48 



ORANGE CULTURE. 



The trees thus girdled are left standing, and then the land 

 is ready for fencing and ploughing ; in a few months the dead 

 limbs begin to fall, and so continue for several years, and the 

 branches must either be carried away from time to time, or else 

 allowed to remain where they fall to be an eye-sore and a con- 

 stant annoyance in cultivation. 



The first cost of this method of clearing is very little, only 

 about two dollars per acre or less, but it is a very unsatisfactory 

 ^vay, and likely to cost more in the end than it saved in the be- 

 o-innino-. 



After a few years time, when the orauge grove is fully un- 

 der way, the deadened trees will begin to fell during a heavy 

 rain or a high wind, or often without these provocations; down they 

 crash, now here, now there, and as they are not remarkable for 

 good judgment, they are just as likely as not to come down on 

 an orange tree, and put it beyond the pale of recognition. 



And then the fallen giant must be chopped up and either 

 hauled away or burned ; the expense and trouble of doing which 

 now are just as great as they would have been at first, plus the 

 loss of some of your best orange trees. 



The claim made that the dropping branches, bark and sap 

 of the pine trees left to decay on the ground, furnish a valuable 

 fertilizer, is a specious one, and even if one is willing to have his 

 grove strewn over with branches that trip up his horse and in- 

 terfere with the plow, the amount of gain to the soil is so small 

 that a few cart-loads of rotten sap and grass hauled from outside 

 and spread around the orange trees would far surpass it. 



Altogether we cannot recommend this method, for we do not 

 think the gain, even considering the small first cost at all com- 

 mensurate with the "after-claps" of falling pines, smashed orange 

 trees and the inevitable final clearing up of trash. 



Another, and better vray, is to hew down the trees, have rails 

 split from all that are suitable for the purpose, then pile and 

 burn the remnants ; this method costs for the clearing, from twelve 

 to eighteen dollars an acre, according to the number of trees to he 

 disposed of and the amount of "small deer" in the shape of 

 small busbes, and young oaks to be grubbed up by the roots. 



