54 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
was no weather cold enough to kill a 
grown orange tree. Then it came, and 
it came in a double way. There came a 
freeze on the 30th of December, 1894. 
In the course of two weeks those trees 
all started up again and promised to have 
a crop that year, until, on the 8th of Feb¬ 
ruary, there came another freeze as se¬ 
vere as the other; but the difference was 
that the trees had then begun to grow 
again and had thrown out sprouts, the 
sap was up, and that freeze, with the sap 
up, killed the trees. 
During all this period that I speak of 
there never was five years that there was 
not cold weather. There never was five 
years that the thermometer did not go 
down in the region of 20 degrees. Some 
of you recollect that in 1884 and 1885, 
when the thermometer went down so 
low that it took off the ends of the limbs. 
We will grow orange trees and they will 
withstand any ordinary freeze. It is 
only these extraordinary freezes which 
kill. 
Now, whether we have or have not en¬ 
tered upon a new period of sixty years, 
Providence only knows, but what has 
been will be, and I believe that there will 
come a time, not very far hence, when 
these severe freezes will merge into the 
ordinary winter climate of Florida. 
What we want to do is to carry these 
young trees up to a hardy stage, and 
when you reach that hardy stage you are 
fixed for the future. I don’t think there 
is any reason for us to be discouraged. 
I think that those who have cared for 
and banked them will reap a reward. I 
don’t think that the climate is changed. 
We simply know that within a certain 
period there will come, some time or 
other, these very severe blizzards or 
freezes, and if it should happen to take 
place in 1834 and 1894, we may look for 
them now. The question is, of course, 
open. 
It is questioned by Mr. Stevens wheth¬ 
er we shall protect these trees with 
sheds. A large number of orange grow¬ 
ers may not be able to go to that ex¬ 
pense, but there is a mode of preserving 
the young tree by banking, by meafis of 
which we have brought forward that por¬ 
tion of the trees which has been covered 
by the banks, and enabling us to bring 
our trees up to the stage where they 
will be able to resist the cold. The tent 
that I have been using for the past win¬ 
ter was a very simple device, consisting 
of three poles, with a tent that fastened 
around the top, gathered together at ' he 
botom, and a good-sized lamp put inside. 
It is a cheap tent of twelve feet in height, 
costing not over $1.50. 
Mr. Barber—I ask for information on 
this subject. Is it not a fact that in past 
years the winter was as cold as it is of 
later years, but it was in the first part of 
the winter, and that these freezes that 
have done the damage are freezes that 
have come later in the spring It seems 
to me, while I am a young man, that 
twenty years ago the winters were equal¬ 
ly as cold as they are now, but I think 
that it was in the first part of the winter, 
and the seasons are changing and the 
cold is coming in the last part of the sea¬ 
son, and is catching these trees after the 
sap is up and they are growing. If that 
be the fact, with the experience that the 
orange men have had in this State, could 
not these trees be cultivated and ferti¬ 
lized in a way that would hold back the 
starting of the growth to a certain ex¬ 
tent later in the spring? 
Mr. Fairbanks—It is undoubtedly true 
that the cold weather used to come at an 
