CHAPTER XXII. 



Where Can Orange Trees be Successfully Grown 

 in this State? 



A knowledge of the degree of cold an orange tree can endure 

 without serious injury is required to answer this question. 

 Orange plants, when young, are very tender and susceptible to 

 frosts ; but as they grow older they become more hardy, and 

 adapt themselves without injury to a degree of cold that is truly 

 surprising. It was thought for a long time that Southern Cali- 

 fornia was the only part of the State sufficiently free from frosts 

 and freezes to be adapted to successful citrus culture. But it 

 gradually became known that many portions of Northern and 

 Central California are sufficiently free from severe freezes to 

 enable them to raise oranges, by protecting the trees from frosts 

 till they attain the age of five or six years. In the most favored 

 parts of the districts mentioned the raising of oranges can be 

 made a success. Lemon trees are more tender than the orange, 

 and the lime more tender than the lemon. 



I would advise those who plant in the districts referred to not 

 to plant trees less than four years old, and five-year-olds will be 

 still better; then, with proper management, which will include 

 protection in the winter, and possibly till the middle of April, 

 their orchards will be hardy enough in a few years to withstand 

 the severest freezes in those portions of the State. 



The winters of 1878-9 and 1879-80 were unprecedentedly 

 cold ; nothing to compare with them has occurred since the 

 occupation of this country by the United States. In many 

 places, even in this county, the trees in nurseries and young 

 orchards suffered severely on low lands. The damage to citrus 

 trees was reported to be so general that the proprietors of the 



