ORANGES AND LEMONS IN BERMUDA. 419 



Pruning. Only the dried branches are cut off fruit-bearing trees, trim 

 while young to a proper shape then let alone. The height from the 

 ground iu some cases is 30 feet, but a good height here is from 20 to 25 

 feet. They have always to be protected from the wind. 



Picking. The picking is done in December and at any hour of the 

 day. They are picked when fully yellow if the negroes do not steal 

 them before. 



Curing. In a dry room for two or three days, spread on the floor, 

 numbers too small to ship, home consumption take all. 



Planting. The trees are planted about 20 feet apart, and propagated 

 by transplanting from boxes budded and grafted. We have good 

 oranges from seedlings, but know what we are getting when we bud. 

 You can never count on a seedling. The orchards are decidedly small. 



Maturity. A budded tree bears in three or four years ; a grafted tree 

 in about five years; seedlings seven or eight years, sometimes ten. 

 When the largest crops are produced is owing mostly to favorable 

 seasons. There are trees on the islands over fifty years old still bearing. 



Insect pest. Sometime in the fifties (58 or 59) I think, a vessel was 

 brought inhere in distress, with a cargo of oranges; one gentleman 

 who had some fifty or sixty very fine trees bought a few boxes of these 

 oranges to plant the seed. In a few months his flourishing trees were 

 covered with an insect which gave the trees the appearance of being 

 whitewashed. This insect fed on the bark of the tree and extracted 

 the yellow sap from the bark, curling the latter up. Every device 

 thought of was tried, but the Island was cleaned of nearly every tree, 

 lemon, oranges, limes, all shared the same fate. I lost mine as well, 

 with the exception of two lime trees and a few lemons in another part 

 of my grounds which led me to look to the cause of their being healthy. 

 Between the two lime trees grew a pawpaw tree, and on looking at the 

 lemon trees I found three or four pawpaw trees. I then visited all the 

 trees I heard of that were living, and wherever I found a live tree the 

 pawpaw tree was near it. I also found glycerine a first-rate remedy, 

 half glycerine and half water with a little carbolic acid, applied with a 

 paint brush all over the trunk seemed to keep the atmosphere from 

 the insect, which soon dies (or the carbolic acid may kill it), and the 

 first rain washes off the glycerine, which does not. destroy the trees 

 as would oil. I have now some healthy trees grown from seed, with 

 fruit on and last year we had a fair crop ; another thing to look after is 

 that your trees do not go too much to wood ; the woody roots should be 

 cut off 5 or 6 feet around the tree ; they are the roots running from the 

 tree which make the branches, and the fine roots that are close to the 

 tree are the fruit roots and the ones to be nourished. 



HENRY W. BEOKWITH, 



Consul. 



UNITED STATES CONSULATE, 



Hamilton, November 28, 1889. 



