Orange orchard

“ In fact, the broad spaces of filmy gray made by their acres when leafless are delicious values in contrast with the solid green of the orange orchards. The exquisite revelation of tree systems which stripped boughs give is seen to more perfect advantage 15 against a warm sky than a cold one, and is heightened in effect standing side by side with the flowing green pepper-trees and purple eucalyptus.
In the time of blossoms, an almond orchard, seen from a distance, is like nothing so much as a rosy-white cloud, floated off a sunset and spread on the earth. ”

“ That famous orange orchard which we must not leave behind yet, is admirable for the avenues first of palms, and then of live-oaks which form its approach; the oaks stretch their writhing limbs across the driveway, and put a still weirder disposition on from their hearsing with long plumes of Spanish moss, in perhaps the least endearing appeal of nature to human nature. ”

“ An Orange tree, with its rich glossy foliage, its perfumed ivory flowers and buds, and abundant golden fruit, is an exquisite creation of nature; but an Orange grove has no ideality. All fruit trees have a beautiful inflorescence—few have sentiment. The tint of a blossoming Peach tree is perfect; but I care not for a Peach orchard. ”

“ There should be, however, not less than three feet of good soil to make the large expenditure necessary to establish an orange orchard permanently productive, and all the depth you can get beyond three feet is desirable. We question the desirability of planting orange trees even on a good soil overlying gravel, rocks or sand. Roots will penetrate such material only a short distance usually. It is almost impossible with such a leachy foundation to keep the surface soil properly moistened and enriched; You are apt to lose both water and fertilizer into the too rapid drainage. ”

“ It wants good free soil, doing best where there is some lime in it. Farm yard refuse and ashes is its best manure. In planting an orchard it is best to arrange the same varieties together and those that will ripen at the same time, so as to save time when gathering the fruit for market. One of the best plans I know of to dispose of one's fruit is on the tree, or as is done on some parts of the Hunter, selling the produce of the trees for the season, then the buyer sends his own men to pick the fruits. An orange tree would sell for a few pounds per year ”

“ I prefer two-year-old trees for planting. I plant my orchard up to bearing with potatoes and corn; then seed down to red clover. Windbreaks are essential; would make them of several rows of Osage orange on the south side of the orchard. I prune my trees; thin out the top to let the sun in for coloring. My trees are more fruitful when planted in blocks. I fertilize my orchard with stable litter; I think it beneficial because it mulches, enriches, and holds the moisture, and would advise its use on all soils; no land is so good but what stable litter will make it better. ”

“ As a rule the orange tree does not begin to bear till it is four or five years old, therefore, it requires no pruning till after then, but all shoots that run out far beyond the rest should be cut off, and directly twigs begin to die they must be cut out at once. The orange requires plenty of room, and very deep, rich, loose soil, so that the roots, which are mostly near the surface, can push out freely. ”

“ Barren fruit trees are constantly met with in almost every orchard. The reason of their non-productiveness is a mystery. Sometimes it may be a want of potash in the soil, or a general poorness. A good plan is to apply ashes to the roots; open up the ground round the roots and dig in two or three barrow loads of wood ashes; also spread them liberally on the surface. Orange trees can often be benefitted by the household soap suds thrown round the tree. To take off smut on orange trees make a wash of wood ashes and water, thick enough to stick to the leaves and branches. ”

“ I prefer Ben Davis, Gano and York Imperial for market, and Maiden's Blush, Early Harvest and Winesap for family use. My orchard is in a bottom with a north slope. I plant two-year-olds with a fair amount of large roots, in furrows made with a lister, and enlarged with a spade where necessary. I cultivate with a disc harrow as long as possible, and grow nothing on the ground among the trees. I believe windbreaks are essential, and would make them by planting Osage orange, Russian mulberry and box-elders in rows six feet apart. ”

