March 25, 1872.
After a cold, damp, rainy week, we have suddenly had dropped upon us a
balmy, warm, summer day,--thermometer at eighty; and every thing out of
doors growing so fast, that you may see and hear it grow.
The swampy belt of land in front of the house is now bursting forth in
clouds of blue iris of every shade, from the palest and faintest to the
most vivid _lapis-lazuli_ tint. The wild-rose-bushes there are covered
with buds; and the cypress-trees are lovely with their vivid little
feathers of verdure. This swamp is one of those crooks in our lot which
occasions a never-ceasing conflict of spirit. It is a glorious,
bewildering impropriety. The trees and shrubs in it grow as if they were
possessed; and there is scarcely a month in the year that it does not
flame forth in some new blossom. It is a perpetual flower-garden, where
creepers run and tangle; where Nature has raptures and frenzies of
growth, and conducts herself like a crazy, drunken, but beautiful
_bacchante_. But what to do with it is not clear. The river rises and
falls in it; and under all that tangle of foliage lies a foul sink of
the blackest mud. The black, unsavory moccasin-snakes are said and
believed to have their lair in those jungles, where foot of man cares
not to tread. Gigantic bulrushes grow up; clumps of high water-grasses,
willows, elms, maples, cypresses, Magnolia glauca (sweet-bay), make
brave show of foliage. Below, the blue pickerel-weed, the St. John's
lily, the blue iris, wild-roses, blossoming tufts of elder, together
with strange flowers of names unspoken, make a goodly fellowship. The
birds herd there in droves; red-birds glance like gems through the
boughs; cat-birds and sparrows and jays babble and jargon there in the
green labyrinths made by the tangling vines. We muse over it, meanwhile
enjoying the visible coming-on of spring in its foliage. The maples have
great red leaves, curling with their own rapid growth; the elms feather
out into graceful plumes; and the cypress, as we said before, most
brilliant of all spring greens, puts forth its fairy foliage. Verily it
is the most gorgeous of improprieties, this swamp; and we will let it
alone this year also, and see what will come of it. There are
suggestions of ditching and draining, and what not, that shall convert
the wild _bacchante_ into a steady, orderly member of society. We shall
see.
Spring is a glory anywhere; but, as you approach the tropics, there is a
vivid brilliancy, a burning tone, to the coloring, that is peculiar. We
are struck with the beauty of the cat-briers. We believe they belong to
the smilax family; and the kinds that prevail here are evergreen, and
have quaintly-marked leaves. Within a day or two, these glossy,
black-green vines have thrown out trembling red sprays shining with
newness, with long tendrils waving in the air. The vigor of a red young
shoot that seems to spring out in an hour has something delightful in
it.
Yellow jessamine, alas! is fading. The ground is strewn with pale-yellow
trumpets, as if the elves had had a concert and thrown down their
instruments, and fled. Now the vines throw out young shoots half a yard
long, and infinite in number; and jessamine goes on to possess and
clothe new regions, which next February shall be yellow with flowers.
Farewell for this year, sweet Medea of the woods, with thy golden fleece
of blossoms! Why couldst thou not stay with us through the year? Emerson
says quaintly, "Seventy salads measure the life of a man." The things,
whether of flower or fruit, that we can have but once a year, mark off
our lives. A lover might thus tell the age of his lady-love: "Seventeen
times had the jessamine blossomed since she came into the world." The
time of the bloom of the jessamine is about two months. In the middle of
January, when we came down, it was barely budded: the 25th of March, and
it is past.
But, not to give all our time to flowers, we must now fulfil our
promise to answer letters, and give practical information.
A gentleman propounds to us the following inquiry: "Apart from the
danger from frosts, what is the prospect of certainty in the
orange-crop? Is it a steady one?"
We have made diligent inquiry from old, experienced cultivators, and
from those who have collected the traditions of orange-growing; and the
result seems to be, that, apart from the danger of frost, the
orange-crop is the most steady and certain of any known fruit.
