FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 47 CITRUS GROWING IN SOUTH AMERICA 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 back now, 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 Other volumes have been written is now old and woefully out of date.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 of the 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 of the 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 as the 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 L P.H. QDLfS «*J C. Q£)Lf5 MAQGH 4™ TO DLG. ZO™ 1933 Drasiliatt 5£a£< , ,.*,,.._ Paraguay, Argpnt'me^ Uruguay \an<£ FWrio Bico» Saw ike, g^^^aiantas arad Martini<^a& m ib«» air? ,Ghrlsima.s at 9^ ZBio dc Janeiro Paulo p «5i Pi t are gj ue i ra s T. 5So Sckastiao *2- 6.Gasiro ^ 9.Guriit^ba, ^ arras . 16.As(i 12010^ Parao,uaLi 1) I/, lucuma^ Aires Uraooa 21. Garwpoa 32.CraioJ Ge»arcC ffi.ViUr.io. 33.F0riale.3a, 1 laca^cs 345 L 4I 25 bai'a. PopriJi jlDUni 21 Paulo hffonso falls 37.Triv2idad ^SMao^io'o^io, AlaqjOa.5AlaqOa5 Fio Bioo ci/^ R&rraambueo Jrnij Florida 30. Jo So P^ 40.GA1NE5V1LLE 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.