Prior to February, 1835, groves of the sweet orange had for many years, and with great care, been brought into a thrifty and productive state. Then St. Augustine was one immense orange orchard, and appeared, says an eye-witness, “like a rustic village, with its white houses peeping from among the clustered boughs and golden fruit of the favorite tree, beneath whose shade the invalid cooled his fevered limbs and imbibed health from the fragrant air.” Much attention was given to the rearing of orange orchards, and large investments had been made in planting out nurseries of fruit trees, which, indeed, could hardly supply the demand for the young trees. The season prior to February, 1835, was very productive. Some of the orange groves paid from _one_ to _three thousand dollars_. I have been informed, that twelve years ago the income to the city was some $72,000 per annum. Mature, thrifty trees sometimes produced 6000 oranges; and the average product per annum of a single tree was 500 oranges. In the vigor and thrift of the orange business, the annual export of oranges was between 2 and 3,000,000 per annum from this city. The trade was brisk, and a source of revenue and profit to the place of great value. In the orange season, the harbor was enlivened with a fleet of fruit vessels, that thronged the city for the purchase and transportation of oranges to the northern market. But on the night of the fatal month of February, 1835, a frost cut down the entire species of the orange tribe, some of the trees rivaling in stature the sturdy forest oak. At one fell stroke, the labor and profit of years of toil--the inheritance of many generations--the little all of many families, were swept away! The resources of the city were dried up! Many were hurled in a night from the seat of affluence, into the lap of poverty and distress! To this day, the city has not recovered from the blight of that dire stroke. Shoots from the withered stocks of the old trees have indeed sprung up, and been struggling for life ever since, but under the pressure of disease; and all efforts to resuscitate the tree have been rendered abortive by the ravages of insignificant animalculæ, which prey on the life and vigor of the young shoots, and perpetuate the influence of the frost of 1835. TROPICAL FRUIT CULTURE OF EAST FLORIDA.