ORANGE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 113 



Third In answering question number two, state whether the 

 trees are planted on high or low ground ; also their ages. 



Fourth Have the frosts of this and previous winters been 

 sufficiently severe to preclude the successful cultivation of orange 

 and lemon trees, without protection, in your vicinity? 



Following are the replies received, and the names and loca- 

 tions of the writers, arranged by counties, beginning at the north : 



Shasta County Judge C. C. Bush, Reading : 



First Lowest readings : December 22d, twenty-four degrees ; 

 January i6th, twenty-four degrees; February I5th, twenty-eight 

 degrees ; all taken at seven A. M. 



Second There are very few orange or lemon trees in this 

 neighborhood. I planted in January, 1878, just before a cold 

 snap, six two-year-old grafts on five-year-old roots. They did 

 well last year, some of them making five feet of wood. The 

 weather this fall was so warm it started some shoots before the 

 cold of December and January. The frost nipped the young 

 shoots, or a part of them. The cold weather did not seem to 

 affect the wood and leaves of last year a particle. 



Third The trees are planted on what we call high red plains, 

 two thousand feet west of the bank of the Sacramento river and 

 from sixty to seventy feet above low-water mark. 



Fourth I am of the opinion that this has been as severe a 

 winter on trees as we have had since I came into the country, 

 twenty-eight years ago this month. The thermometer may have 

 marked lower, but this season it continued cold, windy and frosty 

 for more days together. In Shasta a month ago the oranges 

 were hanging nice and yellow on trees in the garden of Charles 

 Litsch ; and at Mr. Wise's, a mile this side of Shasta, the trees 

 yesterday, February 4th, looked splendid. I have no doubt that 

 oranges and lemons can be raised here successfully and at a 

 profit. 



Tehama County L. H. De Lange, Red Bluff: 



First To the best of my recollection, twenty-five degrees 

 above zero. 



Second The only damage done has been the freezing of the 

 tender shoots. 



Third High and low both. One of the trees is nineteen 



