22 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 465- 



holders may grow old. Not long ago the state appropriated a 

 million dollars to preserve the beauties of Niagara Falls. That 

 subject is without significance compared to the Adirondack 

 forests. Every consideration of health, pleasure, economy 

 and safety urges the speedy consideration of this subject, and 

 such consideration should include appropriations adequate to 

 ascertain the nature of the titles adverse to the state, to recover 

 where the titles are insufficient, and to purchase where they 

 are valid. Any other course would be false and unwise 

 economy. 



It will be observed that the Governor has come to a 

 point which his predecessors should have reached long 

 ago. Commissions and reports and constitutional restric- 

 tions will be unavailing so long as the greater part of this 

 region remains in private hands. The first thing needed is 

 money to secure these lands forever for the state. This is 

 the onlv salvation of the Adirondack forests. The sooner 

 these lands are acquired by the state in fee simple the 

 better. The cost alarmed commissioners twenty-five years 

 ago, but we can all now see that the state would have 

 made a wise investment if it had purchased every acre 

 then. The land will cost more to-day, and many times as 

 much twenty-five years hence ; but in the end the state 

 must own the North Woods, if there are any woods to own, 

 so that every dictate of wisdom suggests that their devas- 

 tation should be arrested at the earliest possible moment. 



Two Years After the Great Freeze in Florida. 



THE cold wave which swept over Florida in December 

 of 1894 and February, 1895, left the orange growers 

 of that region almost stunned by the calamity, but they 

 were so ignorant at the time of the real damage accom- 

 plished, and there was so little information to be obtained 

 from those who had passed through a like experience, 

 that they were at a loss what to do in order to recover 

 from the effects in the shortest time. Mr. H. S. Williams, 

 a prominent orange grower of Rockledge, has therefore 

 written for the Indian River Advocate a careful and minute 

 account of the calamity, which is of great value from an his- 

 torical point of view, and to this he has added some advice, 

 based on experience, which will be useful in case the 

 orange growers of Florida should ever again suffer from 

 such a disaster. The whole article is of interest, even to 

 the general reader, but our available space compels us to 

 condense it materially. 



Friday, the 28th of December, 1894, was a raw, disagreeable 

 day, with heavy westerly winds, but there was nothing in the 

 conditions to threaten severe frost. At sunset the ther- 

 mometer stood at thirty-six, and the five o'clock mail brought 

 word that the temperature would fall to twenty-five degrees 

 in the northern part ot the state. These figures did not indi- 

 cate a destructive cold wave, but if the information had given 

 the real temperature at Jacksonville, which was fourteen de- 

 grees, the information would have been useful. However, 

 the record of my thermometer, together with the report from 

 Jacksonville, satisfied me that the orange crop of the year was 

 lost. At the break of day the thermometer marked nineteen 

 degrees, with a north-west wind blowing hard. Ice had formed 

 over an inch thick, oranges in the full force of the wind were 

 frozen solid, and on Sunday morning, the 30th, the thermom- 

 eter marked twenty-eight degrees and afterward rose above 

 the freezing point. In about two weeks the fruit and leaves 

 had nearly all dropped off the trees, and a week later they 

 began to show signs of life. By February 1st shoots had 

 grown from four to six inches, the older leaves were half 

 grown, and many blossoms on the older trees had just opened. 

 The young trees did not fare as well, and in a small three-year- 

 old grove, fully exposed, the trees nearly all had their bark split 

 along the upper part of the trunk, and half of them would have 

 died without any further mishap. 



On the 1st of February I was satisfied that I would have 

 three-fourths of a crop, and while the year's income was lost 

 the outlook was not utterly discouraging. Then came the 

 second arctic wave which destroyed the prospects of a crop 

 for years to come. On Thursday, February 7th, 1895, the 

 wind was westerly again and blew as heavily as it did on the 

 28th of December, but it was not as cold. At dusk the ther- 

 mometer marked fifty degrees and a meagre weather dispatch 



gave no warning that the temperature would fall even 

 to the freezing point. During the night, however, it fell 

 rapidly, and at daybreak marked twenty degrees as before. 

