THE MONTHI.T BULLETIN. 



399 



Mr. Schulz. I would like to ask Mr. Chapman about his method 



of fertilizing. . . 



Mr. Chapman. As I said before, that is a very difficult proposition. 

 I buy all my fertilizer in what is called car lots of tankage. I get a 

 high grade tankage, and buy my nitrate of soda and superphosphates 

 and potash in the same way, and put them on one at a time, usually in 

 the spring the heavier, and later in the summer the superphosphates 

 and potash. 

 Mr. Schulz. What time do you put on the nitrate of soda ? 

 Mr. Chapman. Put on the nitrate of soda usually at the time the 

 fruit is in blossom, after it has been in blossom a time. It is of great 

 assistance in setting the crop of fruit. 



Mr. Schulz. Do you ever use sulphate of iron? 

 Mr. Chapman. I used that once some years ago, and apparently it 

 didn't do much good, didn't get any beneficial results and proved 

 somewhat troublesome and hard to get, expensive, and I didn't see any 

 use in using it. 



Mr. Banks. I just want to ask a question. I think without a doubt 

 that California is pretty well agitated along the idea of soil fertility. 

 We produce groves and know how to plant trees and how to grow them. 

 We have all that under consideration. If I did not misunderstand Mr. 

 Chapman, he is a shipper. What we all want is a feasible way whereby 

 the producer can get more for his crop by marketing or otherwise— so 

 that he can market his crop to the best advantage and at the lowest 

 possible cost. That seems to be about the biggest point that the growers 

 have got in California. 



Mr. Chapman. I agree with you, that that is a very important 

 question. It is perfectly useless to grow oranges and get nothing for 

 them. In southern California we have the Fruit Growers' Exchange, 

 which is a splendid organization, and it does not conflict in any way 

 with the growers there, and does them good, especially the small grow- 

 ers. This exchange has been in existence for five years now, and the 

 growers get full value for their oranges. Of course the Fruit Grow- 

 ers' Exchange or any other organization could not get full value for 

 frozen stuff or decayed fruit or anything of that kind. When you 

 get good fruit on to the market you can get prices at this exchange. 

 I am not in that combination, but I do recommend it to small growers. 

 I have enough fruit to have a combination of my own. I begin shipping 

 along perhaps in December, perhaps in January, and continue until the 

 middle of November, shipping steadily, and in that way I can keep my 

 fruit on the market. Now, the point I would like to make is this, that 

 the better quality of fruit, the cleaner the fruit is, the better prices you 

 will get, and the trouble is that many men are shipping inferior fruit 

 into the markets. That does not only apply to the orange, but it applies 

 to every character of fruit that is shipped out of California. 



Dr. Cook. How much of this nitrate of soda do you apply to the 

 tree? 



