Citrus Growing in South America Our Productional

FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 47

OUR PRODUCTIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL COMPETITORS

P. H. Rolfs, Gainesville

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: those phases that impinge on the Florida citrus It gives me the keenest and greatest pleasure problem. I am neither a booster nor a knocker to appear before you tonight. This makes my of Brasilian citrus production. We simply want forty-second year of continuous membership in to make a scientific study of the citrus situation. the Florida State Horticultural Society. My thir It is the application of science that has put tieth participation in the annual program. It is Florida in the lead. It is the application of five years since my last appearance. science that will keep her in the lead. Should The marvelous progress Florida has made is we permit the suspension of scientific investiga most disconcerting. To look backnow, it seems tions, for even so short a period as ten years, we that fourteen years ago we were merely at the would find ourselves hopelessly outclassed. beginning. The Experiment Station building of Many volumes have been written on the mar which we were so proud only two decades ago, velous in Brasil. Other volumes have been written is now old and woefully outof date. An even as thrillers. All of these are good as entertain greater progress has been made in the personnel ment, but as a means of enlightenment on the ofthe Experiment Station State. economic situation, they are "bunk." Progress, unpredictable. In retrospect incom parable. What a marvelous five decades since LATITUDE AND CLIMATE the founding ofthe Florida State Horticultural The general outline of South America is an Society! acute triangle with its apex toward the frigid This address is a too brief resume of thirteen zone, the Antartic. North America, which is also years study: twelve of which were spent in the triangular in shape, has its apex toward the Equa service of the State of Minas Gerais, Brasil, and tor. Do you grasp the significance of the dif nine months travel through eastern South Amer ference? South America is not affected with ica; Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay, as well hurricanes as we are north of the Equator; South as seventeen of the twenty Brasilian States. We America is only mildly affected with blizzards, traveled about fifteen thousand miles, by canoe, there being* no extensive land areas in which they sailboat, steam boat, steam ship, railroad, auto may originate. The Andes Mountains are a bar mobile and airplane—choosing whatever mode rier to frigid winds from the west, the Pacific served our purpose best avoiding the routes fre Ocean. Cycles of cold and warm years do oc quented by tourists and sightseers. We kept away cur. (See Fig. 1, map.) from the magnificent coffee plantations and the On account of the absence of cold waves, as century-old fazendas, as well asthe agriculturally above mentioned, tropical and subtropical fruits undeveloped regions. The worst accommodations 'can be successfully grown much further south of we had to accept were better than those encoun the Equator than north of it. Citrus growing is tered in the back country of Florida twenty to carried on throughout northern Argentina and thirty years ago. as far south as Buenos Aires—the same latitude The object of our journey was to get a first south as Wilmington, N. C, is north of the hand knowledge of the means employed for ad Equator. The most perfect navel oranges vancing agricultural education and how it af (Thompson Navel) for European markets that fected the existing horticulture. (See Fig. 1, map.) I have ever seen, were served us by Dr. Cross, In our studies tonight I want to present only at Tucaman, Argentina. Dr.Cross was formerly 48 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY

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Figure 1. Brasil and Argentina contain three-fourths of the area of South America and 75% of the population FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 49

