274 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



in twenty or flirty miles of the coast, but 

 cannot be ciiltivatctl at Bathurst or Arg;^'le, 

 on account of tlie severe cold. The orange 

 plantations of St. Michael are always encii-- 

 cled by a wall of fi-om 1.5 to 20 feet high, and 

 ■within, a thick plantation belt of trees to 

 protect the orange trees from the sea breezes. 

 Even within these .sheltered groves, the 

 young plants, when first set out, are sur- 

 rounded )jy j)lantatlons of laurel, broom, &c, 

 until the tender orange trees are sufficiently 

 strong, at which period the plantations imme- 

 diately round tliem are removed, and each 

 plant begins to shoot up. In England, even, 

 this ti'ee is enabled to Ijear the climate by a 

 little protection ; for at Saltcombe, Devon, 

 there are in a few gardens orange trees which 

 have withstood the winter iu the open aii- for 

 upward of 100 years ; the fruit is as large and 

 fine as any from Portugal ; but I believe these 

 are trained against walls. They ai-e sheltered 

 with mats of straw during whiter. The cli- 

 mate of Portugal is rather too cold for the 

 orange ; they suffer much in the severer win- 

 ters, and only do well on the low grounds 

 and more sheltered situations. The tops of 

 the trees ai'e often injured by the cold winds 

 in common winters, especially when they 

 grow at all lofty. They bear the open ail' at 

 Nice, Genoa, mid Naples. But at Florence 

 and Milan, and often at Rome, they require 

 the temporary protection of a shed. With 

 this knowledge, then, we cannot doubt that 

 they will succeed in the present settled dis- 

 ti'icts of Western Austi'alia wliich lie between 

 the darling range and the sea. It will be de- 

 sirable, however, in the colder localities even 

 within these limits, to raise plants /row seed, 

 on the spot, as these are found to bear the cold 

 better than trees imported. As to our hill 

 districts, I think it doubtful whether the or- 

 ange will succeed in open compartments, on 

 account of the lower tempei-ature of the win- 

 ter nights so far in the interior, produced by 

 the greater elevation above the sea. It should 

 be tiled, however ; and with shelter, as that 

 of an aw^ning of canvas, or temporaiy thntchcd 

 roof during the colder months, it would no 

 doubt do well. Pnjbably the most effectiud 

 plan for protecting the ti-ees irom the cold 

 would be to plant them on the western side 

 of a wall. A row might be j>laiitcd the 

 whole length of the wall, and at the distance 

 of about 8 feet from it, and the same distance 

 apart in the row. \Vliere the space will al- 

 low, a second row might be laid out !! feet 

 from the first. These latter will be almost 

 88 well protected as the first, and indeed 

 quite so, if it hapijon that the ground slope 

 much to the west ; the object being to shade 

 them from the morning sun, and to allow the 

 temperature of tin; surrounding air to become 

 somewhat wann before the direct rays of the 

 8un fall on the trees — it having been found 

 that the orange will bear a veiy great degree 

 of cold if continued only fur a .short time ; but 

 sudden heal applied to the cold jilants greatly 

 injures them. Dr. Seckler says. " ii is rc- 



(562) 



markable how much cold and snow the com- 

 mon oranges and lemons will bear at Rome, 

 provided tliey are planted in a sheltered sit- 

 uation, not much exposed to the sun. Thus 

 I saw in the two winters of 180-5 and 1806, 

 under my windows at Monte Pincio, three . 

 standard orange ti'ees in the open ground 

 heavily covered with snow for more than a 

 week. The gi-een leaves, but still more the 

 golden fioiits, nearly ripe, looked singular, 

 but lieautifuL amid the snow ; neither fruits 

 nor trees had suffered, being in a sheltered 

 place, while many liranches and leaves of 

 other ti-ees of this kind, which were exposed 

 to the sun, turned black and died, reudeiing 

 the whole tree sickly." As Knight has re- 

 marked, "It is more the sudden transition 

 from cold to heat and the contraiy, than the 

 degree of either, which destroys vegetables." 

 Another row of trees should be planted along 

 the wall itself say 6 inches from it, with the 

 view of being trained to it as directed below, 

 under the head of training. These trained 

 trees sometimes produce large crops of fruit. 

 It will sometimes happen that settlers, when 

 layuig out their homesteads, can so an-ange 

 theii- buildings that the western wall of either 

 the dwelling or some of the offices may form 

 the eastern fence of a garden or court, with 

 a view to making it a protection for ;m or- 

 ange grove. The projecting eaves will not 

 injure the tree, as the orange will bear to be 

 shaded ; if, however, the rain be kept off by 

 the eaves, the trees should have water dashed 

 over thein once or twice a week during sum- 

 mer, when not in flower. I believe the or- 

 ange is the most hardy of the tribe ; probably 

 this only would succeed in the interior.* 



* The oranse is found to flourish best in a warm, 

 fertile soil, composed of sand and loam, or sand and 

 clay, not too dry. and sheltered from chilly and 

 parching winds. But it is cultivated in varied soils, 

 and will thrive in any country, with a mean annual 

 temperature of 02° to 84" F. Hence the locality fa- 

 vorable to the growth of this species depends fully 

 as much upon soil and situation as upon latitude; 

 and we are induced to infer that if the temperature 

 be sufticiently hii:h for maturing the liavor, the fruit 

 is delicious in proportion to the uniform salubrity of 

 the air; and that those high temperatures which 

 often force a very large expansion ofliuii are against 

 the fineness of its quality. For instance, we will 

 contrast the fruit of St. Michael's in the Azores, of 

 Bahiain brazil, or of some ofthe\Vest India Islands, 

 wiili that of Malta. The former is always exposed 

 to the equalizing breezes wafted across the Atlantic, 

 while that of the latter, lying near the arid and sultry 

 coast of Africa, is subject to more changes of season 

 and a gi-eater and higher range of temperature. 

 There is also some ditl'erencc in the soil of these 

 jjlaces. The artificial earth, which forms the soil of 

 .Malta, was originally brought from Sicily ; and by 

 the decomposition of the rock, or of the saline par- 

 ticles brought by the same "pestilent sirocco" that 

 blasts the fruit of the south of Italy and Sicily, a 

 crust is formed, which, if not removed by trenching, 

 at the end of a certain number of years ceases to be 

 productive, or the oranges become so bitter that 

 they are neither palatable nor healthful. But St. Mi- 

 chael's, Dahia, and the other places refeiTed to, have 

 no such disadvimtage ; the soils in those places are 

 native, and deposit nothing calculated to injure their 

 fertility or impair the qualities of their fruit The 

 same fact may be conoborated in comparing the 

 cUniale of the elopes and valleys of the K3treUa,"neaF 



