HOW TO CULTIVATE. 



65 



The orange will bear a great deal of harsh treatment and 

 neglect, without actually dying, but it will not thrive, nor come 

 quickly into profit, unless it is carefully tended and nurtured^ 

 just as one would look after any other business that he expected 

 to be profitable, or to become his future support. 



But as we have just said, how best to accomplish this desirable 

 result, is a much vexed question, for the calling, being a compar- 

 atively ncAV one, there are almost as many systems put forward 

 as there are orange growers ; and between them all, the new- 

 comer cannot but become bewildered and confused. 



A great deal may be learned by comparing methods and 

 results in one's own neighborhood, finding out who has failed 

 and who has succeeded, and the cause which led to each result, 

 and then guiding one's own course accordingly. 



The advocates of scant cultivation, once a numerous body, 

 are becoming fewer and fewer, as time proves that there is no 

 tree or plant that will respond more generously than the orange 

 to thorough cultivation. 



" Let the weeds and grass grow in the grove and plow them 

 under two or three times in the course of the season," used to be 

 the text preached to the novice and practiced by the old system 

 grower. 



This is the plan still followed by some, but the majority 

 have come to the belief that the plow should not be allowed 

 at all in a grove that is bearing or nearly approaching it, for 

 by this time the ground will be closely matted with roots thrown 

 out by the trees, and as the majority of these are surface roots, 

 the plow will tear and loose them, and thus by the old method, 

 " two or three times in a season," the trees were rudely deprived 

 of a portion of their food caterers, and their growth checked, 

 while Dame Nature paused to replace the fibrous roots thus 

 torn away. 



So the turn-plow should be banished from the bearing 

 grove, and in fact, from every grove, after the trees are half- 

 grown, and a single thirty-two inch sweep used in its place. 



Many use the cultivator and harrow^ but the sweep is better 

 than either. It is more uniform in its depth of cutting than 



