268 CITRUS FRUITS AND THEIR CULTURE. 



tain a considerable quantity of this substance in the soil 

 is not based upon scientific principles. 



Any piece of ground denuded of its natural covering 

 of vegetation, and so exposed continually to the burning 

 heat of a sub-tropical sun, rapidly loses most of its fer- 

 tility and becomes dead, lifeless and useless. The soil 

 must not be regarded only as a place for roots to grow 

 and live, in, it must be looked upon as nature's food-pro- 

 ducing laboratory, in which multitudes of micro-organ- 

 isms or bacteria, are busily engaged in preparing food 

 for the plants which grow on it. They fail utterly in 

 the performance of their work if their natural element, 

 a soil rich in humus, is by some means converted into a 

 sandbank. This is exactly the result of long-continued, 

 clean cultivation. 



On the other hand, many growers do not cultivate 

 the soil at all, and on some classes of soil, this method is 

 really the best. Only on naturally moist soils, low, damp 

 hammocks in Florida, for instance, should this plan be 

 adopted. On high pine lands, or on those lands naturally 

 deficient in moisture, it is not a safe method to follow. 

 Cultivation conserves soil moisture, and increases the 

 water-holding capacity of the soil. Perhaps never before 

 in the history of citrus culture in Florida was the neces- 

 sity for frequent cultivation so forcibly borne in upon 

 the minds of all thinking growers as it was in the spring 

 of the year 1902, and yet if all the moisture, or even a 

 considerable portion of that which the soil contained at 

 the beginning of the season could have been held and 

 dealt out gradually to the trees, there would have been 

 sufficient for their needs. Frequent shallow cultivation 

 would have helped materially in this direction. 



