142 ORANGE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 



twelve hundred and sixty feet above the ocean level. San 

 Buenaventura river runs near the orchard. My trees were all 

 irrigated in November. The frost has left its mark on some of 

 my orange and lemon trees at Cliff Glen, by nipping some of 

 the tender growing shoots, but that will not injure the trees or 

 check their growth. Some of my trees are now growing and 

 putting forth new shoots from the tips of the branches. I have 

 five hundred orange and lemon trees from five to seven years 

 old. My three-year-old orange trees in nursery are not injured ; 

 my yearling lime trees are killed to the ground. No thermome- 

 ter record was kept at Cliff Glen during the past winter, but for 

 the three previous winters the lowest temperature at any time 

 was thirty-one degrees above zero. Tomato and melon vines 

 have all been killed this winter at Cliff Glen, for the first time 

 in six years. It is not usual to shelter any kind of trees in Ven- 

 tura county. Some places in this county are too cold for orange 

 trees ; but they are perfectly safe in favored localities. 



D. S. McLean, San Buenaventura : 



First Thirty degrees, three nights. 



Second Not even a bud killed, much to the astonishment of 

 owners of orchards. 



Third The orchards are in valleys open to the sea; ele- 

 vation, perhaps eight hundred feet ; age of trees, about six years. 



Fourth This has been the coldest season for certainly seven 

 years, but no harm whatever has been done, either this season 

 or previously. A draft of warm air from the ocean, often moist, 

 drifts up the valley every night. 



S. Bristol, San Buenaventura : 



First Lowest I have heard reported, forty to forty-five 

 degrees. 



Second No damage to the oranges and lemons, and none to 

 the trees, except, possibly, some very small ones. We consider 

 that the cold snap did us no harm, so far as semi-tropical fruits 

 are concerned. 



Third The trees in our county are planted along the shore 

 and back thirty miles in the mountains. Some orchards are 

 twelve hundred feet above the sea level. 



Fourth An experience of eleven years in Ventura county 



