The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1881-12-17

that the orange tree can be grown upon the |
poorest kind of lands, if fertiliZed. If farm |
er from New Windsor or Westminster were to
take trip over the railway from Sanford to |
Orlando, he would wonder even how the scrub |
oak and pine trees kept alive in such a soil. |
In fact, it has no soil at all, and do not sup |
pose that the county, outside of its orange |
crop, produces vegetables enough to supply |
one-tenth of its people. This fact is fully de- |
monstrated by the following colloquy, which
took place between little negro in Orlando
and Connecticut yankee: The yankee, after
looking around the town and county, inquired
of the little darkey how in the name of good
ness they managed to live there. well,
boss, he replied, 1--WE live off of hities in
summer and Yankees in winter" The ''hitie"
is a large, coarse sweet potato, which grows
almost spontaneously in South Florida.
About the year 1871 the orange groves in
South Florida were bearing fruit enough to
begin to make it business in shipping them,
and up to this time the river transportation
was too limited to properly move the crop at
the proper time. Boats coming down the
river filled to the guards with boxes foranges,
were hailed almost at every landing, and load
ed with abuse for not being able to take more.
OF course this demand for transportation was
but temporary and boat owners did not choose
to send their boats up the river for few
oranges, when they had plenty of regular work
for them to do. In the year 1878, the trees
mostly planted in 1867 to 1870, began to come
into full bearing, all over the State, and the
business was of so great a magnitude, that it
was almost impossible with the score of boats
added to the river trade, and numbers of cars
to the RAILWAYS to move the crop properly.
The winter of 1879 was memorable one. L
was at that time on one of my regular trips
through the State. When / reached Baldwin
on my way to Cedar Keys, l met the up ex-
press train to Fernandna. At that place
change of express freight had to be made from
the cars of the A. &. Il W. |. !. Railway to
New York, Baltimore, &c, Seventeen cars
containing one hundred and twenty boxes
each, had to be transferred and the train to
wait until this was done, In q few minutes
along came the train from Jacksonville, SINH
larly loaded. a part of this day S freight had
to be left, of course, and the boxes were piled
up there from day to day until some shippers suf-
fered severe loss from the delay. All along
the road to Cedar Keys, at every depot, were
piles of boxes Of oranges awaiting transporta-
ton, and along side of the several whafves
at Cedar KEYS were lying sloOps, sohooners,
and steamboats, unloading fruit brought from
away down the coast, from every inlet and
river where vessels of any size could GO. 1t
was sight. | was walking the wharf the
next day, and approaching an old skipper,
asked him to show me his manifest, as | saw,
all sorts of things spread out on the dock Just
unloaded from his vessel. He readily pro-
duced it and here it is:
Manifest of schooner Bonita, Capt. GeorglaS.
of and for Cedar keys-156, 600 oranges in
bulk, "a bbls. syrup, "a bhls. honey, 80 deer
skins, l04 otter skins, 9 bear skins, ii bbls
lines. 1000 lemons, 100 lunches bananas,
. chung under deck 50 sacks Key West salt
| Quite an assorted cargo picked up by this
trader. When he left Cedar Keys the Bonita
was loaded with provisions, clothing and Yam
/ KEY notions, which he traded for this cargo,
| buving il IN lots from the very smallest num-
| Der of pounds of berswax ~ q man : entire
! crop OF oranges
During the months of November and De-
cember, everything seemed to be given up to
the orange trade. The groves all over the State
now coming to bearing made the crop enor-
NOUS From Florida to the northern cities,
both steamship and railway lines were loaded
| to their fullest capacity, and the competition
was so great that the express companies only
changed fifty cents per box through to New
/ York. The Florida orange has been pro-
nouneed superior to those of the Medlterra.
mean in every respect but one. 1t Will not
keep so long.
When the trees we're in blossom during the
3 summer OI ICSU. 81 SIcuI htS tHS dIbiSilttNN
crop, that every preparation possible was
/ made by the transportation lines to move the
crop properly, but
"The best laid plans of men an mice
Gang aft agIee.'
/ The cold wave commenced to spread itself
over that Flowery land, about Christmas. On
the 18th of December. the thermometer indi-
Gated 30, and from that it dropped daily,
until the I'd of January, 1881, when ten de-
grecs above zero was reached, and all was lost.
Even those that were gathered, troZe i'll the
/ houses in which they were kept; but it is not
usual for them to be picked until the time to
sell, consequently they were frozen on the
trees. In the gardens and yards of Talahas-
see, in the centre of the State, at least 250,OO0
| oranges could have been gathered on Christ
mas day, not all of them ripe, of course, be-
cause the orange, unlike the Northern fruits,
ripens irregularly, the bud, the young orange,
! and ripe ones are on the tree at the same time,
but in a state Of growth, to warrant that num-
Der as its crops Along came old king
| and knocked the theory of all the upper Flo
rida newspapers, that there was no frost-lme
/ in Florida, in the head This cold snap was
| the ill-wind that did good to some persons.
! 1t created, or rather enhanced, the boom in
! Orange county, and the Indian River coun-
| try where the price ofland, advanced at once,
that he was safe to plant IL grove there, as it
has been clearly proven that now and then
| they stood chance, i'll fact it was certain
that the trees would be killed. This is the
case in all the territory of Florida above the
| latitude of 29o or near Palatka or Mandarin,
the home of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe; but
the true orange belt i'll Florida lays below
! Palatka, on the st. Johns river, and Sarraso-
ia BAY. on the Gulf coast of Mexico. During
J M, 10 IN los
ter, in conversation with a real estate agent
for that county, he named the number oftrees
planted in that country whose fruit would have
to take Sanford, their port on Lake Munroe,
as place of shipment, and told me that at an
! average of 800 oranges to the tree, when all
the groves come to full bearing, it would take
twentv-One steamboats, Il day alone, the size
of those usually i'll that trade, to remove the
oranges shipped from that port during the
season. 1t has been feared by some persons,
| in this latitude and further north, after read
| ing the terrible accounts of the havoc made by
Jack Frost, that a clean sweep was made, and
| they would not have any more Florida oranges,
but such fears are i'll measure groundlesSS
! 1t is true that thOusandS,-yeS, almost mil
| lions of orange trees, from SIX months to
! eighteen to twenty years old, were killed down
to the ground, and wears of labor lost and as
a general thing the people living above latitude
| 29o, will not give any attention to the growth
| of the tree another time. You often see III
the newspapers reports of persons gathering
oranges from trees, three, four and five years
old When this is said by any person you
can rest assured that it is premature growth,
or something else is the matter, as no healthy
orange tree ought to be allowed to bear fruit
under six years, and at nine it cannot be said
| to be mature. From ten to twelve years is
the time, when it is safe to say your trees are
in good bearing condition. So you see it is
long time for a man, with three score years on
his head, to have to wait before he can expect
any return from his labor.
Last winter, while on a trip through South
Florida, met grey-haired old man hunting
grove, either already planted, or for piece
of land to plant one. Wondering what such
| a person wanted with such an investment, |
was pleased to hear that it was for some invalid
child, wife, brother OF sister. 1t was the
pleasure of this old gentleman to purchase a
| few acres of land, and hire some man to the