168 
AMERICAN POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
fifteen or twenty years ago has been almost' wholly abandoned as wasteful 
and needlessly expensive. 
5. Oats and rye are sown in orange groves as winter cover crops. They 
shade the ground, thereby protecting it from wash, furnish humus for the 
soil, pasture, grain or hay for stock and retard the starting of growth in the 
winter, when most danger of injury by cold exists. 
6. Peach orchards require liberal fertilizing and frequent cultivation. 
All of our crops are improved by the .liberal use of fertilizers. About all 
of the leading brands of commercial fertilizers are used, the particular kind 
depending upon the needs of the fruit cultivated. Herein lies a fine point 
that I cannot take space to discuss. 
8. Insects and diseases: Orange blight and Dieback. also Foot rot (Mai 
de Gomma). For the blight dig up and burn, for the Dieback, reduce appli- 
cation of organic nitrogen. A new remedy is spraying with Bordeaux mix- 
ture. For the foot rot dig the dirt from the crown of the trees and leave 
exposed. Of the insects troubling the orange trees there are several scales 
also white tty, red spider and rust. mite. Sprays are used, but good culture 
and the encouragement of their insect and fungous enemies will best over- 
come the first two. 
The peaches are troubled with root knot, borers and curculio. A remedy 
for root knot is to plant on newly cleared land. The borers have to be 
hunted out and killed. For the curculio jar the trees and catch in a barrow 
or pick stung fruit and destroy it. 
There seems to be no unusual increase of insects or diseases affecting fruit 
at this time. What we have already require much study to overcome. 
9. Irrigation plants in groves are being abandoned in many instances. A 
portion of Mr. John B. Stetson’s four hundred acres of grove at De Land 
is irrigated from a stand pipe. He is covering many acres with slatted roof 
for winter protection. The cover will be partly removed when no danger 
from cold exists. Some growers cover so as to give half shade all the year. 
This doubles the moisture in the surface foot of soil in drouth, and also 
protects from cold in winter. Protection from injury by cold is the leading 
thought of the year among horticulturists of this State and many plans have 
been and will be tried during the year, some fully successful but much 
is yet to be learned in the line of reducing labor and expense while securing 
effective protection. 
10. Statistics not available. 
11. The evaporation of our fruits and the utilization of our surplus over 
what is marketed in a green state, or used at home, is a lesson yet to be 
learned. 
A pomological work of much importance now going on in the State is the 
hybridizing of citrus fruits by Prof. H. J. Webber and Prof. W. T. Swingle, 
of the United States Agricultural Department and of pineapples by Prof. 
P. PI. Rolfs, of the State Agricultural College and Experiment Station. These 
able scientists have already secured some hundreds of promising crosses, 
showing characteristics of both parents, but have not yet had time to pro- 
duce and test the fruit results. One of the promising ends in view is the 
crossing of the sweet oranges Citrus aurantium dulcis with the Citrus tri- 
foliata, which is deciduous, thereby getting a far more hardy sweet orange 
than now exists. Success has crowned the effort to the extent of securing 
many specimens that combine the characteristics of growth and foliage in 
varying degrees of both parents. The quality of the fruit is yet to be deter- 