“ Very often the dead wood in a tree can be traced to cramped roots or bad drainage—it is what is called a "greedy grower" from the time it first starts till it withers and dies of old age or disease, and in spite of the most adverse circumstances the orange tree will try to make wood and live. It is one of the easiest trees of all to prune as the chief thing is to trim the branches so that none are in advance of their fellows. ”

“ The distance for the large-growing kinds of orange in the orchard is from 25 to 30 feet each way, but the half-dwarf kinds, such as Bahia or Washington Navel, may be as close as 20 feet each way, although 25 feet will be desirable. ”

“ There are in its orchards 209,000 orange-trees, of which 28,000 are in bearing, 20,000 lemon trees, and 8,000 limes.
The profits of orange culture are slow to begin, but, having once begun, mount up fast. Orange orchards at San Gabriel have in many instances netted $500 an acre annually. The following estimate, the result of sixteen years' experience, is probably a fair one of the outlay and income of a small orange grove:—
This estimate of cost of land is based on the price of the best lands in the San Gabriel valley. ”

“ A summer moon rode high in a cloudless heaven, and far as eye could reach stretched the green wilderness of a Cuban cafetal. No forest, but a tropical orchard, rich in lime, banana, plantain, palm, and orange trees, under whose protective shade grew the evergreen coffee plant, whose dark-red berries are the fortune of their possessor, and the luxury of one-half the world. ”

“ Eastward, just over the fir woods, were clouds, white and high heaped like snow mountains, and the westernmost of them shone with a rosy glow as of sunset on an Alpine height.
The higher worlds of air were still full of light—perfect, stainless light, unmarred of earth shadow; but down in the orchard and under the spruces the light had almost gone, giving place to a green, dewy dusk, made passionately sweet with the breath of the apple blossoms and mint, and the balsamic odours that rained down upon them from the firs. ”

“ The orange-tree, even at a great age, is not as large as one may have expected. Even those of a hundred years in the mission garden are not above two feet in diameter. It is gratifying to be at full liberty to examine this attractive vegetation, known heretofore only in its tub in the conservatory, or on the staircase at a ball. There seems but one drawback to an orange-grove, and that is that it cannot have greensward below to lie upon. ”

“ Nut-trees, already lively with sap, project their white branches like gnarled fingers; everything else is green; winter lays no hand on this eternal spring. The thick lustrous leaf of the orange-tree rises from amid the foliage of the olive, and its golden apples glisten in the sun by thousands, interspersed with gleams of the pale lemon; often in these shady lanes do its glittering leaves flash out above the crest of the walls. This is the land of the orange. It grows even in miserable court-yards, alongside of dilapidated steps, spreading its luxuriant tops everywhere in the bright sunlight. ”

“ Noble workmanship in wood may be found, too, in some of the ancient barns; sometimes the beams are of black oak, in others of chestnut.
In these modern days men have lost the pleasures of the orchard; yet an old-fashioned orchard is the most delicious of places wherein to idle away the afternoon of a hazy autumn day, when the sun seems to shine with a soft slumberous warmth without glare, as if the rays came through an aerial spider’s web spun across the sky, letting all the beauty, but not the heat, slip through its invisible meshes. ”

“ This, if proved by experience, always possible, does away with the only uncertainty relating to the orange-crop. Undoubtedly the fruit is far better to continue all winter on the trees, and be gathered from 264 time to time as wanted, as has always been the practice in Florida. But, with fruit-houses and moss, it will be possible, in case of a threatened fall of temperature, to secure the crop. The oranges that come to us from Malaga and Sicily are green as grass when gathered and packed, and ripen, as much as they do ripen, on the voyage over. ”

“ Eastward, a thick fir wood grew, beginning with tiny treelets just feathering from the grass, and grading up therefrom to the tall veterans of the mid-grove, unbrokenly and evenly, giving the effect of a solid, sloping green wall, so beautifully compact that it looked as if it had been clipped into its velvet surface by art.
Most of the orchard was grown over lushly with grass; but at the end where Eric stood there was a square, treeless place which had evidently once served as a homestead garden. ”

