HOW TO PLANT. 71 



ure, and drive down your stakes to mark the tags as 

 before ; this gives the second row of trees. By adopting 

 this simple and easy mode of measurement, crooked and 

 irregular rows are avoided, and the grove thus laid out 

 will present a regular and pleasing effect to the eye, and 

 be much more easily cultivated than one whose trees are 

 set here and there, irregular in distance and in line. The 

 plow or cultivator can run much closer to trees that are 

 set in a straight line, and very little work is left to be done 

 by the hoe. 



There is great diversity of opinion as to the proper dis- 

 tance to set apart orange trees, and yet it is a question of 

 vital importance. We do not set out our groves for our- 

 selves alone, but for our posterity also, for generations to 

 come. We should, therefore, bring our best judgment to 

 bear upon a permanent arrangement for the position of 

 the trees. He who successfully brings to maturity a grove 

 of orange or lemon trees is preparing a noble heritage for 

 his heirs, and his work should be well and carefully done. 



The trees look small and puny when first set out, but do 

 not forget that they are put there to stay, and that for 

 years to come they will continue to increase constantly in 

 size, until by and by the day will come when each of those 

 trees will be forty or fifty feet high, with a trunk which 

 two men with outstretched arms can not entirely encircle, 

 and with a fruitage of from five to ten thousand oranges. 

 It seems incredible, does it not, that these little trees, 

 many of them no thicker than your finger, should ever 

 attain such a size ? Yet others have done it, and these will 

 do it in time ; not in ours, perhaps, but in that of our 

 children and children's children. 



If the trees are planted too close the grove will be 

 dwarfed and almost wrecked, as the years roll on, until 

 some day it will become imperative to remove a part of 



