The Planting and Cultivation of Groves in the 
Ridge Section 
Max Waldron, Crooked Lake 
One of the outstanding characteristics 
of citrus culture in Florida is that there 
exists a wide range of opinion among 
growers regarding the most satisfactory 
methods for developing a grove. Few 
industries exhibit such a lack of standard¬ 
ization; few such a profusion of mere no¬ 
tions. An important duty, therefore, of 
this Society is to standardize our grove 
practices wherever possible or where rea¬ 
sonable differences of methods exist to in¬ 
dicate why these are necessary. It is to 
avoid confusion of ideas, then, that this 
paper is limited to certain grove opera¬ 
tions in that part of Florida known as 
“The Ridge.” It will be found, however, 
that even though these statements are 
confined to well defined and uniform 
conditions, there will still exist many dif¬ 
ferences of opinion on such matters as 
the depth of planting; sources, amounts 
and time of fertilizing; time of plowing; 
methods of pruning; mowing of cover 
crops; treatment of diseases, etc. These 
opposing opinions add zest to the already 
fascinating game of citriculture and serve 
as an incentive for constructive competi¬ 
tion. In the efforts to demonstrate the 
effectiveness of our own methods, "we 
incidentally do other things tending to 
benefit a grove that might otherwise be 
neglected. However, under present eco¬ 
nomical conditions, it is especially neces¬ 
sary that we standardize our methods and 
reduce our operating expenses wherever 
it will not result in decreasing the vigor 
and capacity of the grove. Thus, for in¬ 
stance, one California Exchange packing 
house reduced the size of lemon wraps 
one inch each way, thereby saving $6,000 
in one season. 
Nowhere, perhaps is the citrus indus¬ 
try so thoroughly standardized as in the 
Ridge Section, for many of the groves 
there have been developed and are being 
successfully handled by large corpora¬ 
tions who adopted to a great extent the 
methods established by Dr. Inman, the 
father of the citrus industry in Polk 
county. 
The “Ridge” is the backbone of Flor¬ 
ida, extending from Haines City to Se- 
bring, and like all backbones, is in the 
form of a series of elevations and depres¬ 
sions, the elevations being the rolling 
pine-clad hills and the depressions the 
wide and limpid lakes over which the 
cold winter winds are moderated to such 
an extent that the grower scarcely fears 
the frost. This backbone, however, is 
constructed mainly of sand instead of 
lime as are other backbones; in fact, there 
is so much sand on the Ridge that it 
seems to have become an integral part 
of the settlers there, resulting in a phe¬ 
nomenal development where a decade ago 
126 
