78 FLORIDA FRUITS ORANGES. 



So the turn-plow should be banished from the bearing 

 grove, and in fact from every grove after the trees are 

 half grown, and a single thirty-two-inch sweep used in its 

 place. Many use the cultivator and harrow, but the sweep 

 is better than either ; it is more uniform in its depth of 

 cutting than either the plow, cultivator, or harrow. It 

 cuts off weeds under ground better than the two latter, 

 and, taken altogether, does better and cheaper work in a 

 grove free from stumps, and is superior to any other im- 

 plement we know of. 



The ground throughout the grove should be kept level 

 and the surface stirred with sweep or cultivator to a depth 

 of no more than three inches, as far out as the roots have 

 extended. Each time the cultivator or harrow passes 

 through the grove it should be followed by the hoe, not 

 only to cut down all grass and weeds, but to draw any soil 

 that may have been thrown against the trunks of the 

 trees, or piled up on top of the crown of the lateral sur- 

 face roots. 



We have in a previous chapter referred to the impor- 

 tance of allowing the crown of these roots to be level with 

 or slightly above the surface of the ground, and now refer 

 to it again because it is a point the why and wherefore of 

 which is but little understood or heeded, even by those 

 growers who are esteemed most intelligent and wide awake 

 to the best methods of culture. 



If the crown of these laterals is left a little above the 

 soil when the young tree is set out, as nature intended it 

 to be, they will develop very rapidly, and as these are the 

 main channels for conveying food and drink to the inner 

 parts of the tree, the importance of this point is readily 

 seen. It is exactly on the same principle that we draw 

 away the earth from around an onion to hasten the growth 

 of the bulb, and every where among the forest trees we 



