The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1886-02-12
THE FREEZE AND THE ORANGE

THE FREEZE AND THE ORANGE
OF all those who have attempted
to sum up the effect of the late freeze
upon our orange industry, Hon. S. L.
Hammond is best qualified for the
work. He has twice made up the
full statistics Of the crop in this
county, and was mainly instrumen-
tai in collecting the same for the en-
tire state for the census of 1880.
Therefore the following statistics
taken from his own figures and drawn
from the knowledge he has gained
of the fruit interest in this state
will be found worthy of careful
study.
The volume of fruit produced
in Florida is now so great that it
has become formidable competitor
to the foreign product. Therefore
when the cold struck our trees and
produced the appearance of death,
many we're interested in urging that
the reality was upon us. 1t is now
definitely known and admitted that
the percent of bearing trees actually
killed is so small that they may safe
" be left out of the calculation.
When the oranges grown in Florida
during the year are seen everywhere
as usual next winter, the public will
understand how colossal is the scale
upon which the correspondents of
the New York papers have entered
into the manufacture of lies. But
because it has been cold here, shall
we take refuge in states where the
thermometer skirmishes around any
where from ten to forty degrees be-
low zero? Disasters have overtaken
other industries often; we have suf-
fered twice or thrice. At the worst
we lose the fruits of one years labor
tho ''plant" remains uninjured,
ready this moment to begin the
work which will replace all our loss
inside of twelve months Is there
anything in the situation, rightly
understood, to shake the confidence
Of business man? We cannot ap-
preciate the feelings which would
prompt any one TO assail and ira
duce so praiseworthy an undertak-
ing as orange growing under the
pretext that it is necessary in order
TO break up speculation in our lands.
1t is cold blooded and cruel bust
ness unworthy of respectable news
paper.
But one correspondent of THE
News (Mr. st. john is so mild
that We must give him some figures
to bring his poetry back to solid
fact. He estimate. that if the or
ange growing continues to prosper
in the future as III the past we will
ship from Florida ten million of or
anges in 1896. These figures are
drawn from his imagination; let us
replace them Ivy others based or a
foundation more solid. In 1869 the
orange statistics of Putnam county
were carefully collected, giving abe
names of owners, number of trees,
old and young in each grove and
the yield of fruit from each grove.
In 1869 Putnam county produced
five million oranges, and it was esti-
mated that, at the same ratio of in
crease, the yield in ten years would
be twenty-five millions. Six years
of that has passed, and in no one
year since has the total yield in Put
nam exceeded eight millions. Yet
orange culture has been carried on
in this country as vigorously and
successfully as in any part of the
state. 1t takes long time for
product like the orange which re-
quire such painstaking care to double
in quantity.
Our banker from Port Jervis is
again wild in his estimate that we
have more orange trees in Florida
than in all the rest of the earth tax
together. He is SO certain from his
estimate based on this calculation
that the business is over-done, that
he would apply to orange culture,
the principles advocated by Nautilus