The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1877-01-19
FLORIDA's GOLDEN FIR UT.
Orange Culture jlt the I'eRiHsuIar State
LLor,. E,nnid Enrt,l,Lc. n re lLndc

Orange Culture ia the T'eniIisutar State
HOrr Rapid Fortunes are Made.
A gentleman who writes from Palatka,
Fla, to the Atlanta Constitution paints
a glowing picture of the orange groves,
and thus dilates upon the wealth they
contain:
1t is hard to say how much an orange
grove is worth. Mr.. Bishop, president
of the fruit-growers' association, said,
q l am really afraid to say what l hon
estly believe an orange-grove of 1000
bearing trees is worth" Zone thousand
bearing trees is q lifelong competency for
any man." says Capt. Dummit. John
Robinson says that an orange-grove may
be safely purchased on a basis of 500
per tree-that is $4,000 for one hundred
trees, or 100000 for grove of 1000
trees. J. L. Adams put the lowest esti-
mate at $50 per tree. Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe says that her trees have
averaged S15 per annum for each tree for
five years. Mr.. Hart, the largest grower
in the state, puts the average yield at
$40 per tree. A tree will yield, after its
fourth year of bearing, 1000 oranges a
year. These oranges can be sold at from
one and half to three cents apiece. A
good quality will command as much as
foar cents meta great deal depending on
freight advantages. These trees will
bear for fifty years, 1t is safe to say,
then, that a good grove of 1000 trees is
worth anywhere from $50, 900 to $70,-
600. The great question of Importance,
then is, How long docs it take to es-
tablish grove ?'' The Sicily oranges,
as we all know, produce fruit in fourteen
years from the time the seed sprouts,
and will bear for seventy years thereaf-
ter. The Florida oranges will produce
fruit much earlier-in eight years. In
ten years he will have an average yield
of one hundred TO the tree, or 10000
oranges to his grove, with from 81 800 to
$4,000 on the trees. In five years longer
orin fifteen years from the planting, he will
have five hundred oranges to the tree, or
500, 900 oranges glimmering in the green
foliage of his grove-worth from s. 500
TO $4,000 on the trees. He will thus
have by an original outlay of, say $4,000
in ten years an income of $4,000 a
year, increasing OF itself TO $4,000 per
annum in the next five years. His prop
erty will be worth at low estimate So
600 to $4,000.
! A man who is in hurry for an income
I selects one of these wild groves. Then
cutting the tree smooth OF about six
feet from the ground, he inserts a mum.
! Der of sweet orange buds between the
bark and the wood Of the stump; cover.
ing them carefully, so that the air can
not get to them. These buds sprout
( readily, and in three or four years he ha:
Il fine grove of sweet orange trees grow
ing on sour orange stumps. These trans
formed trees are the hardest and health
lest that can be found. Another short
cut to a mature orange grove is to buy
young orange trees and have them trans
planted. In any of the leading orange
counties, man can buy four year ole
trees at one cent apiece and have then
transplanted fer twenty-five cents apiece
These trees will bear in three years from
the transplanting, and in five years vii
produce 900 oranges to the tree wortl
from fifteen to twenty-five dollars befort
they are gathered. This a favorit,
method of starting a grove and create
quite a demand for young trees. Their,
are great many men who grow seed
lings to supply this demand. An acr
will produce 800 seedlings that in four
years will be worth one dellar apiece
As the profit is so enormous, the labor $,
light and the reward so certain, il
orange planting, it may be asked VIII,
Florida is not Zone solid orange grove q
I reply that it is very rapidly becomin,
80. The number of new trees set on
in the past ten years is simply increui
BILE. These new trees have hardly be
gun bearing as yet; when their frui
does come on, the world will be aston
sehd at the amazing fertility of on
american Italy" Some idea of tn
extent of the new groves may be ha,
when l call to mind that within a radiu
of ten miles of Leesburg, in Sumte
county, there are $4,000 trees that vii
be bearing full fruitage in three or fou
years. At eight hundred oranges to tn
tree, very low estimate, there will b
furnished annually, three years from
now, from this half county, 100000
of oranges. This is but one of a score 0
similar orange centers. Mr.. Bishop au
thorizes the statement that in the pas
ten years there have 900, 900 new orang
trees set out, or wild trees reclaime,
in Florida. This will involve an add
ton to the then crop of 100000 G
oranges. But the development is nov
going on faster than ever. 1t is proba
BILE that 10000 new trees will be set GU
this year; some say 10000. There
hardly planter that l have met VIII
does not know of two or three men VIII
are putting out groves ranging from tw
hundred to one thousand trees.