40 CITRUS TREES AND THEIR DISEASES 



you must read and re-read until you thoroughly com- 

 mit it in order to get the value from this book. Allow 

 no one to cause you to deviate from the methods 

 handed down to you in these pages until you have 

 absolutely made a two years test. 



The question of how to fertilize is of the greatest 

 importance. One time in the writer's life he was 

 called to the platform in a state horticultural assem- 

 bly where one of the greatest fruit growers in the 

 United States had just retired from the platform, 

 who had been assigned the subject "The Best Methods 

 of Fertilization." This great authority stated that 

 he used commercial fertilizer in his grove and that 

 he used a drill and drilled the fertilizer, going up and 

 then down in the center of each row. 



When the writer was called to the platform he 

 spoke on the same subject. He took exception to 

 this great man's methods and by illustration showed 

 the growers, to their entire satisfaction, that this 

 man was absolutely wrong. 



This illustration was used: "The former speaker's 

 method puts me in mind of placing my horse in one 

 corner of the barn and tying him there, and placing 

 his feed box in the opposite corner and put his feed 

 in it regularly at feeding time until his box would 

 get full and run over. But it would take that horse 

 a long time before he could stretch that rope long 

 enough to reach that food. Now, Mr. Grower, you 

 know as well as I do that the roots must extend out 

 to this point and your fertilizer must become part of 

 the soil before your feeders can accept it. When this 



