Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1922-11-24
PEARL RIVER COUNTY CLIMATE
AND SOIL PARTICULARLY
ADAPTED TO RAISING
CITRUS FRUITS
(By E. B. Ferris)

(by II. b. Ferris)
The experiment station in its
two locations in Pearl River County
has tried almost every kind of crop
that we had reason to believe might
succeed under our soil and climate
conditions. From present Indications
no one of these many crops give
greater promise for ultimate sue
cess than does the Satsuma orange.
In the winter of 1922 here were
225 orange trees set out at Nc
Neill. These included one dozen
trees each of seven different va
rieties of round orange including
the Grape Fruit, and the balance
were Satsumas. At the end of two
years most of the round oranges
had died and were replaced with
Satsumas. Since that time the
drawing in of this orchard for roads
and other causes has reduced the
number of trees to two hundred,
many of which are not first class
trees, due to having been replanted
and to injury from several causes.
At the most critical period of
the existence of this orchard, or when
the trees were just beginning to
bear well, the state gave up sta
tion work at McNeill and the prop
erty was turned over to the Bureau
of Animal Industry, U. S. Depart
ment of Agriculture, for use as
livestock experiment station.
Naturally the interest of the new
management was chiefly in live
stock and this orange orchard, not
being fenced separately from the
rest of the property, the trees suf-
fered for a time from the depre-
dations of sheep and cattle and has
lacked always the careful cultivation
that orange orchards in other sec
tions have received. With the single
exception, when the trees were spray
ed twice against white fly, this orch
ard has never been sprayed at all,
yet the trees have continued to grow
and bear fruit and this year, on
ground that has remained in sod and
in many instances with weeds as
high as the trees themselves, there
will be produced on little less than
two acres fully one thousand dol
lars worth of fruit. Some of the
larger trees have more than one
thousand oranges on them which
will sell readily at more than TWEEN
ty dollars per tree and these best
trees are no better fruited, size
considered, than are the smaller
trees in the orchard.
In our experience of thirty years
as scientific agricultural worker
and life time spent on farm,
we have never seen any crop do
SO we'll with so little attention, not |
even peaches and apples before the
day of San Jose scale and other
pests and plant diseases so COM
mon now with tn sse and other COM
mon fruits.
The whole of Pearl River County
is within the proven belt for Sat
suna production. At Lumberton,
on a parallel with the extreme north
line of the county, Bass and Son
have long had number of flour
ishing trees. At Poplarville, in the
center of the county, Mr.. j. j.
Scarborough has number of Sat-
suma trees that are marvels of per-
lection, and fully as good as any
citrus trees we have ever seen grow
in Southern California or in the
Valley of the lower Rio Grande |
near Brownsville, Texas. A short +!
distance from Mr.. Scarborough's |
orchard is a smaller one on the
home place of Mrs. T. F. Smith,
consisting of, perhaps, thirty trees
which are bearing an unusually
heavy crop, and are as fine as any
through this section. In an orchard
near the south line of the county
but actually in Hancock a single tree
bore last year $500 oranges and we
are told this year has fully 1000.
Experience in other parts of South
Mississippi, notably near Virgins,
where thousands of Satsumas were
planted some ten years ago and
the larger part succumbed to cold
later, goes 10 show that the location
Of the land with reference to air
drainage has more to do with sue
cess or failure in orange production
than any other one thing. Oranges
planted on hills or hill sides sur
vived the cold while those planted
in the valleys succumbed to it. We