In regard to our own grove, consisting of a hundred and fifteen trees on
an acre and a half of ground, we find that there has been an average
crop matured of sixty thousand a year for each of the five years we have
had it. Two years the crop was lost through sudden frost coming after it
was fully perfected; but these two years are the only ones since 1835
when a crop has been lost or damaged through frost.
Our friend inquires with regard to the orange-insect. This was an
epidemic which prevailed some fifteen or twenty years ago, destroying
the orange-trees as the canker-worms did the apple-trees. It was a
variety of the scale-bug; but nothing has been seen of it in an epidemic
form for many years, and growers now have no apprehensions from this
source.
The wonderful vital and productive power of the orange-tree would not be
marvelled at could one examine its roots. The ground all through our
grove is a dense mat or sponge of fine yellow roots, which appear like a
network on the least displacing of the sand. Every ramification has its
feeder, and sucks up food for the tree with avidity. The consequence is,
that people who have an orange-grove must be contented with that, and
not try to raise flowers; but, nevertheless, we do try, because we
can't help it. But every fertilizer that we put upon our roses and
flower-beds is immediately rushed after by these hungry yellow
orange-roots. At the root of our great live-oak we wanted a little pet
colony of flowers, and had muck and manure placed there to prepare for
them. In digging there lately, we found every particle of muck and
manure netted round with the fine, embracing fibres from the orange-tree
ten feet off. The consequence is, that our roses grow slowly, and our
flower-garden is not a success.
Oleanders, cape-jessamines, pomegranates, and crape-myrtles manage,
however, to stand their ground. Any strong, woody-fibred plant does
better than more delicate flowers; as people who will insist upon their
rights, and fight for them, do best in the great scramble of life.
But what a bouquet of sweets is an orange-tree! Merely as a
flowering-tree it is worth having, if for nothing else. We call the
time of their budding the week of pearls. How beautiful, how almost
miraculous, the leaping-forth of these pearls to gem the green leaves!
The fragrance has a stimulating effect on our nerves,--a sort of dreamy
intoxication. The air, now, is full of it. Under the trees the white
shell-petals drift, bearing perfume.
But, not to lose our way in poetic raptures, we return to statistics
drawn from a recent conversation with our practical neighbor. He has
three trees in his grounds, which this year have each borne five
thousand oranges. He says that he has never failed of a steady crop from
any cause, except in the first of the two years named; and, in that
case, it is to be remembered the fruit was perfected, and only lost by
not being gathered.
He stated that he had had reports from two men whom he named, who had
each gathered ten thousand from a single tree. He appeared to think it
a credible story, though a very remarkable yield.
The orange can be got from seed. Our neighbor's trees, the largest and
finest in Mandarin, are seedlings. Like ours, they were frozen down in
1835, and subsequently almost destroyed by the orange-insect; but now
they are stately, majestic trees of wonderful beauty. The orange follows
the quality of the seed, and needs no budding; and in our region this
mode of getting the trees is universally preferred. Fruit may be
expected from the seed in six years, when high cultivation is practised.
A cultivator in our neighborhood saw a dozen trees, with an average of
three hundred oranges on each, at seven years from the seed. Young
seedling plants of three years' growth can be bought in the nurseries on
the St. John's River.
Our young folks have been thrown into a state of great excitement this
afternoon by the introduction among them of two live alligators. Our
friend Mr. P---- went for them to the lair of the old alligator, which
he describes as a hole in the bank, where the eggs are laid. Hundreds of
little alligators were crawling in and out, the parents letting them
shift for themselves. They feed upon small fish. Our young _protege_
snapped in a very suggestive manner at a stick offered to him, and gave
an energetic squeak. We pointed out to the children, that, if it were
their finger or toe that was in the stick's place, the consequences
might be serious. After all, we have small sympathy with capturing these
poor monsters. We shall have some nice tales to tell of them anon.
Meanwhile our paper must end here.
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