Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1875-06-04
Fortunes TO be Made in Orange Gull
ture in Florida.

fNNf'S ahA NiuiNOho III IlOllu6 Ao
going wild over the idea Of fortunes in rais-
ing oranges A few extracts from Florida
letter by one Of tho staff Of the Springfield
Republican will show how the coutagion
spreads and what basis it rests upon:
Not "How do you do" but elbow does your
orange grove flourish" is the popular saiuta.
tion, and according as his trees put forth
abundant and thrifty shoots, or are yellow
and sickly, is the man buoyant and content
cd, or detected and dissatisfied. The orange
mania rivals the old California gold fever,
and every one, who passes the boundary Of
the state, takes it as readily and surely as
child does the measles.
Florida is certainly land Of great ex-
pectations and such universal counting Of
chickens before they are hatched as its peo-
pie indulge in was never known before,
believe, under the sun. About every man,
woman and child in the state is expecting
something from the orange. If too poor to
have grove, man is pretty sure, at least,
to haye rod or two of earth devoted to the
planting Of seeds, which are jealously saved
aud boarded on every hand. At some Of
the country hotels and boarding houses,
boxes are specially prepared for the guests
to deposit the seeds Of their after-dinner
oranges in, and, where the thing is systema-
tized, the seeds pay for all the fruit consum.
ed. When fairly sprouted and above ground,
seed, from being worth next to nothing,
attains a value Of from to 5 cents another
year brings it up to 20 cents, and yet another
to so cents. Thus the poor mans back yard
becomes the handiest Of savings banks, which
pays the most usurious of interest, legally
and ungrudgngly. Noting the universalty Of
this small economy of saving the orange
seed, man confidently told me, the other
day, that the state debt of Florida could
be wiped out in less than 10 years by the
practice Of it.
The method by which fortune is figured
out from the orange tree has been reduced
to an exact science in the land agents circu-
lars. The formula is something like this ::
"a fully developed tree bears from 500 to
10000 fruit each 500 trees may be grown
on one acre, thus yielding, at the low average
of 1000 each 100000 oranges, which at two
cents apiece come to $4,000 as the product
Of one acre alone. All of which is quite
calculated to take the breath away from a
poor plodding mortal used to getting his
dollars slowly and toilsomely. Apropos of
this statistically exact way of figuring up
the yield aud profits Of orange raising, a
funny story is told of sanguine orange
grower in a remote section of the state.
Eager for the facilities of railroad through
his own premises, he was arguing, it seems,
with skeptical railroad maguate and try.
ing to make him see that the road would pay
for itself "just as easy" if there were plant
ed on either side of its track two rows of
orange trees for the 100 miles or so of Its
length. AS he waxed eloquent over the
enormous yield of the orange tree, the rail-
road man, pencil in hand, went figuring away
on these estimates and demonstrated to a
certainty to the somewhat astonished fruit.
grower that there wasn't enough rolling-stock
in the whole United States to carry off the
fruit that he proposed to raise on the line o
that railway!
There is always period Of frenzied exag.
geration, which is only corrected and moder
ated by the tedious process of working and
waiting and practical observation.
One man said to the writer-"I had the
orange fever as badly as ever any one did
eight years ago, but, after delying five or
six years IN the hot sands to make a grove,
had the satisfaction Of seeing my trees
dwindle and die before my eyes. Anything
at which a mau can earn $l.50 a day is
better than starting an orange grove" II
is sad to see these sanguine fools wasting
precious time and money in what are bound
to be abortive attempts at raising orange
groves. You will meet them fre equenty
men of small means, who have invested their
all on patch of sand and orange trees, and
arc now loatiug around, hands in pocket
complacently dreaming Of the fortune that
awaits them, few years hence. Meantime
they and their families live in semi-starved
way, aud as the years go by their trees aut
their fond hopes perish together and the
orange becomes as delusive Dead sea appl,
to them.
The worth of single very prolific tree i
is hard to estimate. Occasionally trees
bear as many as 10000 oranges, and Col
Hart at the fruit-growers' convention in
Jacksonville, the other day, mentioned pay.
ing $3.50 to a neighbor for the crop of on
tree alone. At st. Augustine there ar
families, whose chief support is derived
from the few trees in their back yards, and
similar instances are met with elsewhere il
the state. Whether, as some predict
oranges ten years hence, will sell for 81
cents bushel in Florida remains to b,
seen. At present, 2 cents apiece are readily
paid by the shippers at the remotest groves
while 3, 4 and cents are given for superiO
fruit