370 CITRUS FRUITS AND THEIR CULTURE. 



lieve we can grow and protect the fruit successfully if 

 the market will continue favorable. We have an addi- 

 tional ten acres which we expect to cover in a year or 

 two, as soon as the trees are a little larger, protecting 

 them in the meantime with fires and banking. Thos. H. 

 Stryker. 



THE WETUMPKA GROVE AT HASTINGS. 



You ask in regard to cost of shed. As you know, 

 we have the Rollins patent, board wall and cloth top. 

 It has cost us more than I think it can be done for again, 

 from the fact we were inexperienced to start with, and 

 ruined one set of cloth by running it through paraffine 

 wax. It seemed to take the life out of the cloth. It has 

 cost about $1,200 per acre, besides the cloth that was 

 ruined. Our trees when we put the shed up were 20x25 

 feet apart, but a year ago this spring we doubled the num- 

 ber, making about 160 trees to the acre. The last trees 

 set are of the Tar din variety, and have made a very satis- 

 factory growth. Many of them have twenty-five or fifty 

 fruits on them now. Last year our trees bore very shy, 

 and I laid it to the treatment, viz: no fertilizer, for fear 

 of bringing on die-back. Some of the trees were showing 

 symptoms of it, but last fall they were healthy; so I put on 

 the following mixture, five pounds per tree : seven hun- 

 dred pounds boneblack and 400 pounds H. G. sulphate 

 potash on half an acre. On the balance of the shed, three 

 and a half acres, I used your Special Simon Pure. The 

 grove to-day is in perfect health and has set fruit plentiful- 

 ly. I am satisfied the trees can be kept healthy and free 

 from scale and see no reason why they will not bear as 

 heavy crops as they used to outside of protection. 



