4t3 



ORAXGE CULTUPwE. 



imder-brusli. young trees, roots, vines and palmetto ; all these 

 must not only be cnt down, and either be burned, or piled up to 

 decay, and furnish by and by nourishing food for the future grove, 

 but the numberless roots must also be grubbed up at no light ex- 

 penditure of time and money, time, if the settler is a strong man. 

 able and willing to work ; money, if he has to hire the clearing 

 done for him. 



It does not cost less than forty or fifty dollars to clear an acre 

 of hammock land, as it should be cleared, and for a year or two 

 afterward the fight agamst the upspringing roots must be waged 

 unceasingly, or the cleaning will go back to its original state, and 

 all the time and money already expended be thrown away. 



In clearing a piece of hammock for a grove, it is only the 

 undergrowth that should be got rid of entirely, nearly, if not all 

 of the grand old live-oak trees should be left standing to flourish 

 as of old, before civilization had dreamed of intruding upon their 

 time-honored domains. 



This is a very important point, in the well being of the 

 grove, especially in one formed by budding a former "wild 

 grove." 



It should be remembered that these trees have grown up 

 from earliest infancy to maturity beneath the protecting shelter 

 -of these giant oaks, whose wide stretching arms, heavily draped 

 with moss, ward off the high winds, frosts, and the fierce heat of 

 the mid-day sun; alter these conditions by cutting down all the 

 protecting oaks, the " Orange Guard " they may well be called ; 

 and you at once give the trees, it is your interest to care for, such 

 a shock as they will never recover from, and expose them to hard- 

 ship.-, such as they never encoimtered before. 



The thriftiest voung o^roves in the State have been ajrown 

 under just such shelter as the great oaks delight to bestow upon 

 them. 



The value of these " Orange Guards " was thoroughly de- 

 monstrated two years ago, when groves supposed to be too far 

 .South, or too well shielded by water protection to be imperiled 

 by frost, were severely damaged, and some of the trees killed to 

 the ground by a sudden nocturnal \nsit from erratic " Jack Frost." 



