60 



ORANGE CULTURE. 



trees were set out fifteen feet apart. To-day, many large bear- 

 ing trees have had to be removed, and their profit lost for yeai^ 

 to come, while in the other the sun never reaches the ground, 

 and rain, only as it drops from and through the branches that 

 closely interlock and dwarf each other. Until the alternate 

 trees in this grove are removed it will never do half as well as 

 if the trees had at first been placed at a proper distance apart. 

 It will not be long before the owner of that grove will be com- 

 pelled to thin out his trees. 



Another grove, too, we know of, where the wild trees, bud- 

 ded where they stood, twelve years ago, are now crowding each 

 other to such an extent, that the owners are about to remove a 

 large number, although doing so will entail a loss of several 

 hundred boxes for several years to come. 



Now, these are things that " try men's souls," yet they have 

 to be done, sooner or later, when the grove is originally set too 

 close ; hence the importance of judicious spacing when first 

 planting. There are still a few growers Avho recommend plant- 

 ing in squares of fifteen or eighteen feet, but many have gone to 

 the other extreme, and advocate squares of thirty feet, or even 

 forty feet. 



The great majority, however, have paused half way, and 

 consider from twenty to twenty-five feet the best spacing for the 

 orange or lemon grove, and undoubtedly they are in the right. 

 Such a distance apart gives the trees ample room to spread and 

 yet wastes neither land nor labor. When there is, or likely to be, 

 superabundant moisture, plant the trees twenty-five feet, to give 

 the sun a better chance to reach the ground. On high lands, set 

 your trees at twenty feet. And now, the ground prepared and 

 spaced off, you are ready to dig your holes. The depth and diam- 

 eter of these will depend on the size of your trees. Give plenty of 

 room, and do not crowd the roots, or curl them up. Throw the 

 top soil to one side, the sub-soil to another ; if you have well- 

 rotted stable manure, compost, muck, or commercial fertilizer 

 ready, mix it sparingly, half with the sub-soil, half with the top. 



The removal of the tree from the nursery to the grove is not 

 the simple thing many conceive it to be — that is, if it be properly 