chemist to Louisiana Sugar Experiment Station I am confident that less than ten per cent, of and is now in charge of the Experiment Station Brasil is occupied by forests of commercial tim for the Province of Tucuman. He has working ber. These magnificent forests are located on the with him Prof. H. F. Schultz and G. L. Faw- Atlantic Coast and along the majestic rivers, the cett, each of whom served at the Subtropical parts most easily accessible to the casual traveler Plant Introduction Garden at Miami. In the Prov and writer. The forests of gigantic hardwood oc ince of Missiones, Argentina, about the latitude cur at the lower altitudes where the annual rain of Savannah, we found Mr. J. T. Tucker in charge fall is heavy, about three times that of Florida of extensive citrus plantings. He learned fruit and well distributed throughout the year. We en handling in Georgia and Florida. He learned countered magnificent forests as far south as along how to handle a grove against freezes and after the Parana River next to Paraguay, along the At freezes. The cycle of cold years which culminated lantic Coast, and up the Amazon. Regions cov in 1929 froze some of the groves to the ground. ered by these forests do not make good localities In mid-winter (June), we saw his groves pre for commercial citrus growing. (See Plate 10, il pared for firing. They were shipping fine grape lustrating citrus growth on the edge of a rainy fruit and navel oranges to England. zone.) So far as latitude is concerned, I doubt if it From the southern part of Brasil to the eastern has any influence on the quality of the citrus point, the mountains rise abruptly from the sea. fruit. Please do not understand me to say that Back of the coastal mountains the drainage is for all varieties of citrus fruits do equally well in all the most part toward the interior; in the south latitudes. Each variety has its own peculiar niche, the outlet is through the River Plate and to the but this niche is not dependent on the distance northward through the Amazon River. The in south of the Equator. There are other factors. terior contains a highland of vast extent: not yet The Navel orange originated in Baia, about lat fully explored. (See Plates 11 and 12.) Even itude thirteen degrees south, yet the most per when located in the Torrid Zone, it has a tem fect specimens for the European markets (as I perate climate; due to altitude. At the Baturite, remarked above, that I ever handled, grew in less than five degrees from the Equator, we were Northwestern Argentina, a thousand miles south offered delicious Concord and Isabella grapes on of its probable birthplace. The best Marsh grape the 14th of October. fruit I ate in all South America was produced So far as Altitude is concerned, I judge that it at Sao Sebastiao, within sight of the Atlantic has little or only a minor effect on the quality of Ocean and under the Tropic of Capricorn. (Were citrus fruit or productiveness of the trees. So I not a Floridian I would have been tempted to long as the temperature, sunlight, moisture and have considered those fruits equal to Florida soil are favorable, it appears of little conse ripened grapefruit.) quence what the Altitude or the Latitude may be. CMmate.—Debunking is a thankless task. Ever Date of Ripening. In a general way, the ripen since my primary school days,, geographies have ing of citrus fruit from Rio de Janeiro southward to Buenos Aires is opposite to that north of the portrayed the wonderful forests, the gigantic ser Equator. Freshly picked oranges are on the pents, the fierce jaguars of Brasil, until our minds market in the city of Rio de Janeiro the year have become obsessed with the idea that Brasil round. There is merely an increase and diminu is one vast jungle of massive trees inhabited by tion in quantity in rhythm with the seasons. Fur fierce wild animals and still fiercer wild men. Nor ther south, especially toward the southern limits, have the present day magazine articles disillusioned one finds the season of ripening more sharply de their readers—very much. All of this magazine fined, similar to that in Florida. entertainment bears about the same relation to Northward from Rio de Janeiro, we have the true conditions in Brasil as our tourist folders geographic tropical zone. There is no winter do to Florida horticulture. nor summer, the seasons depend on the advent

