, and for this purpose 

 the earliest time at which the operation can be performed (the 

 wood of the buds being sufficiently firm), the greater the sue- 

 cess. Whip, or splice grafting, may also be resorted to early iii 

 the spring. Only the hardiest sorts should be chosen for or- 

 chards or groves, the more delicate ones can be grown easily 

 with slight covering in winter. Fifty feet is the maximum 

 height of the orange in its native country, but it rarely forms 

 in Florida more than a compact low tree of twenty feet. It is 

 better therefore to plant them so near as partially to shade the 

 surface of the ground. 



INSECTS. The orange plantations of Florida have suffered 

 very severely within a few years, from the attacks of the scale 

 insect (Coccus Hispcridum), which, in some cases', has spread 

 over whole plantations and gradually destroyed all the trees. 

 It is the same small, oval brownish insect so common in our 

 greenhouses, which adheres closely to the bark and under side of 

 the leaves. All efforts to subdue it in Florida have been nearly 

 unavailing. 



A specific, however, against this insect has lately been dis- 

 covered in England. It is the use of the common Chamomile 

 It is stated that merely hanging up bunches of fresh chamo- 

 mile herb in the branches, destroys the scaled insect, and that 

 cultivating the plants at the roots of the trees is an effectual 

 preventive to the attacks of this insect. Where the bark and 

 leaves are much infested, we recommend the stem and branches 

 to be well washed with an infusion of fresh chamomile in 

 water, and the foliage to be well syringed with the same. Re- 

 peating this once or twice, will probably effectually rid the trees 

 of the scaled insect. 



Another very excellent remedy for this and all other insects 

 that infest the orange, is the gas liquor, of the gas works, largely 

 diluted with water, and showered over the leaves with a syringe 

 or engine. As this liquor varies in strength and is sometimes 

 very strongly impregnated with ammonia, it is difficult to give 

 a rule for its dilution. The safest way is to mix some, and 

 apply it at first to the leaves of tender plants ; if too strong, it 

 will injure them ; if properly diluted it promotes vegetation, and 

 destroys all insects. 



VARIETIES. From among the great number of names that 



