24 
Citrus and Tropical Fruit Culture 
by plowing very deep furrows on each side of the 
trees and placing the manure therein, then fill in the 
furrows and allow it to decay. This makes it avail- 
able as a plant food much more quickly than by the 
old method of broad-casting it on the surface and 
plowing or discing it in. 
There are a number of good commercial fertilizers 
put out by the different firms engaged in that busi- 
ness, and the use of these gives very satisfactory re- 
sults, especially where used in connection with either 
cover crops or manure. On young trees, three to five 
pounds per tree is used and as the orchard reaches 
full bearing age, from 1,000 to 2,500 pounds per acre 
is applied. Commercial fertilizer should be drilled 
in to a depth of from 4 to 6 inches to get best results. 
In sowing it on the surface and attempting to cul- 
tivate it in, as much as 25 or 50% is lost by wind and 
sun before it can be worked down to where it is avail- 
able to the tree. 
The most successful orchardists are those who use 
plenty of fertilizers and apply them properly. The 
application of fertilizer in insufficient quantities or by 
improper methods is money thrown away. It has 
been said that for every dollar's worth of fertilizer 
properly applied, the orchardist may reasonably ex- 
pect ten dollars in return. This may be putting it a 
little strong, but we do know that it pays to fertilize. 
PRUNING THE ORANGE 
Orange trees require very little pruning to keep 
them in proper shape as their natural inclination is to 
form a uniform and well balanced head. During the 
first three or four years the only pruning necessary is 
to cut out interfering branches, sucker growth, and 
shorten in such limbs as may have a tendency to 
throw the tree out of balance. In pruning, always 
use sharp tools and avoid making rough, uneven cuts. 
For light pruning use hand shears having the blade 
ground as thin as is safe, to avoid breaking. This 
will enable the operator to do good clean work with 
little or no bruising or splitting of the limbs. For 
the heavier work the long handled shears can be 
used, but we much prefer using a good pruning saw 
wherever the limbs are too large to be easily cut with 
the hand shears. In shortening in limbs, always aim 
to cut to a joint and where a limb is to be taken out 
entirely, be sure to cut close and avoid leaving a 
stump to sucker and sap the vitality of the tree. On 
all cuts such as it might be necessary to make with a 
saw, it is advisable to use some kind of paint or wax 
to keep out the moisture and prevent decay. What- 
ever is used for this purpose, it should be of such con- 
sistency that it will completely seal up the cut, or it 
may as well not be used. k 
As the trees develop, all dead limbs should be cut 
out together with such sucker growth as may appear 
and any other limbs that may clog the center or in- 
side of the tree. The main idea being to have the 
center comparatively open and the outside fairly com- 
pact. By following this method, the bearing surface 
of the tree is doubled and at the same time the accu- 
mulation of dead wood is reduced to a minimum. 
Dead wood is due to an overcrowded condition 
of the branches and if this is corrected, it lessens 
the amount of dead wood. Above all things never 
clip or shear orange trees like a hedge plant, as this 
tends to produce a thick mass of short branches that 
will make the top so dense that the necessary sunlight 
and air cannot properly penetrate it. To the eye, a 
tree should present a compact mass of foliage but it 
should not be dense. If it is necessary to prune off 
limbs from the outside, cut them back to where they 
branch, preferably cutting to a branch having an up- 
ward tendency. All citrus trees are headed low and 
as the limbs on budded varieties have a tendency to 
droop, it is customary to allow the branches to hang 
down, the idea being to prune off just enough to pre- 
vent the fruit from brushing on the ground. 
It is not necessary to prune orange trees oftener 
than once a year, although it adds to their vigor if all 
suckers or water sprouts are kept off, as they appear, 
or at least if they are taken off once between prun- 
ings. The customary time for pruning bearing or- 
chards is in the spring just after the crop is picked. 
PRUNING THE LEMON 
Lemon trees require much more vigorous pruning 
than the orange and to get satisfactory results this 
:wprk should commence the first year after planting. 
The tendency is for the limbs to grow long and ir- 
regular and if allowed to go unrestricted the tree will 
present a mass of long whip like branches, the fruit 
being more or less on the ends of these where it is 
easily whipped off or scarred and bruised by the 
winds. Lemons are also more inclined to send out 
suckers and water sprouts, and these must be kept 
pruned out. By starting while the tree is young and 
keeping the heavy growth checked, the tendency will 
be to develop more fruit wood and as the tree begins 
to devote more of its energy toward the production of 
fruit, it will be less inclined to make the vigorous 
rampant growth noted in the younger stock. It 
therefore follows that care must be exercised to cut 
out as little of this fruiting wood as possible and to 
this end the operator must learn to distinguish be- 
tween the two. Sucker wood can readily be distin- 
guished by its rank and sappy growth ; the pith or 
soft tissue in the center of the limb is also much 
larger than in the fruit wood. 
The limbs designed to make up the frame-work of 
the top should be well distributed so as to form a 
well shaped head and shortened back from time to 
time, so as to give them strength to carry the fruit 
of later years. The tops should be left somewhat 
more open than on oranges, and where clumps of 
growth come out from the ends of limbs shortened 
back, they should be thinned out and only those left 
that are necessary to shape up the top. 
The vigorous growth of lemon trees makes it nec- 
essary to prune them two or three times a year es- 
pecially while they are young. This makes each' 
pruning less severe than would be necessary if it were 