4— 50 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY

of the rain. In the rain-forest region which it Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. These orchards were relatively small in proportion to the total area, planted with trees obtained from Australia, South dtrus trees grow prodigiously (See Plate 10), but Africa, California and Florida. Almost all of the crop production is comparatively light and the the trees are on sour stock, whether planted in fruit of inferior quality. In the tropical zone, Argentina or Brasil. Nearly all of these new where annual alternating droughts and rains groves were already producing fruit occur, blooming is likely to be profuse and the Varieties.—These extensive plantings are made quality of the fruit excellent. up of very few but standard varieties, nearly al In response to the oscillation of the earth, the ways running Navels, Valencias and Marsh grape trade winds shift northward and southward. fruit* only occasionally some pineapple oranges and tangerines. Para is a favorite late variety The period of drought produces in citrus a around Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. lowered vegetative activity. When rains occur, profuse blooming follows. So we have the EXPORT peculiar phenomenon of navel oranges ripening In 1922 the first standard crates, three, were m quantity in Baia, four to six months later than made in Brasil. In October, 1923, or was it in Rio de Janeiro. Baia has been famous for 1924, two hundred boxes of oranges were shipped the quality of her navel oranges for more than to New York and competed so successfully on fifty years. At one time she was the principal ex the auction market that it frightened Califor- porter of oranges in Brasil. By the application nians and Fldridians. Further importations were of technical skill (See Plate 12), Baia and Per- prohibited. In 1929 over two million boxes were nambuco can become important factors in the European markets and can dominate that of Ar exported to Europe. gentina, for the months of August* September In July, 1933, 1 had the privilege of check ing up on fruit exported by a private firm, Co- and October. Farther north and west, the rains are still more brasil. Their 150 Paras ran neck and neck as to price, with the California Navels on the English tardy than in Baia. In this vast area of tropical Brasil, there is a market. The condition in both cases was A, the great variation of rainfall, dependent on other best conditions than latitude. In the same latitude, The large plantings and exports are in private one finds regions where the annual rainfall may hands so we find men who learned handling of be as high as two to three hundred inches, well groves and packing of fruit in South Africa, distributed throughout the year, and other regions Florida, California and elsewhere. where the wet and dry seasons are sharply de- Packing Houses.—In the region around Rio de marked. In vast regions the rainfall is so sparse Janeiro there are some fifteen or twenty modern as to produce a desert condition. packing houses. The state of Sao Paulo has probably an equal number. The southernmost

PLANTINGS state has several. We saw a modern packing The most extensive groves have been set out in house in Argentina, preparing and exporting the Northeastern provinces of Argentina: Mis- navels and grapefruit to England. siones and Corrientes, about four million trees. Packinghouse machinery is being manufactured A lesser planting occurs along the coast even to in Rio de Janeiro. the southward of Buenos Aires. Prof. C. W. Woodworth, formerly Chief Entomologist of the THE MINAS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE University of California, made a very comprehen In discussing the subject matter for this eve sive study of the Argentinian citrus region, spend ning with our foremost horticultural educator, ing weeks in constant travel and instruction. Prof. Hume, he suggested that you would be In Brasil there are extensive plantings in the interested in the Minas Agricultural College. The Federal District as well as in the states of Sao idea was fine! It had not occurred to me that FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 51

