STOCKS FOR CITRUS TREES. 213 



EXPERIMENTAL GROVE. 



TREES ON SOUR AND CITRUS TRIFOLJATA STOCK. 



Editor Farmer and Fruit-Grower: 



It may interest your readers to hear how my test orchard 

 of oranges on sour and Citrus trifoliata stocks is coming on. 

 I made a report on this one year ago, and now, July 26, 1902, 

 having just finished the annual record of it for this year, will 

 give a summary of the results. 



The experimental grove referred to was planted in March, 

 1899, about a month after one of the heaviest freezes that Flor- 

 ida ever experienced the thermometer having gone to 10 de- 

 grees above zero at my place. With twenty acres of grove frozen 

 to the banking it looked a little like tempting Providence to 

 go ahead and set out five acres additional that I had already 

 planned, but that was what I did. And right here I would say 

 that the conditions under which this five-acre grove was planted 

 were far from ideal in more ways than one. In the first place 

 our nursery planting for the season had overrun my estimate 

 and used up all the available cleared land, and the grove, if 

 planted at all that spring had to be set in absolutely wild, un- 

 broken pine sod. In the second place not a nursery tree in my 

 own, nor any other nursery for a long distance south, remained 

 unfrozen except that small portion of the bud covered by the 

 banking. Interesting conditions under which to place a grove, 

 weren't they? 



Although five acres were planted that spring, as per above, 

 there were really but a little over two acres strictly experi- 

 mental. On this experimental plot were planted one hundred 

 orange and pomelo trees, twenty-five varieties, four of a variety, 

 half on sour stock and half on Citrus trifoliata stock, planted 

 alternately at thirty feet apart each way. Taking Jaffa, for 

 instance; the first tree planted was on sour, the second on C. 

 trifoliata, the third on sour and the fourth on C. trifoliata. 

 The distance of thirty feet was given them so that each tree 

 might have absolutely all the room it wanted. The entire or- 

 chard has received the same treatment in the way of fertili- 

 zation and cultivation, and the experiment, as far as it has 

 progressed, is as fair a one as it is possible to make. A part of 



