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A grove or orchard of Seedling trees, fifteen years old, should average 1500 to 2000 Oranges to each tree, and these will sell readily at one and a half to two cents each, purchasers paying for picking and packing. This, in a grove of one hundred trees, would give from twenty-two and a half to forty dollars per annum, or $ 2250 to $ 4000 per acre—loo per acre. The Orange tree, if properly cared for, will continue to grow and bear udinfinitum. I have seen trees said to have been one hundred years old, that yielded annually from TOGO to 10,000 marketable Oran ges. Can the same space of ground planted in any other article, be made to give a greater return in money value for the same outlay of capital and labor ? Take a piece of wild land; say its original cost is $lO per acre; to put it in proper condition for successfully growing the Orange, say will cost (grubbing, ditching, plowing and fencing) $ 100 per acre; sa} T original cost of one hundred trees and putting them out, one dollar per tree, on one acre $ 100; thus making one acre in an Orange grove cost $ 210. If put out in budded trees will give something for market the third year; if in Seedlings, about the fifth year. During which time the same land can be advantageously culti vated in corn, peas, potatoes, and all kinds of melons and garden vegetables for family use.— The labor necessary to cultivate these articles, can give the Orange trees all the attention they will require; and at the end of ten years there will be an income of one to two thousand dollars per acre; as secure as the best bank or railroad stock in the country. The Orange tree requires the same attention as the Apple tree North. It has but two enemies that I know* of in this sec tion of country. Cold below” 22 deg. Fahrenheit, and what is. known as the “ Orange insect.” — The first may be guarded against by a judicious selection of locations and using smoking log heaps to the northw”est on the few” cold nights as may be required. The insect may be overcome by cultivation, and keeping the trees in a steady but vigorous state of growth; or by the use of a solution of guano, injected occasionally over the infected trees. My most beautiful trees have had the insect on them since they were six inches high ; they are now eighteen years old. You ask about the varieties of Orange among us: The principal are the round and oblong, Mandarin and Tangerine; the latter in my opin ion, is nothing more than the Mandarin, rather a small, flat Orange, the pulp of which is inclin- SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. ed to be red, and the lobes part or separate from each other when the outside peel is removed. A great diversity of opinion exists in regard to the Orange. Some contend that the plant from the ftweet Orange seed w ill be a Sour Orange tree, and that a bud from a budded tree on the Sour Stock, w ill produce a sour Orange. My experience is that, without exception, the seed from the Sweet Orange, will produce a sweet Orange; but that they may and do dilFer in flavor and sweetness from each other, and that the bud from a budded tree will produce its like—the product from the bud partaking of the nature of the parent bud, and not of the stock budded. I have treated exclusively the Orange. The same treatment will answer equally well for the Lime and Lemon. These, however, are a shade less hardy than the Sweet Orange—the Lime be ing a little more sensitive to cold than the Lemon. The Guava, another tropical fruit, deserves particular notice, as I esteem it of equal impor tance to either of the above. But this commu nication is already too much extended, and 1 will therefore refrain for the present—simply remark ing that during the winter of 18G8-9, my Guava trees were all killed to the ground; that the sprouts from the old roots are now from six to eight feet high, and full of fruit, losing but one crop of fruit by the disaster. —F. L. Dancy, in South-Land. On the Georgia coast we have found the Sour Orange hardier the Sweet. — Eds. So. Cult. ——— MY PLAY FOR RAISING WATER-MELONS. Editors Southern Cultivator : —As I am very successful raising water-melons, I thought I w'ould send my plan. The spot of ground that you expect to plant, prepare well early in the spring,by plowing deep; the first of April lay off your hills eight feet apart each way, dig out holes 2 feet deep, 2 feet square; in each hole put half peck rotted cotton seed, half peck of hog pen manure, and a table-spoon full of salt; mix well with a hoe, adding soil until you get the hole full up to 3 inches from the surface, then draw on light loo9e dirt until you get it level; do not elevate it, for by so doing, you cause them to die out when summer comes; draw your hoe around to form a furrow ; plant half-dozen seed in a hill—soon as up, thin out to four; second hoeing thin to tw r o. Continue to hoe them eve ry four or five days, and ju6t before the vines start to run, side with a plow, first one way, then 439