ORANGE . 



1155 



FLORIDA ORANGE CROPS. 



Boxes 



1884-85 600.000 



1885-86 90O.OU0 



1886-87 1.200.(100 



1887-88 1.4r)0.000 



1888-89 l.Si.'.O.OOO 



1889-90 2.1."i0.000 



1890-91 2.450,000 



1891-92 3,761.843 



1892-93 3,400.000 



1893-94 5.055,367 



1894-95 6,000,000 (Est.) 



1895-96 100,000 



1896-97 250.000 



1897-98 216.579 



1898-99 225,000 



1899-1900 400,000 



1900-1901 1,000,000 (Est.) 



Many groves in Orange county and northward have 

 been brought into fair condition by bauliing the trunks 

 with earth during the winter so as to limit the injury by 

 frost, and if another series of frostless winters lilie 

 those between 1870 and 1880 were to occur, these groves, 

 with others newly planted, would gain sufficient age and 

 size to defy the ordinary frosts and make this region 

 again productive. Many acres have recently been 

 shedded over with slats or canvas — usually removed in 

 summer — and, thus pro- 

 tected from the cold, are 

 promising large returns on 

 the heavy investment re- 

 quired to build the sheds 

 -from $600 to $1,000 per 

 acre. Figs, 1555-6. They 

 are usually heated during 

 the coldest nights, either 

 with open wood fires or 

 stoves burning coke or 

 coal. The most extensive 

 ,,,, ,. . , . """ ' ■ shedding operations are 



fn o°»^ , ( '° '"°,'^''' those of John B. Stetson, 

 an Orange tree from cold. ij t-, i j i i, .i- 



,. , , , ^ J , , of Deland, who has 3( 



1111,13 aboard top and cloth „„rps irivererl varinn« ev« 



sides. The sides can be re- acres covered, various sys- 

 moved, allowing the trees full t''™^ "^ protection being 

 light. employed on different 



plots. 



The Orange has been grown on the most varied soils 

 in Florida, but successful groves have been mainly on 

 "high hammock" and "high pine," and the greatest 

 profit, as a rule, has been from the hammock groves, 

 where seedling trees came into bearing much earlier 

 than on pine-land, and both seedling and budded trees 

 produce more abundant crops. 



The Orange groves of California and Arizona are sub- 

 jected to greater winter cold than those of Florida, but 

 suffer comparatively little damage from it, since the 

 winters are more uniformly cool and dry and the trees 

 are consequently dormant, while the usual warmth of a 

 Florida winter keeps vegetation constantly in more or 

 less active growth, and hence more sensitive to sudden 

 frosts. Thus in 1894-5 not only Orange trees but peach 

 and mulberry trees and old Wistaria vines— all hardy as 

 far north as Canada when dormant— were frozen to the 

 ground. The mean temperature has changed little, if 

 at all, during this alternation of mild and frosty cycles 

 of years; indeed, the mean of maximum and minimum 

 observation taken daily at Mount Dora, Fla., for six 

 comparatively frostless years prior to 188C was half a 

 degree F. colder than the mean of six years of injurious 

 frosts subsequent to 1886. 



The Orange tree is a gross feeder, and in the sandy 

 soils best adapted to its culture in Florida can use to 

 advantage large amounts of commercial fertilizer, pro- 

 vided the ammonia is balanced by abundant potash and 

 care is taken to avoid an excess of crude fermentable 

 materials containing nitrogen, such as cottonseed-meal 

 and dried blood. 



On the raoister grades of hammock land, such, for ex- 

 ample, as those bearing the fine groves near the Manatee 

 river, it is considered unsafe to give more than 10 

 pounds of commercial fertilizer a year, even to the oldest 

 bearing trees, on account of its liability to produce dis- 

 ease; and additional sulfate of potash is used, even 

 with standard brands of fertilizer rich in potash. On 



the high pine-land at Deland, profit has been found in 

 applications of 80 pounds to the tree, or 2 tons to the 

 acre, but the average amount used by successful grow- 

 ers is 20 to 30 pounds to the tree of special brands, 

 costing from $30 to $37 per ton. 



So long as the soil is not unduly depleted of humus, 

 frequent cultivation is an important factor in producing 

 rapid growth of Orange trees. As an experiment, a seed 

 was planted and hoed every day except Sundays for 

 four years. It was then about the size of an average 

 eight-year-old tree in the region — one celebrated for its 

 fine and fast-growing Orange groves — and bore four 

 boxes of Oranges — about what would be expected front 

 an eight-year-old seedling in that place. 



Soi7s. — The surface soils of peninsular Florida are 

 almost wholly of subaerial origin— that is, are composed 

 of particles cast up by the waves of the sea and carried 

 to their present positions by the wind. The process 

 may be observed at the present day in some places on 

 the coast, for example, where a gentle slope inland from 

 the beach ends in a thicket of underbrush and small 

 trees. At such a place the slope abruptly ends at an 

 angle of 45 degrees, and whenever a breeze blows from 

 the sea on a dry day a continuous stream of sand may 

 be seen blowing over the crest and falling down the 

 steep angle, gradually engulfing and burying the 

 thicket in a layer of sand sometimes 15 feet in depth. 

 The trees and bushes form a wind-break and thus check 

 the blowing of the sand towards the sea when a land 

 breeze prevails. As might be expected, the elevations 

 in peninsular Florida are small, the highest point of the 

 peninsula being but 300 feet above the sea-level. 



The result of long ages of wind action on a soil com- 

 posed wholly of fine particles has been to assort these 

 articles according to weight and size and other physi- 

 cal characteristics into innumerable patches, small and 

 great, each of which has its own peculiarities in its re- 

 action upon the vegetation which it bears. This makes 

 the soil capabilities of any tract of land a bewildering 

 puzzle to the newcomer, and the only certain clue to its 

 solution is found in the character of the vegetation al- 

 ready growing on it. Chiefly in accordance with this 

 natural growth, the soils are classified as high ham- 

 mock and low hammock, high pine and low pine, or 

 flatwoods, prairies, scrubs, bays and shell-mounds. Any 

 land bearing an abundant growth of hardwood trees — 

 live-oaks, hickories, magnolias, etc., is hammock land, 

 and if not less than 3 or 4 feet above water is suitable 

 for Orange culture. The larger and denser the hard- 

 wood growth the better the Orange will flourish on it. 

 An elevation of 8-10 feet above water is preferable to 

 lower hammock. The word hammock is the aboriginal 

 Indian name for hardwood forest. 



"High pine" land is characterized by the predominant 

 growth of the long-leaved or yellow pine. This is also 



1556. One method of protecting Orange trees in 

 Florida.— A slat shed. 



suitable for Orange culture; the larger the pines the 

 better the land. If the pines are intermixed with willow- 

 oaks and an occasional hickory and cabbage palmetto, 

 the land is sometimes called half-hammock, and such 

 land is more fertile than ordinary pine land. Blackjack 

 oaks, on the contrary, are an indication of poverty of 

 soil. 