“ In the centre of the flower garden, there are various posts with iron rods extended from them for the training of creepers. Again, at the extremity, is an artificial grass bank, considerably elevated above the flower beds, planted with the dwarf china rose, which has a very good and natural effect. The orange-house is an oblong building, of great length, with opaque roof and backwall, upright lights only in the front, completely covered with grape vines, having a very fine crop of fruit all over them. ”

“ On turning to the house on the right hand, an open grove of forest trees affords a view of the orangery, which is seen as perfectly as if the trees were planted on the lawn; and when the orange trees are in flower, their fragrance is diffused over the whole lawn to the house. ”

“ It is but an acre or two of sweet, undulating pasture, bounded on two sides by tall hawthorn hedges, on the third by an ash copse, on the other by an orchard of apple trees. The grass is pure green, revealing here and there a purple orchis or dog violet or blue self-heal, except where the crystal brook rushes through it and gathers white and gold about its banks. Here no shadow falls, or if it does the dew and blossoms break it up. The leaning and interwoven apple trees make a white and wine-filled sky by their dense clots of bloom. ”

“ The cuckoo never comes till leaves are out and flowers in bloom. Nor the noisy wryneck nor melodious nightingale. These are merely actors and musicians, and they never put in an appearance till the carpet has been spread on the stage, and the scenery is perfect.
A cherry orchard is lovely indeed when its trees are snowed over with the blossoms that cluster around the twigs like swarms of bees, their dazzling whiteness relieved by just the faintest tinge of green. An apple orchard is also beautiful in the sunshine of a spring morning when the bloom is expanded. ”

“ The soil on which an orchard is to be planted should also determine the use of many varieties, which are admirable only when well suited in their locality.
Regard is to be had to climate, since some of the finest fruits in one latitude entirely betray our expectations in another. The hardiness and health of different varieties ought to be more an object of attention than hitherto. As in building, so in planting an orchard, a mistake lasts for a century, and a bad tree in a good orchard is like bad timber in good mansion. ”

“ I have already alluded to the fertility of the silt on the banks of the Orange River, but scarcely believed the statements of some of the inhabitants until, later, I saw with my own eyes the marvellous crops that it is capable of producing. Oranges, especially the variety known as the “Washington Navel,” grow to a profusion, perfection, and abundance truly wonderful, as do peaches, grapes, and in fact almost every variety of fruit; though both soil and climate seem to favour the various varieties of citrus most of all. ”

“ Yet they are so exceptionally beautiful, as the fruit turns crimson and yellow and golden brown, that the trees become a glory of colour in fruit-gathering time.
After all there is excuse for ornament without specific use, if a thing be very, very ornamental—and the orchard certainly is that.
The sun reaches well under the trees, where the wild flowers and grasses make a softly waving sea of colour. Of course, I know the grass ought to be kept cut, so as to prevent undue nourishment being taken from the earth for the support of “mere weeds.” ”

“ A pear orchard in exuberant flower is a vegetable spectacle not easily matched, for the bending branches of the pear tree give a gracefulness to its outline far exceeding the stiff formality of the apple tree, and oppressed with a multitudinous crowd of blossoms its branches almost trail the ground, a bending load of beauty that seems by moonlight a mass of silvery ingots. The Barland Orchard, between Worcester and Malvern, containing more than seventy trees, lofty as oaks, cannot be seen by a traveller without admiration, and is the finest in the kingdom, though the trees are now getting old. ”

“ Grove, the owner of the orchard, came up with a knife in his hand and began cutting off small branches of apple--blossoms. "I like to see folks enjoy things."
"I hope you don't mind our trespassing on your grounds?" said Miss Harson. "I can engage that my little friends will do no injury, and I particularly wished them to see your beautiful orchard in bloom; it is almost equal to a field of roses." ”