CITRUS CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA FRUITFULNESS. 47 



excellence of tnis orchard? Mr. Backus has always used fer- 

 tilizers generously, always given from a ton to a ton and a half 

 to the acre. He says he made the mistake of using a smaller 

 quantity than usual last year, and applied it too late, and is 

 satisfied he is a loser by so doing. He thinks it is a serious 

 mistake to wait until the trees show need before giving water. 

 To allow the soil to bake once is to make all subsequent irri- 

 gation less effective. He has always cultivated deeply, and 

 considers this one of the fundamental causes of his success. 

 Mr. Backus has never failed of good results with any of the 

 high-grade manufactured fertilizers, and he will continue to 

 use them. 



Another old Navel orchard is that of Ernest Meacham. He 

 has five acres of trees, twenty-two years of age, planted a rod 

 apart. He has attained results so much superior to some of his 

 neighbors that his methods are worth considering. Having con- 

 siderable livestock, he uses his stable manure by making a dead 

 furrow across the regular irrigating lands, into which he puts 

 it while fresh, three to five feet to the tree, immediately cover- 

 ing it with the plow. In the course of the year he gets over 

 the whole place in this way. This sends the nitrogenous mat- 

 ter deep with the rains and irrigating water, and the soil is 

 made mellow by its presence. In the late winter he applies 

 ten to twelve pounds of guano, with which is mixed three per 

 cent of potash and five per cent of sulphate of iron. He irri- 

 gates thoroughly every thirty days in summer, and his appli- 

 ances of his own devising for deep furrowing and thorough 

 cultivation close up to the trees, while his team walks in the 

 center of the land, are worth examining. These trees are 

 exceptionally fine in color, and the quantity and quality of the 

 fruit are remarkable. There isn't a sick tree in the lot, except 

 one or two attacked by gophers. For several years this five- 

 acre orchard has yielded between three and four thousand 

 boxes of oranges, running perhaps ninety per cent fancy. 

 This orchard most effectually demonstrates the vigor and pro- 

 ductiveness of the old Navel tree when properly cared for. 



Everybody knows the Barny orchard, the largest of the origi- 

 nal Navel orchards. It has always had the best of care, and if 

 anything has been over-fertilized at times, and yet, in spite of 

 the harm the terminal branches got from the April frost of two 

 years ago, is marvelously beautiful to-day, with its dark green 