 The temperature all day was near the freezing point, and on 

 Saturday morning it was again nineteen degrees, with ice an 

 inch thick. Saturday it moderated somewhat, and by night 

 the thermometer marked forty degrees, but fell again to ten 

 degrees during the night. This unprecedented fall of thirty 

 degrees in one night was, of course, beyond all former record, 

 and could not have been anticipated without some definite 

 information from the Weather Service Bureau. No one knew 

 how bad we were hurt or what it was best to do, but on Sat- 

 urday I wrapped the trunks of twenty of my largest trees with 

 burlaps, taking care to protect the bark fully from the sun. 

 On Monday I cut several trees down to the first branch and 

 waited, with such a show of patience as I could command, to 

 see what nature was going to do toward recuperation. It was 

 a terrible ordeal, for the suspense was one of months, for even 

 in the following June we could not tell how much damage had 

 been done, and, in fact, after a lapse of two full seasons I am 

 still uncertain. As a rule, my trees were budded low and on 

 sour stock. In April they began to show signs of life, varying 

 from two to fifteen feet above the ground. Practically all the 

 branches were killed back to the main trunk. Some trees 

 were killed to the ground on the south side, while they threw 

 out vigorous sprouts for two or three feet above the ground 

 on the north. East of the ridge that runs through Rockledge 

 hammock parallel to the river ninety per cent, of my trees 

 threw out sprouts above the bud. Most of the young trees 

 west of the ridge were sawed off even with the ground as soon 

 after the February freeze as possible. Some of the sprouts on 

 the trunk, where the wood did not have vigor enough to sus- 

 tain life, being a mere shell under the bark, have died during 

 the past years, but not as many as I expected. The crop for 

 the season of 1S94 95 was ten oranges. The crop for 1895-96 

 may be twenty boxes. Owing to the larger portion of roots 

 compared with top there is an excess of sap and food taken up, 

 and the fruit is somewhat coarse. Some of the trees had the 

 red rust, which caused the fruit to split, but this will rapidly 

 disappear as the roots and tops become balanced. The 

 present condition of the trees is satisfactory in the main, and 

 the fruit-bearing wood should give us next year a fair crop, 

 say twenty or more boxes where we now count one. The 

 rapid growth of this new fruit-producing wood will tax our 

 ingenuity to keep it from being crushed by its own weight, as the 

 sprouts have in many instances only a thin shell of live wood 

 to give them strength. These sprouts grow at an angle of 

 forty-five degrees, and when weighted with fruit will need to 

 be supported with the greatest care, or the high winds will 

 break them off, and if exposed to a West Indian cyclone it will 

 be impossible to save them. Buds put in during the summer 

 of 1895 have grown prodigiously, and will soon commence 

 fruiting. The rich, dark appearance of the trees as they 

 glisten in the bright sunshine gives us hope for the future, 

 although much lime must elapse under the most favorable 

 conditions before we can fully recover our lost revenues. 



In the light of experience I would change my plans but 

 little. If all the trunks of my trees had been well wrapped the 

 morning after the second cold wave, or, better yet, the day 

 before, if the Weather Bureau had given us notice in time, 

 this would have proved of incalculable benefit. I would then 

 cut off the lower branches and the top immediately above the 

 fork. Trees treated in this way are alive on all sides of the 

 trunk, and the branches and sprouts thrown out are more 

 firmly united with the trunk than any others. I would cut 

 down close to the ground every tree less than six years set and 

 draw the dirt away from the collar, so as to expose the surface 

 roots slightly to the sun. As soon as possible I should plow 

 the grove and break as many of the roots as possible, and 

 have a man with a keen grub-hoe following to cut off smoothly 

 the ends of all such roots. I would advise those having small 

 groves to dig a trench ten inches deep, grading the distance 

 from the trunk according to the size of the tree and cutting oft 

 all the roots. A few trees treated in this way a year after the 

 cold weather show a marked improvement in growth during 

 the second summer. As soon as the sprouts from the ground 

 are large enough insert the buds or get them started as soon 

 as possible. If this is delayed until the next spring the buds 

 will make too rank a growth. If the ground is in fairly good 

 condition I would apply no fertilizers for two or three years at 

 least. In a young grove where the trees were cut to the 

 ground I would cultivate it and keep it clean, while in older 

 groves, after the first plowing, a circle hoed around the trees 

 will answer every purpose. There is a diversity of opinion as 

 to the number of buds that it is necessary to let grow, and it 



