Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-03-12
Florida Oranges.



The orange culture in Florida amount.
ed to little or nothing before the war.
Northern industry and methods have
found their way into the State since. and
gave this cultivation a remarkable inn
petus. Ten years ago even the product
amounted to but little Now 1t brings
millions to the State, and its increase for
the next ten years can hardly be esti-
mated. General Cameron was taken by
ex Senator Yulee, friend and former
associate, who represented Florida IN the
Senate thirty-fve years ago, to see the
largest orange grove in the world. This
was the first time they had met since Mr..
1ulee left the Senate for the South in
1851, and the renewal of the friendship
between the two has been one OF the
pleasing incidents of the stay in Florida.
Colonel Duffy and myself were invited
to accompany the party, and did so.
Long before we reached the great grove
toward which we were tending, there
were patches of orange trees to be seen
on every side, many OF them with the
golden fruit still hanging to the branches.
Beautiful flowers doomed IN the black
muck, and early vegetables were just
springing up. A little later the train
dropped us in the midst of "a, 900 orange
trees, covering over 400 acres of ground.
A perfect wilderness of orange trees, ap
parently not cultivated with care, Ger
tainly not planted regularly, but just as
nature had sown the wild seed. The wild
luxuriance of nature had, however,
been curbed by man, who, in
pursuit of wealth, had turned vinegar
into honey, and, by grating on the
sour trees the finer sweeter varieties, had
snatched from the wilderness an income
Of over $4,000 a year. General Cam
eron rambled with us over the place. sll
of US plucking the golden fruit al lib,
aud imagining ourselves in the veritable
Garden of Eden-earth, air and sky,
soft, balmy and ethereal, combining to
fix the illusion, and were only brought
back to a realization that We were fifty
miles from our hotel by an exclamation
from one of the party: by Jove, were
lostp This fact soon became apparent
to us all, and just think of it-you who
are bound by bands of thiek-rbbed ice
lost in an orange grove in Floridal
General Cameron enjoyed the joke, and
busted himself eating the fruit
plucked with his own hands.
Many of the trees were laden with
fruit of immense size and beautiful
color, although much of the crop had
been gathered. One of the tempting
sights in the grove was the grape fruit,
of great size and beautiful lemon color
1t is said to be the forbidden fruit of the
Garden of Eden. 1t Is useless, except to
look at and for preserving, although it is
eaten by some 1t has a sour, insipid
af o,1o
ing upon small trees, now and then
dotted the orange orchard. After an hour
spent in looking over the grove, we, one
by one, found our way back to the pack
ing house, where the superintendent told
us that Is, 900 boxes of oranges had been
shipped this season from one-half of the
grove over which we had been rambling;
that means 1 800, 600 oranges, for which
the owner had been offered $35. 900
while the fruit was on the trees.
Chow many years does it take for an
orange grove to come into bearingf" |
asked the superintendent 'EigGt years
from the seed, and about five years if
grated or budded on TO the wild fruit
That is, mean to say they will bear in
eight years from the seed, and in five
years from the graft. They constantly
grow better and bear more oranges
every year. No man can tell how long
the tree will be useful-certainly more
than 100 years"
People in Florida are naturally as en-
thusiastic over orange culture as miners
are who find rich placers, and they tell
almost as marvellous stories. You hear
them talk about trees upon which grow
from 5000 to 1000 oranges, but there is
a great deal of fancy in this statement,
and the truth is marvellous enough.
Mr.. Fairbanks, the historian of Florida
and an eminent authority upon the
orange. says that an average tree will
bear, season in and out, 700 oranges, and
that, where they are grown from the
seed or transplanted regularly, about so
trees to the acre would be fair average.
These 60 trees in a fair season would
yield AZ, 900 oranges, worth at the grove
1910. This is cold, reliable estimate
of what an ordinary orange grove will
do; many will do more, and still more
will do less, but 1910 worth of fruit
upon an acre of ground will strike the
Northern farmer as being decidedly
profitable.