52 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
reason that it would soon sink out of sight. 
The lands with which I am most familiar 
are located at Ceballos in Porto Principe, 
Province. Here I found the soil very 
similar to that in our best Florida Ham¬ 
mocks, except that it is red instead of 
black. The land is covered with a dense 
growth of hardwood timber, and it stands 
so thick that a cat can hardly crawl into 
it. When I went to inspect this land for 
the Development Company of Cuba I 
found that where wells had been dug the 
soil was twenty-six feet deep before they 
struck sub-soil, and it seems to be just as 
good at the bottom as it is at the top. 
There is 29 per cent of silica in the soil 
and this makes it porous enough so that 
when a heavy rain falls it soon soaks 
through it. I have seen it rain steadily 
for nearly twenty-four hours, and within 
two hours after it stopped I could ride a 
horse all over the well-cultivated field 
with out any discomfort whatever, and the 
ploughs and cultivators could be operated 
next day. I think all things considered 
this is the finest soil for orange growing 
that I have ever seen. The time may come 
when we will have to fertilize, but I think 
it is a long way off. The Development 
Company of Cuba, of which I am the 
General Manager, determined to plant or¬ 
anges on an extensive scale, and we be¬ 
gan operations there two years ago. Our 
first planting was about 10,000 trees and 
we finished on the fifteenth of February. 
1903. To anyone who has not visited 
Cuba, it would seem almost incredible if 
they were told that trees planted at that 
time are now, many of them, 12 feet high, 
and the stocks three to four inches in 
diameter with a corresponding spread of 
branches, that they bloomed in March, and 
that many of them are now carrying three 
to four boxes of fruit. Whether this will 
shed or not I cannot say, but I never saw 
healthier looking fruit in all my life. Thus 
it was when I left there a week ago. I do 
not wish to convey the idea that every tree 
is twelve feet high, or that every tree has 
three to four boxes of fruit, but I believe 
the grove will average nine feet in height, 
and unless they drop very badly, the pres¬ 
ent indications are that we will have more 
than an average of one box per 
tree. It must be taken into con¬ 
sideration, however, that these trees 
grow the entire season, and there 
is never a day in the year but what 
you can go into the grove and find plenty 
of new growth on them. In Florida, you 
are all aware that there trees generally 
rest for three or four months each year, 
and then if they have been fortunate 
enough to escape Jack Frost, they con¬ 
tinue to increase in size, but you can 
readily see that this is a much slower pro¬ 
cess than when the growth is continuous, 
and where the land is so rich that they 
never lack for a square meal. The De¬ 
velopment Company in connection with 
the colonists who have settled there have 
now planted about 2,000 acres to citrus 
fruits, and these will probably be increased 
from five to eight hundred acres per year 
for several years, as it is the intention of 
the Company to plant at least 3,000 acres. 
I never saw trees anywhere that seemed 
to be in any more healthy condition, and I 
can see no reason why the production 
of citrus fruits in Cuba should not be car¬ 
ried on successfully, and on an enormous 
scale. We have had some little trouble 
with gumming, but this has entirely yield¬ 
ed to treatment and the affected 
trees seem to be in perfect con¬ 
dition at the present time. We 
have also had more or less scale to con¬ 
tend with, but I do not anticipate much 
