A RECENT number of the Rural South Land contains a letter from a gentleman who has been pensding the winter with Colonel Hardee, of "concussion" celebrity, near Jacksonville, Fla., from which we extract as follows: "Your correspondent, J. B. R., makes inquiries relative to the budding and grafting of the orange. Now, I cannot speak for your State, but budding and grafting is a perfect failure in Florida, compared to the sweet seedling. The well known Dummett's grove on Indian River has eighteen hundred budded trees in full bearing, being about twenty-five-years old, and the largest yield it has ever made was one quarter million oranges. This year it only produced one thousand, while Hart's grove just opposite Pilutka has only four hundred trees, sweet seedlings, occupying four acres, produced an average of two thousand per tree, and brought Mr. Hart every year from $9,000 to $12,000. "But persons planting the seed for seedling trees should be careful in selecting the seed from seedling and not budded trees, for the latter is not reliable, often producing sour oranges. The seed from Hart's grove planted in Florida will produce a better sweet orange than the original.

The Mandarin orange does not succeed in' Florida, compared to the large Smyrna, which in my judgment is the largest, sweetest and finest orange in the world. I have made arrangements to plant a large grove of this variety, and would respectfully advise your correspondent to do the same. Colonel Hardee thinks that August is the best month for transplanting the orange, and I should judge so from this fact: Last August Colonel Hardee contracted with Mr. S. V. White to plant and warrant to live and to do well for one year one thousand sweet Smyrna oranges, six months old, from the seed, then about eighteen inches to two feet high. This month Mr. White ordered five hundred more of the same oranges, and as there was sickness in the colonel's family, he requested me' to take up six hundred, the one hundred extra was to replace the dead ones, when I found to-my surprise that there was very few if any dead; the few that looked badly no doubt would have come out this spring from the roots. The rest were looking well and growing finely."