58 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA. 



fifty to one hundred and five, and from one hun- 

 dred and five to fifty feet apart Now begin on the 

 east side, and fifty feet from your eastern boundary 

 you can run your base line perpendicular to your 

 first base line. Go through the plat as before, alter- 

 nating the distances between the lines from fifty to 

 one hundred and five feet apart. You now have 

 your land laid off in smaller squares of fifty feet, 

 and parallelograms of fifty by one hundred and five 

 feet. The timber on these smaller squares and 

 parallelograms is to be left standing. You have 

 also a number of large squares 105 x 105, or about 

 one quarter of an acre each. These larger squares 

 are to be cleared of the timber and made ready for 

 planting orange trees, and each square will be 

 found to be surrounded on all sides by a strip of 

 timber fifty feet wide. Around these squares next 

 to the timber cut a ditch two and a half, or, if you 

 wish, three ieet deep, so as to cut all the roots of 

 forest trees that would interfere with the orange. 

 To prevent this ditch from draining the moisture 

 .from the grove, fill it with the litter from the orange 

 land and leaves from the forest. The next year 

 clear out this ditch, use the rotten leaves as a fer- 

 tilizer for your grove, and fill the ditch again with 

 leaves from the forest around. By this means you 

 can have an endless supply of manure close at 

 hand, and you can have the benefit of the sun and 

 the benefit of forest protection without any damage 

 from the roots of the forest trees. 



