294 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA EXPERIMENT STATION 



in many cases set a heavy new crop. In many instances it was found 

 that lemon trees, entirely defoliated in January, produced consider- 

 able bloom in the spring, but a large proportion of this dropped. The 

 amount of fruit on the lemon trees in the fall was proportional to the 

 amount of fruit-wood not killed during January. Where the trees 

 were killed back to the framework or to branches one or two inches 

 in diameter there was no bloom for twelve months after the freeze, 

 although much new growth was produced. 



The devastation wrought by the freeze was so severe that growers 

 feared that no crop would be produced the next year. In this they 

 were fortunately mistaken. In the case of orange trees where the 

 injury was not too .severe, the check to the vegetative development 

 apparently acted like girdling and stimulated a heavy bloom and set 

 of fruit. It is interesting to note that similar conditions followed the 

 1886 freeze in Florida, which was about of equal severity with the 

 1913 freeze in California. The Florida crop of oranges the year fol- 

 lowing this freeze was larger than the crop of the year preceding the 

 freeze (see table 3). 



TABLE 3. FLORIDA CITRUS FRUIT CROP FROM 1884-85 TO 1888-89 



Oranges, 

 Season boxes 



1884-85 600,000 



1885-86 900,000 



1886-87 (freeze Jan. 12, 1886) 1,260,000 



1887-88 1,450,000 



1888-89 1,950,000 



Nearly the same conditions followed the California freeze, as will 

 be seen from a comparison of the shipments of oranges and lemons 

 for the years preceding and following the crop year of 1912-13 (see 

 table 4). 



TABLE 4. SHIPMENTS OF CITRUS FRUIT FROM CALIFORNIA, 1909-10 TO 1917-18 



Carloads Boxes (approximate) 



(Cars of varying capacity.) 



