2,2 



Tlie best time to plant is from May 1st to October Isl. 1 

 usually begin in April and finish up in October. It does not pay 

 to plant inferior plants. I do not sort closely to size. ]\Iy prac- 

 tice is to plant nothing but suckers, and slips large enough to com- 

 pete with suckers. In this way I .save six to twelve months on 

 the plant crop, and the harvest is prolonged. As much as half 

 the crop comes in the off seasons. It costs more to pick scattering 

 fruit, but there is no lazy season and no rushed harvesting. To 

 my mind there is no crop that keeps labor as ideally employed 

 all the year round as pines grown by this method. Suckers that 

 are too mature quickly show a bud, these are weeded out with the 

 sickly jilants. 



Many plants rot because of rough handling. The shank of a 

 sucker must not be roughly twisted in detaching it from the 

 parent stalk, nor should any plants be trampled. It is easy to 

 remove suckers carefully. I allow one plant to grow two suckers 

 to fruit, and no more at any time. To remove the surplus shoots 

 from the parent stem, the leaf below the shoot is removed first, 

 and the sucker is pulled outward and then sidewisc. A vigorous 

 sucker or top is good to plant ; but a lush, soft one is no better 

 for propagation than any other sort of lush plant. A dried 

 sucker is undoubtedly more resistant to rot when planted than a 

 fresh one. In practice I plant as soon as convenient after the 

 picking. 



The less our soils are stirred when wet enough to puddle, the 

 better for us. As a choice of evils wc often do have to hoe the 

 crop when the soil is too wet. 



The way I plant, I can horse-hoe for about nine nmiiths and 

 again for a few times after the plant crop is off'. The hoeing 

 woman gets $1.50 an acre per month when the horse hoe is 

 operating and $2.50 when she does all the cultivating her.self. 

 If the field is ridged .she gets fifty cents more, as the work is in- 

 creased, and our most efficient tool, a scuffle hoe, can only be used 

 a little, since it levels the ridges too much. 1 do not believe in 

 hoeing contracts based on tonnage. I have a general bonus sys- 

 tem in which those engaged in the other important oj^erations 

 share. A half cultivated field gives the tonnage man too much 

 for what he docs. It works out in actual jiractice that the man 

 is at something else more than he should be. 



It is l;umane and ])r()rital)le to kec]) the help sui)plied with 

 gloves. .At i)resent I use a cloth glove, leather faced, costing 1:^ 

 cents, but I hope to do better with a better iilove. A pair of 

 these lasts about three days in sucker picking, and about three 

 weeks in other wf)rk. In the h'lorida fields, gloves are made of 

 ten ounce duck. I have never been abU' to btiy them. 



'I'iie small-tooth horse cidtivator is not an effective tool: as it 

 has a tendencN- to work the dirt to the middU' of the row. leav- 

 ing tlie roots to be washed out bv the lain. I'oi- I'lr^t n--e in a 

 sucker field 1 like a regular six-tootlu'd cnliiv.itor. arranged to 



