ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF CITRUS-FRUIT GROWING IN FLORIDA 23 
form a very large part of the cost, it is apparent that the amount of 
capital carried in cash can not be reduced to any appreciable extent. 
GROVE OPERATIONS AND PRACTICES 
The various grove operations follow regular cycles which are estab- 
lished by the alternating dry and wet seasons and by the demands of 
the trees in their various stages of fruiting. During the rainy season 
very little cultural work is done and cover crops, usually a volunteer 
growth of beggarweed, are allowed to grow. In most cases the 
weeds are mowed or dragged down and plowed under or are plowed 
under without any previous destruction (fig. 3). 
Following the fall plowing and harrowing, the trees are given an 
application of fertilizer. After the fall fertilizing, it is customary to 
let the soil rest until the second application of fertilizer in February. 
The spring application of fertilizer is followed with rather constant 
harrowing until June when, after the third application of fertilizer, 
the grove is laid by with a harrowing for the rainy season. Most of 
the growers hoe around their trees twice a year, once in the early fall 
and again in the early part of the summer. 
Other principal operations are pruning, hauling brush, and spraying. 
Most of the growers prune and remove brush in the winter and spring 
but many do summer pruning. The date of pruning is controlled in 
a measure by the varieties of fruit. If the trees are pruned properly 
when young there is little to be done when they reach maturity, except 
to keep outdead anddiseased wood. Circumstancesalter thespraying 
schedule to such an extent that it is next to impossible, except within 
periods of considerable latitude in time, to state a definite schedule. 
Probably most of the spraying comes in March, May, June, and Sep- 
tember. Thus, although the care of the grove requires only a part of 
the total number of working days in a year, it is necessary to do 
some work in practically every month. 
Disking is a practice used by only a few growers, and is usually. 
done in the fall, although a few disk in the spring in place of the other 
types of harrowing. Banking is another operation not frequently 
practiced, in the groves studied, because most of the bearing trees 
‘were beyond the age when such precautions were thought necessary 
to prevent frost damage. 
The methods of caring for groves on the 100 farms studied in Polk 
County did not differ greatly. The operations and equipment were 
practically standardized but there was great variation of intensity 
in the different practices among the growers; for example, the num- 
ber of harrowings per grove per year ranged from 2 to 18, with an 
average of about 9 for all farms. 
Some of the growers harrowed more in 1922 than was their usual 
custom because of the drought that year. In Table 18 are shown 
the operations typical on 100 groves in Polk County for the season of 
1922. ‘The average results of the various operations on a large num- 
ber of groves give a clear idea of the amount of labor put on most 
groves In this district. On the average, the actual year’s work in a 
grove of 20 acres required 182 days of man labor and 108 days of 
horse labor. A great many of the grove owners practiced profes- 
sions elsewhere and did no actual manual labor in their groves but 
hired their work done and thereby provided work for caretakers and 
growers whose time was not fully occupied in their own groves. 
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