ORANGE GROVES

The pioneers of the seventies planted orange trees as soon as the ground was cleared. Sometimes they did not even wait for that but set out their little trees among the girdled pines, gaunt watchers of the infant groves and as events have proved, good protectors against frost. It had been supposed that the rich soil along the water was best adapted to orange culture. Raising oranges on high pine lands was an experiment, and one involving considerable money and labor. They are slow growers. It takes eight or ten years for the seedlings to come into profitable bearing. The groves planted in 1875 did not show their productive capacity for a decade. By that time many growers were deriving a good income from their investments. They reckoned five to ten dollars a year per tree, as the average money return; number of trees to acre, fifty to seventyfive. There was as much excitement then over groves, as about city lots in the recent boom. Hundreds of acres were planted each season. One of the first to attract attention was that of Dr. H. H. Gillen, later purchased by Mr. Stetson. They were cutting down many of these trees in 1926 to make way for the development of Stetson Estates. Frances E. Willard wrote to the "Union Signal" April 1889: "At DeLand we went to the convention through a ten acre grove of blooming orange trees, golden fruit gleaming among the glossy green of their leaves. Mocking birds wake us in the morning, and the perfume of the orange flowers is deliciously present with us all day long. DeLand with orange groves on the one hand, and lofty pine forests on the other; with bewildering plentitude of flowers had for us visitors from the bleak Lake Michigan shore a charm not to be described and not to be forgotten." Orange trees are greedy and must be well fed. They eat fertilizer. Mr. Painter, dissatisfied with the fertilizers used, began making experiments on his home place with different foods for fruit and vegetables. The results of his investigations were published in his paper the Florida Agriculturist, the only agricultural publication in Florida. In 1890 having obtained with much difficulty raw materials from the north, he bought out The Humo Chemical Company started by W. W. Parce and began to manufacture fertilizers in a small building on the east side of Printery Park. Seven years later, this business had grown to such proportions that it became necessary to move headquarters to Jacksonville on account of tranportation facilities. It is now one of the large and flourishing industries of that city. The farmers of the entire state are indebted to Mr. Painter for the efforts that have made it possible for them to have fertilizers suited to varied soils and products. Orange trees under right conditions are hardy and long lived. Barbour in his book on Florida speaks of a tree in the northern part of the state eighty years old. Unfortunately, as the forests diminished, the frosts became more frequent and real freezes arrived. There was a severe one in 1886, but the great cold came in '94 and '95. The latter part of 1894, the foliage was killed. The trees reacting from this were full of sap and putting out leaves. In February a second cold wave took the trees. The extent of the disaster can be seen from these figures from the Florida Fruit Exchange. Shipments of oranges from Florida were:

1892-93 ................ 5,055,367 

1894-95 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,500,000 

1895-96................ 150,000 

The shipments from DeLand:

1894-95. ............... 170,000 

The estimated crop was ........ 380,000

The blow was staggering. Many groves were cut down and burned. Mr. Stetson put his Gillen grove into a shed with a movable top. Another of his groves was pruned until it was named the "Hat Rack Grove.” The trees that were painstakingly restored to life were bushy, never regaining the old symmetry. New methods of firing were adopted. Attention was turned to trees budded on hardy stock. New varieties were propagated. Lue Gim Gong, the celebrated Chinese horticulturist, who lived close to DeLand developed an orange named for him for which he received a gold medal from the United States Government. The marvelous feature of this variety is that the fruit will hang on the tree three years or longer without deterioration. The tree stands temperatures ten degrees colder than those of other kinds. A. G. Hamlin found in a grove of Mrs. Mary H. Payne, near Glenwood, some trees bearing unusually good early oranges ripening late in September. They were called "Hamlin's Favorite" and were largely sold in the DeLand market. All but three of the trees were killed in the freezes, but from these others were budded and sold under the name of "Hamlin's Improved Pineapple.” This promises to become the standard early orange of Florida. Many growers have specialized in tangerines, a Japanese orange that brings a fancy price. West Volusia County is the greatest market in the world for tangerines. The average yearly orange crop of the county runs now well over a million boxes, of which a goodly proportion are sent out from the DeLand packing houses. So the orange industry "came back.” But the people cultivate other products as well, so that a cold season does not strip them of their whole income. They raise vegetables and strawberries, ferns and bulbs, tourists and subdivisions. Someone else must tell how this victory was wrought from defeat. We were involved inextricably in the wide spread calamity. My father's optimism which had induced him to promote new towns, had led him gradually to put all his capital into the undertaking and to guarantee many of the sales he made. The freeze meant that he had to suffer the depreciation of his own property and to pay others for their losses. It broke him financially, but his spirit was invincible. He said, " I will begin again. I am sixty years young, not old." So up the way down which he had gone first in holiday mood and afterward had passed and repassed with high hopes, he went, sad, worn, poor, but unconquered. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." In 1907, he returned as a guest of the University. At the Presentation Day exercises held in the splendid auditorium of Elizabeth Hall, he was greeted with the Chautauqua salute, white handkerchiefs waving from platform, audience room and galleries. As soon as he could control his voice, he told simply of the early days, of his gladness that his dreams for school and city had been more than realized. The love that greeted him on every side made him feel that he was having a "foretaste of heaven."

"Ah, what shall I say when men taunt: 'Did ye find the goal ye sought? Why have ye come back With empty hands?' “Say, I have dreamed a dream. Not now, but later shall my dream come true. So long, so long as dreamers build their dreams Without a thought of gain shall youth endure here in this land."

Excerpt from:

The Story of DeLand and Lake Helen, Florida,

Written by Helen Parce DeLand.