Preface. xi 



In the Appendix, I have quoted figures, wherever I 

 could find them, to show what is being done. Orange 

 growers in India and Ceylon, with their command of 

 cheap labour, might, I think, advantageously compete 

 in the London markets with the growers of Florida 

 and their dear labour. An English or American 

 labourer is paid 53. $d. per day, and skilled gar- 

 deners get higher wages ; that is, about ten times 

 the wages of an Indian mdli ; calculating that a 

 good orange grower in India might probably be 

 obtained for four annas a day, or eight rupees a 

 month, or even less, if a commission were allowed 

 him on the profits. It should be remembered that 

 a sufficiently good orange grower, if he has the right 

 soil, requires very little knowledge beyond that neces- 

 sary for raising seedlings, budding them, and manur- 

 ing and watering the trees at the proper times, all 

 which he might learn in a month. If garden labour 

 in India is ten times cheaper than that of Florida, it 

 would require that the carriage from Florida to 

 London should be ten times cheaper than that from 

 Bombay and Karachi to London, to enable the former 

 to compete on equal terms with the latter. It will be 

 seen, moreover, that in Florida, as stated in Appen- 

 dix, No. 31, frosts are occasionally so severe as to turn 

 all the orange crop into ice-balls, and ruin it, besides 

 killing all the young stock in the nurseries, if it do not 

 also injure the adult trees. There is, perhaps, no part 

 of India, where oranges are grown extensively, which 

 is subject to destructive frost, such as that which is 

 said to have occurred in Florida in 1885-6.* Another 

 object of some parts of the Appendix is not only to show 

 planters in India what is being done in this line, out of 



* Recently a book has been published called "Florida the Orange 

 State." 



