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THE SATSUMA ORANGE AGAIN. 



individual horticulturist can rarely give. Much is there- 

 fore expected in the way of rapid and accurate work 

 from the experiment stations lately established. The 

 assumption by the government of what the people at 

 large have practically abandoned for special lines of in- 

 dustry, will doubtless give an impetus to pomology, of 

 great and far-reaching benefit to the whole people. 

 Among the promising wild fruits which will be treated 



in succeeding papers are the crab-apple, plums, cher- 

 ries, huckleberries and blueberries ; some of the rarer 

 blackberries, raspberries and gooseberries ; the paw- 

 paw, persimmon, buffalo berry and cacti ; and our wild 

 nuts, including the hickories, walnuts, butternut, chest- 

 nut, chinquapin and hazel. These will afford a fertile 

 field for investigations that should be of benefit. 

 Michigan. A. A. Crozier. 



THE SATSUMA ORANGE AGAIN. 



=f N THE winter of 1882 I planted 

 some seeds of the ordinary 

 sweet orange, and when the 

 young trees from these seeds 

 were large enough I budded up 

 quite a number of them with several 

 of the finest varieties, and amongst 

 others some Satsumas. 



Out of several trees of each of these 

 varieties which were transplanted to my 

 own orchard at the same time, none but 

 the Satsumas are now living — all the oth- 

 ers have been killed by the cold. These 

 Satsumas, however, have gone through all the freezes 

 that have prevailed since they were planted without suf- 

 fering any material damage ; they have been bearing 

 for several years past, and are not entirely without fruit 

 this year, although the severe freezes of March 3d and 

 i6th froze peach trees half way to the ground within 

 thirty feet of them. 



All of these Satsumas bore heavily last year, and one 

 of them, which now has a breadth of top of fourteen 

 feet, had a crop on it that any buyer would have been 

 glad to estimate as low as a box and a half. 



We must bear in mind that where the buds are in- 

 serted at a height of from one to two feet from the 

 ground (as is often practiced) and the bare trunk of the 

 tree is left exposed to full force of sun and cold, that 

 the budded tree can in such cases be no hardier than the 

 stock upon which it is inserted. 



Many people who have Satsumas that have been 

 budded in this improper manner complain that they are 

 not particularly hardy ; but if the buds have been in- 

 serted close to the ground, so that only the Satsuma 

 stock is exposed, and then after being planted, if this 

 stock is allowed to cover itself with its own growth (as 

 it will do in short order if the lower branches are not 

 cut off as they appear) they will soon be in shape to 

 stand very severe cold ; and, as above stated, the Sat- 

 sumas on my place (budded, and allowed to grow as 

 above described) have so far stood it nobly, while in the 

 case of the numerous other varieties budded in the same 

 manner and at the same time, not a single one lives to 

 tell the tale. 



Another point in relation to the Satsumas is that they 

 do much better when budded on sweet stock than they 



do when worked on sour stock. A very forcible dem- 

 onstration of this can be seen on the grounds of Major 

 O. P. Rooks, at Fruitland Park, Florida, where orchard 

 trees of this variety, budded on both sweet and sour 

 stocks, are growing side by side ; those on sweet stocks 

 are far ahead in the essential points of size, vigor and 

 productiveness. 



The Satsuma is an early ripening variety, and is in 

 good eating condition long before the majority of the 

 Florida grown varieties become palatable, and while it 

 may not score as many points (according to any pre- 

 scribed scale) as some other varieties that ripen later, 

 yet I think it will compare favorably with any that ripen 

 at the same time, which is the only just comparison. In 

 this northern section of the state I am confident it is 

 more valuable than any other variety that we can grow, 

 for it must be borne in mind that in addition to the 

 requisite hardiness of the tree, the orange to be profit- 

 ably grown here must be an early sort, so that it can be 

 shipped^before there is danger of its freezing on the 

 trees. 



With due respect to the advice of my friend, Rev. 

 Lyman Phelps, which he says he has a hundred times 

 written to his friends, " You do not want more than half 

 a dozen Satsumas," I will say that I have for several 

 years past wanted more, and planted more than that 

 number annually, and last winter I set out about four 

 hundred of them. 



It may be that the Satsuma is better suited to this 

 northern section of the state than to south Florida, and 

 that it makes a more vigorous growth here than there, 

 although this does not seem reasonable ; but at all 

 events fifteen by fifteen feet is none too much room to 

 give them here, and at that distance the trees will with 

 good attention touch each other on all sides in six to- 

 eight years after being planted. 



The freezes of last March were the most destructive 

 of anything I have ever seen in this section ; peach 

 trees in many instances lost more than half their tops ; 

 Japan persimmons in some cases were frozen to the 

 the ground ; leaves of oak trees turned brown and seared 

 as if touched by fire, and in some cases the trees were 

 killed outright ; pear trees were nipped back consider- 

 ably ; and Satsuma oranges in nursery suffered more or 

 less in common with other trees, and had their young 

 growth pinched off, but Satsumas three years old or 



