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turf and matted roots will necessarily leave the surface very irregular, 

 causing the ground to dry rapidly under the influence of sun and wind. 

 Some have advised cultivation to cease during August and September, 

 alleging it to be better to allow the weeds and grass to grow after these 

 months in order to check the full growth, and so allow the wood of the 

 orange to harden as to resist the influence of frost during the winter. 

 But the writer has experimented extensively and expensively consider- 

 ing results with the above policy, and where others were pursuing the 

 same policy, he has advised them to try clean culture or garden crops 

 on a part of the grove, and in every instance where the laud has been 

 kept thoroughly cultivated the trees have doubled, in size and thrift, 

 those allowed to be left to the mercy of the weeds and grass. 



Another result should be considered in this connection. Where 

 grass and weeds are allowed to grow in the grove they are generally 

 killed by the frost during the Fall or Winter. In this condition they 

 absorb and part with moisture very readily, absorbiug moisture when 

 the atmosphere is warmer than the ground, and yielding it up when 

 the atmosphere is cooler than the ground or the wind is blowing. But 

 to part with moisture is to part with heat and increase the cold. In 

 some sections of Europe, before the invention of ice machines, consid- 

 erable ice was collected stored away and where the general tempara- 

 ture was only 40. The freezing was induced by simply covering over 

 lightly, and surrounding the ice ponds with wet straw. The wind 

 passing through the wet straw took up from the exposed and larger 

 surface of the straw its moisture together with its heat, and left the 

 water to freeze. To leave any dry straw, weeds or litter on the ground 

 during the winter, only intensifies the cold and invites the frost. The 

 writer knows of several beautiful groves that were entirely frozen down 

 from this cause, while others in the immediate vicinity were unhurt. 

 Mulching during the winter has a similar effect. In this immediate 

 neighborhood an old and beautiful orange tree was heavily mulched 

 during winter. It was the only tree hurt by the frost in the grove that 

 was hurt very badly, taking two or three years to recover. While 

 the trees are young keep the grove clear of grass and weeds, Summer 

 and Winter. If you mulch during the Summer, bury the mulching 

 as the Winter approaches ; dig holes and bury the litter. 



