6 
THE FLORIST. 
THE ORANGE. 
The Orange—by which I mean large Orange-trees, such as may be 
seen in the Crystal Palace at the present time—has not been very suc¬ 
cessfully treated in Britain, although from time to time many fine 
specimens have been imported from the continent. I cannot help 
thinking that the great drawback to the culture of the Orange in 
Britain (both great and small) is chiefly owing to the bad winter treat¬ 
ment which it receives. Gentlemen who visit France are shown the 
“ Orangerie” at Versailles and other places where the Orange is grown, 
and they conclude that, because the magnificent trees they see there 
have been wintered for generations in the basement stories of their 
palaces, all they require in this country are similar places, and that any 
dark building which will exclude frost is all that is necessary to winter 
them in. That this treatment has killed a large number of trees we 
have good evidence. Two noblemen whom we knew, and who imported 
large trees into their gardens, were of another opinion. One erected a 
costly edifice for their reception, with an opaque roof, which in time was 
the death of all his trees; this we venture to say would not have been 
the case if a building had been provided with a glass roof. In France, 
where the climate is warmer and much drier than with us, the Orange- 
tree commences to grow soon after it is placed out of doors, and as the 
trees are pruned into very symmetrical shapes they are gone over two 
or three times during the summer season, and all the shoots stopped 
back, to produce the formal shaped heads so invariably seen in France. 
This species of pruning has the effect of inducing an early maturation 
of the wood, by admitting the sun and air to the whole surface of the 
tree, and by the time they are housed (generally the middle of October) 
the summer's wood is well ripened and the trees are nearly in a state of 
rest, and do not therefore suffer during their hybernation, if the venti¬ 
lation of the buildings is attended to, and frost is excluded. Owing to 
the long rest they get, and the well-ripened state of their wood, the trees 
commence blooming early in the spring ; as the bloom is all picked off 
for commercial purposes, the trees soon recover themselves and com¬ 
mence their summer growth. In Britain, the trees bloom at a later 
period, and of course make their growth correspondingly later than in 
France; and as they rarely, if ever, get any of the close stopping prac¬ 
tised on the continent, no assistance is given to the ripening process, 
and the trees are placed in their winter quarters with their wood 
imperfectly ripened, and even in late seasons like the present without 
having completed it, and it frequently happens that during winter these 
immaturely formed leaves drop off. 
It is therefore obvious that if the Orange is to be kept in health in 
our climate, the natural heat of the season required to ripen the current 
year’s shoots must be supplied by artificial means, and this can only be 
accomplished by wintering the trees under a glass roof, where the light 
they will receive, aided by a little sun-heat and a dry atmosphere, for 
the six w^eeks following their being placed in their winter-quarters, will 
produce the same effect as the generally warni, dry autumns of the 
