THE ORANGE. 629 



and twice a week during summer the entire grove is flooded. 

 As thus shown, the orange needs a well-watered situation, but 

 it must be living or moving water ; swampy or sodden soils are 

 to be avoided, also those having an impervious layer of rock, 

 or hardpan near the surface, particularly if charged with an 

 excess of salt or iron. On loose and friable soils, underlaid 

 with marly or phosphatic deposits, the growth is wonderfully 

 luxuriant and the fruit of surpassing delicacy, oftentimes too 

 delicate for shipment to a distant market. 



All low and flat lands are more frosty. Trees on high 

 ground often show little damage from a polar wave when 

 those in the valleys below are badly hurt. But during the 

 sweeping blizzards that destroyed the Florida groves, the in- 

 tense and far-reaching cold was, if anything, more severe on 

 elevations than in sheltered valleys. This, however, was an 

 exceptional case. A body of water on the north or north- 

 west side of a grove, wide and deep enough to retain heat, 

 greatly lessens the rigor of cold winds, and a belt of dense 

 timber on the east side, to keep off the morning sun for a few 

 hours on a frosty morning, also mitigates the damage that 

 might ensue from rapid thawing. 



Fertilizers. — Closely connected with the subject of soil is 

 that of fertilizers, by the understanding use of which almost 

 any kind of an orange may be, as it were, manufactured to 

 order. Free use of potash thickens and toughens the rind, 

 giving the firmness and durability requisite to bear transpor- 

 tation and rough handling, but at the expense of saccharine 

 qualities. The latter may be increased and acidulous proper- 

 ties modified by the use of more phosphoric acid. Highly 

 nitrogenous applications give fruit surcharged with insipid 

 juice, and cause a lush growth of wood that never properly 

 ripens, inviting attacks ot insects and fungi. Composts from 

 the barnyard, or those containing much decomposing animal 

 matter, must be used sparingly if at all. The most wholesome 

 growth and finest-flavored fruit comes from judicious employ- 

 ment of the best high-grade commercial fertilizers. To keep 

 up the productiveness of bearing groves, enormous quantities 

 of these are applied, sometimes a ton to the acre every year, 

 and in rare cases even more has been found profitable, or as 

 much as the owner could afford to buy. No soil, however 