you would be more interested in what manner of place chosen was on the central plateau, at an men the Mineirans are than in the crops they altitude of 2200 feet, about 250 miles north of produce. Modern citrus requires intelligence and Rio de Janeiro. education. Construction Work.—Aiter the property, 1200 I want you, my friends, to share with me in acres, had been acquired* the plans for the grounds being proud of the Minas Agricultural College. and for buildings had to be worked out. Bricks It was you who provided for the training. Your could not be purchased so we had to establish a indulgence enabled the Minas College to make dozen or more brick kilns on the College grounds greater progress in seven years than is ordinarily to manufacture the million and a half brick made in decades. That College is not a copy needed. Lumber was not available on the market, of any other College but is an adaptation of ag so we had to set up a saw mill and go to the ricultural science to the degree of education and forests for logs. Furniture could not be pur the development of agriculture, encountered in chased so we had to set up a furniture factory and Minas Gerais. You are justly interested in the train ocuntrymen to make desks and classroom Mineirans and their College. (See Plates 14, 15.) chairs. It will be quite difficult to present the splendid In this vast area where the hoe, brush hook, progress of the Minas Agricultural College and ax and cane knife were the only farm implements* leave out all reference to the Rolfs family. Half oxen had to be trained to plow annd mules to of the success must be attributed to the splendid draw cultivators. Budding was a deep dark mys people for whom we labored. One man among tery that had been guarded as a family rite. eight million people cannot accomplish anything In 1927 work had progressed sufficiently and unless he has their sympathy and intelligent co enough equipment had been acquired to admit operation. The other half must be credited to the first classes; we called for thirty and twenty- my late helpmate (who was just as much inter seven candidates appeared; in 1928 we had fifty ested in the Florida State Horticultural Society students; ever since that time there have been as I have been), and our daughter, Miss Rolfs, more applicants for entrance than could be ac for their tact and skill in meeting Mineirans. In commodated. In 1933 thirty applicants from one my own case, I was just one of those necessary neighboring state alone had to be refused ad evils that have to be endured. mittance. The College year opened March, 1934, Minas Gerais is five times the size of !Florida. with 350 enrolled. In 1933, sixteen states other Her eight million inhabitants are as pure Bra- than Minas Gerais and one foreign country (Par silians as one will find anywhere. Most of the aguay) were represented on the student body. population is of European descent. This element (See Plate 15.) dominates the local and state governments. They Farmers' Week. In 1929 the first call for a are mostly of Portuguese extraction; a consid Farmers' Week was made, thirty-nine attended; erable number of Italian descent and the rest di the next year 139. The number has grown stead vided among other European countries. There ily until in 1933 450 were in attendance. Owing are probably more Germans and of German de to limited dormitory and dining room accommo scent than Spanish. Minas Gerais has no sea- dations, only "honest-to-goodness" farmers are coast—hence has few transient visitors. permitted to attend. Newspapermen and others In 1920 the State of Minas asked the United who are not tillers of the soil are requested to States Department of State to indicate someone come some other time when they will not crowd who could locate, organize and conduct a mod out the farmers. ern Agricultural College. The Department of The College. A teal country-life institution; State "passed the buck" to the Department of over 90% of the students are from the farm and Agriculture. nearly all of them go back to the farm. We have After we arrived in Brasil, the first step was the anomolous situation of state and federal po to find a suitable location for the College. The sitions hunting on the farms for graduates to 52 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY coax them to take public positions. Some stu ited the College in 1928, and since that time the dents own their farms and come to the College Papal Nuncio, the Japanese Ambassador, the Eng to learn the new agriculture. One stock raiser, lish Ambassador and the German Ambassador, a graduate of the College, has a graduate at the have all made the fourteen-hour trip into the head of his poultry department and contracted interior to see what it was all about. Special ex another student a year in advance of the comple cursion trains have been run to the College by the tion of his course. National Educational Association, as well as on Amusing incidents occur. One of our graduates, the occasion of the visit by the national Pres without his consent, was elected Mayor of the ident. town in which he was working. He tried to re RESUME sign. His resignation was not accepted, because My friends, you have heard my story and seen he was the best educated and most progressive the photographs. No attempt has been made man available. He retired from the community, either to boost or to knock; it is simply a plain thereby automatically cancelling his political po presentation of the situation as it is today. You sition. will have to accept the many dogmatic statements The Physical College. At headquarters, there as proven. To demonstrate them fully would re are approximately two thousand acres. In addition quire a volume larger than one of our Annual to the main building and dormitory (See Plate 14), Proceedings. there are some thirty to forty brick field labora I. Two facts are plain: (1). Brasil and Ar tories a.nd houses. (Compare with Plate 13.) gentine are potentially ponderous competitors for Thd College owns 65,000 acres of virgin forest for the citrus market. (2). Their people are men the Forestry Department, located sixty miles tally capable of a great development in citrus pro further into the interior. duction. They will have to be reckoned with The Student Body.—(See Plate 14.) Intellect under their new independence. ually they are the equal of Florida students in Brasil and Argentine contain 75% of the area of 1914 or 1915. Their age is eighteen or more South America and three-fourths of her popula years. Only especially well educated students are tion. They have concentrated on a few standard admitted below this age. Educationally they are varieties of citrus; they are employing experi about the same as Iowans and Kansans during the enced men from nearly every continent; they are middle eighties. employing the most advanced methods and newest Temperamentally they differ from Floridians, machinery. but so do South Carolinians and Iowans. I found Academically we admit that distance has been quite as much difference between the Florida stu nearly annihilated; practically we have not com dent and the Clemson College students in 1900 as prehended it. Seasonal demarcations are also dis I did between the Florida students and those in appearing. Last July we found North American Minas in 1930. The professors (See Plate 10) are navel oranges in active competition with the Bra- of about the same caliber and preparation as were silian Para. ours in 1915. II. What are we going to do about it? In the The Agricultural College was the only state- last fifty years (the age of the Florida State supported department or institution that was left Horticultural Society, forty-seven years under undisturbed by the troublous times. In place of the present Constitution), there have been numer decreasing its annual appropriations, they have ous and serious crises. Each one pronounced by been gradually increased. Real agricultural instruction is appreciated in some leaders to be the ultimate and complete Brasil. This is demonstrated by the fact that wreck of the citrus industry. In every case it the Minas Agricultural College has received has been the scientist who has blazed the trail to visits from numbers of noted people, as well as recovery. Stick by your scientists. They are and from societies. The American Ambassador vis have been working for little more than their FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY

