FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
79 
think they should be fed more than three 
times a day. 
With young trees, it has been my cus¬ 
tom to give them fertilizer about every 
few weeks; not large quantities, possibly 
a pound to the tree during the first sum¬ 
mer, and two pounds every eight weeks, 
say, during the second summer. 
I don’t believe the young trees will do 
well by giving them all they want. You 
should feed these babies at regular inter¬ 
vals but not too long intervals, and not 
too much at a time. 
I generally put fertilizer in the hole 
where the tree is planted; just mix it 
with the sand when I plant the tree, and 
then wait for them to get leaves at the top 
for breathing surface before fertilizing 
more. 
Mr. -: What kind of fertilizer do 
you use? 
Dr. Ross: I can hardly answer that 
question. Just pay your money and take 
your choice. (Laughter.) 
Mr.-: What do you use in your ex¬ 
perience ? 
Dr. Ross: I don’t know whether one 
should answer that sort of question, 
either. 
Mr. Sample: He means about what 
analysis. 
Dr. Ross: They are very much the 
same; just pay your money and take your 
choice. (Laughter.) 
Mr. Hume: It is not now so much what 
you should give your trees, but more a 
question of what you can get. 
Mr.-: While you are discussing the 
fertilizer question; I would like to ask 
something. 
Some years ago the fertilizer authori¬ 
ties told us we needed from 5 per cent to 
10 per cent to 12 per cent or 14 per cent 
of potash. Now, since it is next to impos¬ 
sible to get potash, they seem to have 
changed their minds, and tell us a smaller 
quantity will do practically as well; that 
from 1 per cent to 3 per cent will be suf¬ 
ficient. 
It is a question in my mind whether 
orange trees will continue to do as well 
with a smaller percentage of potash, and 
it is another question whether we will be 
able to get it or have the money to buy it 
with. 
Another thing; we have been told many 
times that the Florida soil is devoid of 
potash. It will furnish only a bed for the 
trees to be set in. If this is true, there is 
nothing for the tree or anything else to 
live upon. Now, suppose you take the 
poor land we have in Florida, the white 
sand that the saw palmetto grows on, and 
analyze that soil, and find nothing in it of 
plant food. But you take the growth pro¬ 
duced on that land, and burn it while it is 
green, and it will produce about 20 per 
cent of potash. Where does that potash 
come from; how is it manufactured and 
put into the saw palmetto when there is 
no potash in the ground? Is it not pos¬ 
sible that Nature has a way of producing 
potash that we do not know anything 
about ? 
I believe after awhile you will find that 
Nature has a way to produce fertilizing 
elements in the soil and make them avail¬ 
able for trees and plants, where we find 
none of them in an analysis of the soil. I 
would like to know what research has 
been made in this direction. It seems to 
me that there are things in the soil that 
