The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-03-27
THEY ARE NOT ALL DEAD.
THE FLORIDA ORANGE GROVES
STILL HAVE LIVING TREES.

( Some Counties Escape Much DAM
aEe-The Trees I'm the Northern and
Middle Sections of the State Pretty
Well Cut Down by the COId-The
Orange Growers Hopeful and Have
Gone to work TO Repair Dam
ages-A Review of the Orange Sit
uatiOn.
Orlando, Fla, March 26.-The owners of
orange groves in Florida are beginning TO
learn the extent of the damage they sus-
tanned from last winters freezes. The first
freeze destroyed the oranges and killed
the foliage of the trees. Beyond this lit
the damage to the orange industry was
done. The trees were still fun of vitality
and began at once to put out buds and
show tender little leaves. Had the wealth
er bureau gone out of business at that
time and left things as they were next
, winter would have seen a surprisingly
large crop of fruit in this state. This
claim is made upon the experience of 1885,
when cold wave passed over the state
which, in severity. was almost identical
| with that of December, 1884 Then the
! pessimists and calamity grumblers told
the world that Florida was ruined and
the orange industry set back fifty years
In that year there was no second freeze.
Early in the spring the trees burst forth
into new life, new and profuse foliage ap-
peared, and in no former year was there
ever such a wealth Of blossoms, followed
by the setting of an extraordinarily large
crop of fruit 4.
Remembering that experience 1t was but
natural that growers took a hopeful view
of the situation in this latter instance,
and felt that the loss of fruit for one year
might possibly be compensated for by the
destruction of millions of insect pests, and
the larger yield of fruit which they had
reason to hope for a year later. But
when the second cold wave followed,
catching the newly opened and bursting
| buds, with trunks and branches of trees
flowing with sap, and freezing all solid
once more, it was a shock that trees with
less vitality would have succumbed to,
and it was something that threw every
observer and grove owner off his base,
as he had no former experience of a
similar or even approximate character
as a guide. Since Florida began to make
history nothing like it had ever occurred.
Hereafter the Christian era, the first set
tlement of st. Augustine and before the
war; will be dropped in our local retro
spect. Everything will date from THE
freeze" 1t is an epoch which will enter
into future calculations when the pres
ent generation shall have finished its
work and been gathered in.
Orange county occupies a central posi-
ton in the orange growing belt of Flor
ida. There are portions further north
where the cold was more severe and the
damage correspondingly greater There
are sections further south which have
suffered much less, some Of them escap-
ing serious injury. These sections will
send out crop of fruit next winter large
enough to surprise those people who have
/ already made up their minds that orange
| growing in Florida is at an end until the
| new trees can be started and new groves
! brought into bearing. This being medium
| ground it Is presumable that the injury
done here will be about fair average of
the whole. Even here the frost played
some unaccountable pranks, as trees of
equal size, and apparently in the same
condition, growing side by side in the
grove were differently affected One
would be killed to the ground, while only
| the small and medium-sized branches of
( its neighbor were Killed. Again, old bear
ing trees were killed to the trunks, while
little seedlings, only two or three inches
in hight escaped altogether and are bright
and green to-day. So also were different 10
calities differently affected, the cold hit
ting much harder in one place than in an
other near by. 1t could hardly be that
the difference was due to waves of cold.
as the low temperature came to us on
wings of wind, which swept over every
spot. and found its way into every shell
tered nook.
A somewhat extended observation. COW
ering considerable portion of this conn
ty reveals the fact that with little ex
ception the tops of trees are dead. In
many instances the larger branches arc
alive a few feet above the point of union
with the trunks. But as rule this is only
true OF Seeding trees. Budded groves
seem to have Jared worse, and the point
between live ana dead wood is frequently
defined by the point where the bud was
| inserted when the tree was small the