ORANGE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 217 



point of saturation is equal, whereas if it is kept wet it will give 

 up moisture to the cuttings, and keep them in favorable condi- 

 tion for growing. 



PREPARING GROUND FOR PLANTING. 



The study has ever been with me, how to do a piece of work well 

 enough for success with the smallest expenditure of labor. I 

 break up my ground, say four weeks before planting, using a 

 strong pair of horses for an ordinary double plow, and plow as 

 deep as I can with such a rig. In four weeks, or just before 

 planting, I run the harrow over it and make it as smooth as it 

 can be made. Waiting four weeks gives time for weeds to 

 come up, which are easily destroyed by the harrowing. The 

 ground now being ready for planting, it is laid out into squares. 

 We will say a forty-acre tract is to be planted. First, I would 

 lay out a main avenue through the center, and would make it 

 forty-eight feet wide or even sixty feet would be no objection 

 then have a road twenty-four feet wide all around the outside. 

 This will give two pieces of equal size lying on each side of the 

 avenue, and bounded by a twenty-four foot road on the other 

 three sides. These two squares should be divided into four 

 equal spaces, extending from the avenue at right angles, and 

 being about twice as long as wide, with roads of eighteen feet 

 width. 



Each of the oblong spaces would be about one hundred yards 

 wide and two hundred yards long. Now the first base line is 

 ready for planting, beginning at the edge of the avenue and 

 twenty-four feet inside the end line, running parallel with the 

 twenty-four-foot road across the end to within twenty-four feet 

 of the side line or road. 



Then the next base line is begun on the avenue one hundred 

 yards below the first line, again beginning at the avenue and 

 running exactly parallel with the first planting. 



This gives two base lines enclosing one hundred by say two 

 hundred and four yards. Now to fill this in is an easy matter, 

 provided you are prepared with a line or chain made of the 

 smallest sized telegraph wire, the links being six feet long ex- 

 actly, and containing fifty links with a ring at each end, two 

 feet from the end of the link. Stretching the chain from vine 

 No. i in baseline No. i, to vine No. I in base line No. 2, will 

 bring the end of each link in the chain even with cuttings No. i 

 in both base lines, and every other link in your chain will show 

 you where to plant a cutting, and your base lines being made 

 with exactness, all your other work will come out exact, and the 

 rows of your vineyard will all be straight as an arrow in every 

 direction. 



