45 

 CHAPTER XIII. 



FERTILIZING 



Has never been sufficiently appreciated in the South. Her broad acres 

 have always tempted to planting too much laud and using too little 

 manure. Somehow when Northern men come South they, too, yield to 

 the temptation and fall into the Southern fashion. And yet no soil 

 responds more readily to the influence of manure than our warm South- 

 ern soil. The manure put by Peter Henderson on a single acre would 

 be deemed by some Southern farmers ample for the broad fields of cotton 

 stretching around his decaying mansion. A few men are wiser ; they have 

 ceased to fell the forest for more land and are contracting the planted 

 area of the old land. They are endeavoring to increase their crops by 

 manuring. Such men have succeeded and are still succeeding. Some 

 I know have grown rich by such a policy. 



No crop feeds more ravenously than the orange, and none will 

 convert so large amount of suitable fertilizers into fruit so profitably. 

 Much of our Florida land will produce and sustain fine trees for a few 

 years without the aid of manure ; but after some years of fruiting the leaves 

 will begin to turn yellow. and the fruit to rust, indicating a deficiency in 

 the soil. Some of our lands considered poorest black-jack ridges 

 in the vicinity of dwellings grow fine trees and continue to sustain fine 

 crops of excellent oranges. But these trees so located are almost daily 

 replenished with accidental deposits of nitrogenous manures, (theprinci- 

 cipal fertilizers needed on black-jack lands,) as well as considerable 

 wood ashes and soot from the daily fires of the kitchen, and suds from 

 the wash tub. The flourishing condition of these trees only shows the 

 advantage of manures. 



It is not safe to manure trees at the time of planting. In 

 some instances this has succeeded very well, but only when 

 the manure has been long composted and frequently turned, so that 

 DO fermentation will occur around the wounded roots. When manur- 

 ing willbe done thus early it is better to scatter it on the ground and 

 turn it several times in the soil some weeks before the tree is planted. 



After the tree has been planted and once started to grow it is then 



