Editor Horticulturist: I am amused at the communication of Oliver Taylor, in your October number, regarding my article on Orange Culture in Florida. I am opposed.to controversy, but dislike to be unjustly censured and misrepresented; and solicit space for a few remarks touching the communication of our half-century critic. My object was to briefly refer to the opening for capital and enterprise in Florida, and, if possible, induce persons to visit the more favored portions of the State and investigate the subject for themselves.

Mr. 0. censures me for not " telling the whole truth.'1 I stated nothing but the truth, and if I told all the truth regarding orange culture in Florida, and described the many resources and advantages presented by the State, your columns would not present room for one of Mr. O.'s communications for months to come. When I write for horticultural journals, I select some practical subject and discuss it as briefly as possible, for I conclude that readers of such journals are posted in agricultural chemistry, and the theory and practice of horticulture.

Mr. 0. refers to land speculators, and evidently intends to convey the idea that I am prompted by selfish motives, and use your columns for the purpose of advancing some land speculation. I do not own an inch of land in the State, nor am I in any way interested in any land speculation. But I am deeply interested in anything that can be produced at home, avoiding the necessity of importing it, and thereby retain in our country the metal we so much require.

It has been my privilege to visit more places on this earth than the piny barrens of eastern Florida, where it is evident Mr. 0. has obtained his pomological and chemi-co-agricultural knowledge. I can assure your readers that I have eaten oranges produced in California, Pacific islands, Australia, South America, West Indies, Bermuda, Azores, Mediterranean, and under glass, in England and the United States, and I have yet to taste fruits equaling or even approaching that produced in Florida. Convinced of the superiority of Florida oranges and lemons, and the adaptability of the soil and climate of certain portions of the State to produce the fruit in the greatest quantity and perfection, coupled with the fact that we annually expend millions for the imported article, induced me to prepare the communication, trusting that some of your enterprising readers might be induced to visit the State and investigate the subject for themselves.

For the information of Mr. 0. and possibly some of your other readers, I shall furnish a few facts and figures illustrating the importance of the subject under consideration. For the period of twelve months there were imported into the port of New York:

From the Mediterranean, 474,849 boxes, containing 112,462,600 oranges; 317,528 boxes containing 114,408,260 lemons; of this quantity 25 per cent. perished during the voyage.

From the West Indies, 45 cargoes, containing 17,816,795 oranges; of this quantity 45 per cent, perished.

At one cent per fruit, at place of production, the oranges and lemons imported into New York alone in one year would amount to $2,446,876. In Florida the lowest wholesale price for oranges is two cents per fruit unpicked. If we would take advantage of the soil and climate of Florida we could supply our wants. If we consider the amount of fruit that could find a market in the other ports and cities of the United States, the sum total for the crop that could be annually raised in the State would probably amount to ten millions dollars annually. Why send our needed gold to other countries for that which can be produced at home? Then again, instead of consumers being compelled to use spongy and acid oranges, and lilliputian lemons, they would be favored with such luscious fruit as can be produced in Florida alone.

Our critic informs us that he is nearly a semi-centenarian, and if age renders correspondents authoritative "Al Fresco" can assure your readers that his is on the shady side of 49, and that from his childhood he has been engaged in horticultural pursuits. Mr. 0. refers to his experience of " five summers " in the State, but unfortunately omits to inform your readers what portion of the State he has visited or resided in - an important omission. A person familiar with horticultural pursuits might spend fifty and five summers in the piny barrens of Ocean county without becoming acquainted with the capabilities and products of Monmouth or Burlington counties, N. J. My first visit to Florida was in 1844, and the dose has been repeated on numerous occasions. My observations have not been con-fined to the "piny barrens" of the eastern portion of the State, but I have examined it from the Apalachicola river to the Atlantic, and from the gulf to the Georgia line, - not neglecting the "piny barrens" east of the St. John's river, or the attractive section of the upper Ochlawaha, or the interior between Tampa bay and Gainsville.

Mr. 0. most learnedly refers to the " sandy foundation," with " a surface where much sand exists." No one but a greenhorn, or the embodiment of stupidity, would plant a grove on such soil. Mr. O.'s observations have evidently been confined to sections of the eastern portion of the State where wire grass struggles for a mere existence. He has evidently not visited or examined the rich soils with a loamy or clayey subsoil to be found on the Apalachicola, Ochlawaha, Withlacoochie, Hillsborough, Manatee, Crystal, Cheisowilsky and Wiccawachee rivers, or the surprisingly productive and almost inexhaustable lands near Sumpter-ville, Tampa, Micanopy, Brooksville and Orange lake. If your correspondent would but visit, and carefully examine the soil in the Annatalogga and Charcoochartie hammocks in Hernando county, he would find about 80 square miles of loamy soil with a sandy loam subsoil that cannot be excelled by any land in the United States, - a soil requiring no manure and almost inexhaustible. I have stood upon the tops of hills three and four hundred feet high in the neighborhood of Brooksville, and those hills were covered to the top with a deep loamy soil that would make a northern trucker dance; and on the very tops of those hills I have gathered monstrous and luscious oranges from as healthy and luxuriant orange trees as can be found on earth.

In all the localities referred to the orange can be grown with success. Such being the case, the intending planter will not find it necessary to search for the "shell mounds" or rich " bottom lands " referred to by Mr. Oliver. For size, color and marketable properties of the orange, the neighborhood of Brooksville cannot be excelled, yet strange to say, in this very neighborhood cleared and excellent land adapted to orange culture can be purchased at from 6 to 15 dollars per acre. Water is excellent, health unsurpassed, range of thermometer never so high in summer as in our northern States; during the summer a daily sea breeze from the gulf but fourteen miles distant. These advantages, coupled with an intelligent and hospitable people, renders it a more eligible situation for orange culture than the barren region described by Mr. 0.

[To Be Continued.]