FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
49 
vember without any previous cold or other 
condition to harden the trees for such an 
emergency, killed thousands of them to 
the bud and so injured others as to almost 
dishearten their owners completely. Add 
to all this the heroic effort to exterminate 
the citrus canker which had become thor¬ 
oughly disseminated in this section, is it 
any wonder that interest in Satsumas was 
at low ebb? Many orchards were aban¬ 
doned and comparatively few were given 
more than nominal care. In the course of 
two or three years many of the more fa¬ 
vorably located orchards made rather re¬ 
markable recovery and at the earnest ap¬ 
peal of Dr. Winberg, president of the 
Gulf Coast Horticultural Society, many 
of the owners undertook to rejuvenate 
their orchards by taking them in hand for 
proper care. These have responded to a 
remarkable degree, so that the ravages of 
the storm and subsequent cold have been 
largely overcome. 
Among those who never lost faith in 
the Satsuma is Dr. W. H. Ludewig of 
Foley. He persisted in caring for his 20- 
acre orchard regardless of the many dis¬ 
couraging circumstances and was reward¬ 
ed by being the first to ship a car of Sat¬ 
suma oranges from Baldwin county. He 
followed this initial shipment with six cars 
for each of the past two seasons. 
To Dr. Ludewig’s indefatigable op¬ 
timism and untiring effort must be large¬ 
ly credited the present hopeful situation of 
the Satsuma industry of South Alabama. 
The two counties, Baldwin and Mobile, 
shipped 250 cars the past season, and these 
netted the growers very satisfactory re¬ 
turns. 
A decided revival of interest is now 
manifest in Alabama and more attention 
is being given to spraying, cultivating and 
fertilizing the orchards there. It is esti¬ 
mated that additional plantings were made 
in Alabama last winter of more than 200,- 
000 trees. This revival of interest is not 
confined to Alabama, but is also in evi¬ 
dence in North Florida and states further 
west. 
Having in mind the experiences of the 
past twenty years, it seems only proper 
that we should endeavor to profit by them 
and avoid as far as possible the errors of 
the past. 
That the Satsuma is a most excellent 
fruit and reaches the market at an oppor¬ 
tune time for supplying a missing gap, 
cannot be gainsaid. It is also true that 
the Satsuma may be and frequently is, 
when grown under improper conditions, 
such a poor excuse for an edible fruit as 
to be worthless. It behooves us then to 
see to it that we learn how to produce 
good fruit and above all things never al¬ 
low inferior fruit to reach the market, else 
it will become impossible to induce the 
public to buy. This is especially true of 
such products as the Satsuma, which can¬ 
not become staple articles of trade like the 
apple or the round orange which enjoy a 
prolonged season of sale. 
A well known writer has written, “For 
ways that are dark and tricks that are 
vain, the heathen Chinee is peculiar.” 
Now the Satsuma is a full-blooded 
“Chinee” and coincides to a nicety with 
this author’s opinion of its fellow citi¬ 
zens. You will get the point if you at¬ 
tempt to grow this variety upon sour or- 
