27 

 CHAPTER VII. 



IN SELECTING A LOCATION FOR AN ORANGE GROVE 



Special reference should be had to Drainage, Soil, Water Protection, 

 Forest Protection, Proximity to Fertilizers and Facilities for Trans- 

 portation. The soil for a grove should be thoroughly drained either 

 naturally or artificially. Not only should the surface water be carried 

 off 1 , but the drainage should be so deep as to allow roots, and especially 

 the tap-root, to penetrate for several feet: Some think that less than 

 ten feet is not sufficient. But there are in this State groves of fine old 

 trees and good bearers with considerable less than ten feet of drained 

 soil. The sour stock will flourish on a much wetter soil than the sweet. 

 And it may be that these groves that have long done well in such 

 localities are sour stocks budded. Where choice of location can be 

 made, and especially if sweet stocks are to be planted, select a soil well 

 drained by nature. Art and labor can accomplish a great deal, but it 

 costs something and the effect is not so permanent as when nature has 

 done the work. If no positive evil arise from a wet subsoil in close 

 proximity to the surface, still there are reasons why a deep, dry, or 

 moist soil is better. 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 sub- 

 soil 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 20x20400. But if the soil has been drained to the 

 depth of ten feet, then the feeding ground for the roots has been in- 

 creased ten fold and instead of four hundred cubic feet of soil in w r hich 

 to feed the tree has four thousand cubic feet 20x20x10=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 contain 

 a large per-centum of salt chloride of sodium. Such is the N case 



