The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1893-01-18
For THE FLORIDA AGRICULTURIsT.
Orange Culture-Improving on Ma
ture.

Orange Culture-1mprOVlng on Ma
ture.
have been much interested in reading some of
the articles in your excellent paper advocating
the plan OF following natures laws of growing
trees ETC., where the hot sun is shining and the
thermometer crawls up to SO degrees in theshade,
and we have to go out and hoe or pillow, 1 can tell
you. that plan appeals strongly to our physical
comfort. How gladly we would say "tell nature
to take care OF that job for us while sit in the
shade,'' and again when the bank account begins
to run strongly on the down grade some months
before there is any chance for a rise, it appeals
very, very strongly to our purse strings to ''let
old nature take her course" But the question
presents itself to us, how far can we follow old
Dame Nature in our special business of growing
oranges? In growing oranges We want to grow
them at a profit, and not for the fun of blowing
and hoeing in the hot days of summer.
We will first take a look at natures way of
growing the orange. We find the orange tree in
a state of nature only in the hammocks, where it
has had to struggle against the sturdy oak, hick-
DRY, palmetto etc., for possession OF the soil. it
may add an inch to it's diameter every ten years.
Orange trees in q rich hammock at HawkinsviG
were blazed in the government survey ffty-f1ve
y
ameter. One ofthe best ofnature's orange treesI
ever saw was in the Apopka hammocks. Some
storm had blown down the oaks around it and letit
have a chance at the air and SUM- 1t usually bore
400 or 500 fruit, such picture of beautiful yellow
fruit, what afeast for theeyes; but twas feast
for the palate. Dame Nature had forgotten to put
any sugar in them. "Did the old dame forget the
sugar." "Oh! no. that is the kind she grows in
cho tro 70 IJt in
she accidentally upsets the quinine bottle in it
too, and spoils the whole mixture and makes q
bitter-sweet.'
Dame Nature has not grown any orange trees
out on the pine lands, Either she thought the
annual fires would be too hot or the land too
poor, or both so she confined her efforts to the
rich, damp. unburnt hammocks.
When man began to turn his attention to
growing oranges il Florida he found all the
natural trees in the swamps and hammocks. The
first thing that presented itself to him was to
transform the native sour trees into sweetmarket-
able fruit. The hard wood growths were removed,
the sour trees were budded, and where they stood
too thick they were thinned out, and removed to
other places. Pine lands were cleared and groves
of sweet seedlings and budded trees were set out
all over this country. Now after twenty years
formed nature and made the hammocks and pine
lands blossom as the rose. Instead of the sour
and bitter-sweet of the natural tree, we have the
Tangerine, Mandarin, Jaffa. King, Homosassa,
Brown, Harris Late etc., etc.
Instead of waiting on nature to improve the
soil after her slow way OF decaying vegetation
our Florida orange growers use thousands of tons
of blood and bone from the slaughter houses ofthe
great cities, thousands oftons ofpotash from the
mines of Germany and thousands oftons of phos-
phate from the mines OF Florida and South Caro-
ina All sources offertilizing materials are being
drawn on to push forward the growth of the trees
and bring them into good and profitable bear
ng.
What comparison there is between the sour
crab apple, natures apple and the Albermarle
oippin, the Greening, the russell and all the long
ist OF fine apples that are now being grown all
over the country.
Look at the advances man has made in grow