THE CULTURE OF THE OllANGE TREE. 
49 
THE CULTURE OF THE ORANGE TREE. 
BY GEORGE GLENNT, F.H.S. 
There is good reason for believing that 
this fruit would be as easily and as plentifully 
grown in this country as any other subject 
under glass, and that the leading cause of its 
failure in nine places out of ten, is ignorance 
and ill-treatment. When we say " failure," we 
do not mean that the tree dies, because there 
are plenty of living evidences, but that neither 
fruit nor flowers are had with any certainty 
or in any quantity, from thousands of trees 
that nevertheless have leaves and exist. There 
have been empirics who have written on the 
orange tree as on many other subjects, and 
nobody can form an idea of the mischief which 
such people do. Where the soil is composed 
of some proportions of wholesome loam, and 
dung, and vegetable mould, we can under- 
stand a little difference in the proportions 
used ; but where a man can sit down and 
recommend all sorts of filthy nostrums, we 
can wish he had been flogged at the cart's 
tail before such stuff had been printed. We 
have, in the treatment of the auricula, had 
occasion to reprobate similar unwholesome 
composts, as freely directed to be used, and 
especially when the instructions emanated from 
persons who had been reputed succet-sful in the 
culture. Mr. Ayres, who has written upon 
50. 
the subject, gives the following compost : — 
Ten parts strong turf loam. 
Seven parts pigeon's dung. 
Seven parts garbage from the dog-kennel 
or butcher's yard. 
Seven parts of sheep -dung. 
Seven parts of good rotten horse-dung. 
Ten parts of old vegetable mould. 
We hear a good deal of assimilating the soil of 
plants to that in which they flourish in their 
natural habitat, but tell us in what part of 
the world the natural soil would be composed 
of garbage from dog-kennels or butchers' 
yards. We believe that the above mess might 
be mixed together, and be suffered so com- 
pletely to decompose, that in time there 
would be but little if any mischief; just as 
the most violent poisons might be exposed to 
the air until their virulent qualities had 
departed ; but there is nothing very nice or 
very natural in scraping together so much 
mischief and so much uncertainty, to be kept 
until it has grown harmless by natui'al decay. 
Miller, who was a sound, practical man, and 
seems in all he has done to have been actuated 
by common sense, says the best compost is, — 
Two-thirds fresh earth, from a good pasture. 
One-third of neat's dung. 
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