TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



57 



we need not be careful of cutting roots in a damp winter season; and I 

 have satisfied myself that I don't need to be extremely careful, in sub- 

 soiling with a plow, not to disturb the roots. 



MR. HOLT. I would like to give an experience of an orchardist in 

 Orange County on the subject of the cutting of the roots. He had an 

 Australian Navel orchard that bore but lightly, and he had become so 

 disgusted with it that he had concluded to cut it out. He didn't have 

 it cut out that spring, so he thought he would plow the orchard and try 

 it one more year. Just then a man came along, a stranger, who wanted 

 to work on his farm, and he hired him. Having to leave home for a 

 few days, he told the man to plow that orchard, but not very deep. 

 When he got back he found that the man, who had a very large, heavy 

 team to work with, had run the plow in clear up to the beam, over the 

 whole piece, and the whole orchard was full of roots which the man had 

 plowed up ; he had torn the roots all to pieces. He was very much pro- 

 voked and paid off the man and shipped him. That year he had a 

 large crop of oranges from that orchard, where he had never had a good 

 crop before, and he was so well pleased with the result of the plowing 

 that he sent off and hunted up the man and brought him back and 

 hired him and apologized for discharging him. 



PROFESSOR PAINE. What time of the year? 



MR. HOLT. In the winter time. 



MR. PAINE. Before blossoming time? 



MR. HOLT. Yes, sir. 



MR. BLANCHARD. When I came in, this question of puffy oranges 

 was being discussed. I supposed all knew that an excess of nitrogen 

 would puff oranges. There may be many other things that will puff 

 them. A later question was asked as to the depth of soil. The soil on 

 which I planted my trees is very, very deep. Practically, there is no 

 bottom to it. But it took the trees fourteen years to bear a paying 

 crop. Some of the same trees, planted up the canon where there was 

 very little soil, and they were seedling trees, bore in a very few years, 

 but their life was very short. Our canon is a rocky one. I have 

 noticed that the orchards in some instances failed, and one seedling 

 orchard, quite an old orchard, has been dug up. I think the reason has 

 been in part because the roots had got clown into the rock, onto the 

 barren soil. 



MR. REED. If we cut a root as much as has been indicated here, 

 we damage the tree. If the root of your tree runs out 20 or 30 feet it is 

 covered with fibrous roots through which the tree gets nutriment, and 

 if we cut it, it seems to me we take some of the nutriment from that 

 tree. The matter of subsoil plowing came up in Riverside Valley three 

 or four years ago. It followed the matter of the hardpan. The 

 orchardists claimed that they could not get water down. Hence the 