"board and keep" and are happy to be allowed to fornia twelve years ago. Florida has set an ex do so. ample of progressive education. They are look III. The object for which we went to Brasil, ing to us for an example in progressive civili that of establishing and conducting an institution zation. which will continue to function for many decades, If I have put over the thought that our intel has been attained. In Minas Gerais, no other lectual Mineiran cousins are fully our equals, with country is so well known as the United States. No the same aspirations for economic well-being as other state is so highly esteemed as Florida. We ours, and are developing toward a higher and are as close to Minas today, as we were to Cali better civilization, I shall be satisfied.

METHODS FOR DETERMINING RUST-MITE ABUNDANCE

W. W. Yothers, entomologist, and Ralph L. Miller, associate entomologist Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, IT. S. Department of Agriculture

Twenty-five years ago very few citrus growers our results into definite form. For convenience, were able to recognize the rust mite. There was a hole one-half inch square was cut in a piece of perhaps not a grower in the State who possessed paper, and this paper was placed on the upper a magnifying glass, which is necessary for iden and lower surfaces of a leaf and on the fruit, tification of the pest. Such spraying as was done if fruit was present, and all the mites within the was timed at about monthly intervals throughout hole were counted. These three counts were the spring and summer, with no attention what called a "series." This "square method," as we ever to the relative abundance of the mites. The have designated it, has been used now for more only spray used against this pest was soda-sulfur than 20 years in determining the relative insec- solution, at such a weak dilution that control was icidal values of all materials for the control of effected for only short periods. There was no rust mites. It has also been used in determining standard for measuring the abundance of rust the preferential hosts and the seasonal abundance mites on the fruit or foliage. of the mites. In fact, in all our research relat This was the rust-mite situation when research ing to the abundance of rust mites this method was undertaken in 1912. In our first tests to de has been used. termine the relative effectiveness of various sprays At the present time hundreds of growers have at many concentrations, we used such terms as magnifying lenses to enable them to discover the "no rust mites present," "few mites present," presence of rust mites. Very few of them, how "adults only present," "young mites present/1 ever, actually count the rust mites per square. "mites abundant," and "mites very abundant." They determine the advisability of spraying or Such general terms conveyed little exact knowl dusting from their experience and general ob edge even to ourselves. We found that they had servations. This procedure is infinitely better different values from day to day and, of course, than spraying for the control of a pest with no one observer's ideas would be entirely different knowledge as to its presence. In our opinion, from those of another. however, it can still be improved by counting the To improve this situation we finally decided rust mites per half-inch square on the foliage that the method of counting the rust mites per and fruit. half-inch square on the upper surface of the In our experimental work it has been the prac leaves, on the lower surface of the leaves, and on tice to count the mites on 25 series (i. e., in 75 the fruit itself was at least a start toward putting squares). When a grower uses this method, the