48 ORANGE CULTURE IN FLORIDA. 



While it is true that the principal feeders of the 

 orange lie near the surface, yet whoever will take 

 the pains to examine the roots of an old orange tree 

 grown in a deep and well-drained subsoil will find 

 that these roots have penetrated for many feet deep 

 into the earth and in all directions from the tree. 

 Now if trees have been set twenty feet apart in the 

 grove and the soil is drained but one foot deep, the 

 roots of each tree have but four hundred cubic feet 

 of soil in which to feed 20 x 20 = 400. But if the 

 soil has been drained to the depth of ten feet, then 

 the feeding ground for the roots has been increased 

 tenfold, and instead of four hundred cubic feet of 

 soil in which to feed, the tree has four thousand cu- 

 bic feet 20 x 20 x 10 = 4000. This advantage is 

 more especially to be considered where the subsoil is 

 sandy, as in such a soil air and other nutriment for 

 the roots penetrate to a greater depth. But there 

 are some of these wet soils found in our State that 

 are positively poisonous to the orange, as they con- 

 tain a large per centum of salt chloride of sodium. 

 Such is the case with soils underlaid with " hard- 

 pan," a stratum seemingly of dark sandstone, un- 

 derlying many sections of our State, and generally 

 but a few feet from the surface. Analysis will 

 probably show this " hard-pan" to be a concrete of 

 sand, iron, and salt. The best surface indication 

 of the presence of ' ' hard-pan' ' is an abundance of 

 saw palmetto with an abundance of roots above the 

 surface. The palmetto feeds largely upon salt, its 



