The herald., 1893-05-01
LETTER BAG.

Orange Growing and Freight Khtss
EDIroRs HERALD: To your article
headed, Is Orange Growing Success
Financially, If Not, Why Not, signed
by Grower, l wish to add few points
that l have never seen mentioned in
any paper, regarding this delicious
fruit, which if its size. beauty, ex-
quiaite taste, and hygenic properties are
duly considered, rightfully ought to be
named the Queen of All Fruits. To es-
tablish this fact superficial study OF
the orange will convince any one, al
though be may thoughtlessly have con-
sumed them by the hundreds or even
thousands.
In none Of the numerous fruits known
has Mother Nature taken such especial
care to shield and protect the edible part
as in the orange and the lemon. The
rind or peel, consisting of a more or less
thick felt-like covering, has evidently
for an object to protect the transparent
fine tissue skin inclosing the pulp from
rough usage, acting like cushion. The
thick, felty peel 10 itself protected by
the outer rind, consisting of network
of thousands Of minute cells filled with
an atherious aromatic oil, impermeable
to water and the air, ipoparting to the
fruit it's keeping qualities, thereby en-
abling it to be shipped on very great
distances without losing any of Its prop
critics.
Most other fruits also, from the time
of their blooming to their ripening, take
no more than from two to ak months,
while the orange to do that takes full
year, whereby nature itself designatee it
as one of its most perfect productions in
the immense vegetable kingdom.
Besides it's delicious taste and nutri-
tious qualities, the orange, on account
| of its citric acid, has very lately been
pronounced by soms Of the highest med
ical authorities in Europe and America
as ore of the most effective antidotes
against infectious diseases, such as ty-
phus fever and cholera.
And yet with all these eminent quali-
ties, this noblest OF fruits, considered as
a luxury in nine-tenths of the world
where it cannot be grown, is more and
more debased in the land of its growth,
being in fact degraded to q level with
any other vegetable or cereal, with
which cattle are fed and hogs fattened.
A pound of the vulgar potato, cabbage.
and most of the commoneet kinds OF
vegetables, srowing on cheap lands and
with two to three crops OF them during
the year, ia worth as much right here af
the average price OF a pound of oranges
While vegetable land giving croT
every six months is worth from 500 tc
500 an acre, good orange land with
trees from to 10 years old, in good
healthy and bearing condition, repre-
sents an actual cost value of from $l00(
to $4,000 an acre, according to Location
and many other circumstances, or ar
average OF about $4,000 per acre. Al
orange orchard, to do we'll, requires con
slant care and attention, in the shape 0
FIVE to six Civilizations, harrowings ant
irrigatione during every year, which,
scale pests are to be fought and th
proper remedies, such as fumigating
spraying, etc., are applied, causes al
annual expense of from $50 to $75 pc
acre, which yearly outlay, added to tn
original cost OF land and planting @
trees, say $500 per acre, with interest q
10 per cent added and accumulating TO
t eight years, will show the fact that tn
price of $4,000 an acre as assumed abov
is not in any way exaggerated, bu
forms the actual cost value OF orang
! orchards s to 10 years old and in full
bearing and healthy condition.
The investment of capital in orang
: growing is therefore business propos
! ton like any other, being as such en-
! titled to moderate product or incom
of say 10 to IL per cent net on capiti
! invested, wherefore if an orange orchard
: on whatever capital invested in it, doe
? not produce an income of at least
per cent, it is undoubtedly to be pit
down as a failure. That such failure
occur most frequently, even in well a
: tended and bearing orchards. is unfo
e tunately notorious fact.
0 The question the Borrower" throws u
for such cases he also answers In part
but not sufficiently to dilucidate IL
causes bearing on this most importal
question. He however hits on the ca
: dinal cause of the existing evil, whie
4 is the exorbitant, unreasonable freigf
charges exacted by the railroad octopu