CHAPTER VII. 



Plan of an Orchard, 



Our orange orchard is planted not only for ourselves but for 

 our posterity for many generations; hence it behooves us to 

 use judgment in planning and laying out so great and worthy 

 an enterprise. He who successfully plants an orchard of citrus 

 trees leaves a grand heritage to his heirs ; he is a benefactor to 

 his race. Then let us see that the work is properly done. 



The distance apart to plant the trees is a question on wbich 

 there is a multiplicity of opinions. It is a question of vital im- 

 portance. If the trees be too close, the orchard will be dwarfed 

 and almost ruined. Removing part of the trees will be an un- 

 satisfactory remedy. Few will remove any ere it will be too 

 late, for no one is anxious to destroy a bearing tree. After some 

 of the trees shall have been removed the distance apart will 

 generally be unsatisfactory, and, to a certain extent, irregular, 

 breaking up the original regularity of the plan. If, on the other 

 hand, the trees be planted too far apart, there will be an un- 

 necessary waste of land and a needless expenditure of labor in 

 cultivating labor for which there will be no return. However, 

 if err we must, it is better to plant the trees too far apart than 

 too close. The extremes advocated are sixteen by sixteen feet 

 and forty by forty. My experience prompts me to recommend 

 planting budded or grafted orange trees twenty feet apart each 

 way; lemons the same, whether buds, grafts or seedlings; stand- 

 ard seedling orange trees, twenty-four by twenty-four feet apart ; 

 limes, twenty by twenty. I consider these distances ample for 

 the development of the trees. 



The best method of preparing a piece of land for planting : 

 To illustrate, suppose the field to contain ten acres. Measure 

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