"No Northerners have," she said, warming to her theme. "I
wish I could set some of them to scrubbing orange-trunks with
soap-and-water and spraying acre after acre, as we do, in a wild
race to keep up with the pests, knowing all the time that some
careless grove owner next door may let the rust mite or the
black fly get the better of his grove and let it drift over
into ours. Then there's always the chance that a grove may
get so infected that the government will order it destroyed,
--wiped out .... I've been talking just about the citrus fruits,
the grapefruit and the tangeloes and oranges and all that.
Pretty much the same thing applies to all our crops down here.
We've as many blights and pests and weather-troubles as you have
in the North. And now and then, even in Dade County, we get a
frost that does more damage than a forest fire."

As she talked they passed out of the grapefruit grove, and
came to a plantation of orange trees.

"These are the joy of Milo's heart," she said with real pride,
waving her little hand toward the well-ranked lines of
blossoming and bearing young trees. "Last year he cleared up
from this five-acre plot alone more than--"

"Excuse me," put in Gavin. "I don't mean to be rude. But
since he's made such a fine grove of it and takes such pride
in its looks. why doesn't he send a man or two out here with
a hoe, and get rid of that tangle of weeds? It covers the
ground of the whole grove, and it grows rankly under every
tree. If you'll pardon me for saying so. it gives the place
an awfully unkempt look. If--"