CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



twelve or fifteen inches. The rows should not be too close. If horse 

 cultivation is to be used, at least four feet between the rows should 

 be allowed, and even greater distance is desirable. In taking the 

 seedlings from the seed beds, a few should be lifted at a time, and 

 their roots kept shaded and moist until the ground closes on them 

 in the nursery row. To get an even stand in the nursery, small and 

 weak plants should be placed by themselves, or set in boxes to take 

 another year before going into nursery. 



Young trees in nursery are very liable to frost injury, and it is 

 wise to protect them by some sort of a cover during the winter. A 

 framework covered with cypress brush is often used, the whole 

 being cleared away in the spring to allow of summer cultivation. 

 Cultivation of trees in nursery is about the same as with deciduous 

 fruit trees. The horse should be used, and the surface kept perfectly 

 pulverized. The cultivator should follow irrigation as soon as the 

 soil will admit of it. Frequency of irrigation of nursery depends, of 

 course, upon local conditions. Some give two or three irrigations, 

 by running the water in a little trench alongside the rows, at inter- 

 vals of two weeks, for a time after planting, and then irrigate once a 

 month during the summer. It is important that irrigation should not 

 be continued too late into the fall, because the young tree should 

 harden its wood before cold weather. Nor is it desirable that the 

 growth be too rapid. A good growth of sound wood is better than 

 extra size. 



Length of Time in Nursery. Seedlings are usually budded after 

 being out one or two years in the nursery, or at two or three years 

 from the planting of the seed. At a convenient time in the winter 

 the lower shoots and thorns are removed from the seedlings, so as to 

 leave a clean stem of about six inches for the convenience of the 

 budder. 



Intensive Work in the Citrus Nursery. In addition to the fore- 

 going general reflections the reader may be interested in a specific 

 sketch of pushing a citrus nursery as described by Mr. R. E. 

 Hodges : 



Mr. Allen Dodson, of Los Angeles County, put 17 hay-rack loads of the 

 rottenest manure he could find on a sandy space 290x60 feet. This had to 

 be worked and reworked to leave no lumps of manure. The sand is neces- 

 sary to prevent baking. Then he planted 8y 2 bushels of seed, watered 

 carefully about every other day and kept the weeds down for rix weeks 

 before they came up. They grew about a foot before cold weather came. 

 Around the seedling bed were set upright 2x4s twenty feet apart and 6 feet 

 out of the ground for head-room. From post to post were 1x3 boards on 

 which laths were nailed upright about l*/ 2 inches apart. Above these laths 

 is a two-foot open space and then a roof similar to the sides but made in 

 ^0-foot squares so it may be easily removed. This open space (to get head- 

 room) should also be lathed, on the south and west at least, because the 

 low winter sun shines directly onto the seedlings and may turn them yellow. 

 jne shadows under the lath are perpetually moving with the sun so that 

 iirect light never stays long at a time on a given tree. The movable roof 



m ?jfo 1 c t n easy t0 set up the outflt 9 n new ground. One year Mr. Dodson 

 Id 185,000 seedlings from a certain plot and tried it again the next year 

 on the same place, getting only 4,000 salable ones. He had used only a 

 third as much manure the second year, thinking to have some advantage 

 from that applied before 



