FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
59 
the general practice of Pinellas county 
growers. 
Leguminous plants build up the soil of 
a grove, but beggar weed in my section 
the third or fourth year offers free nitro¬ 
gen at a prohibitive price. It is impossi¬ 
ble to- calculate just how much nitrogen 
the soil receives from this source, due in 
part to variant seasons, and a coarse crop 
of fruit results in a greater money loss 
than can be saved by avoiding the usual 
purchase of chemical ammonias. 
When a soil has been built up by two 
or three successive seasons in beggar weed 
the plant may be eradicated by harrow¬ 
ing after the first summer rains. Beggar 
weed seed germinates rapidly and the 
young plants may be destroyed as they 
break from the soil. Other grasses will 
come later, and the cheapest protection 
against cold is banking. Some growers 
bank even young seedling grapefruit, to 
protect the crown. Doubtless oil heaters 
offer much greater protection to both the 
fruit and the tree, but the smutting of the 
fruit, the expense, the small net return 
for citrus fruits this year and last, as well 
as the fact that our cycle of winters free 
of extreme cold has made us careless— 
these various causes have somewhat dis¬ 
couraged the use of fire pots in Pinellas 
county. 
In my opinion, every grower should at 
least know enough of soil chemistry to 
write a fertilizer formula and calculate 
its analysis. With this knowledge as a 
basis, the traveling representatives of var¬ 
ious fertilizer manufacturers will be able 
to complete the grower’s (education in 
practical chemistry, adding considerably 
to his vocabulary touching such words as 
'reaction, combination, acidity, alkalinity 
and affinity.’ 
Trees of the same stock and variety 
should be planted in solid blocks, in order 
that they may be fertilized intelligently, 
within our present knowledge. Various 
stocks seem to require different amounts 
and proportions of fertilizer material. The 
grower should study his land, planting 
sour stock on the lower land, and in sec¬ 
tions where freezes are infrequent, rough 
lemon on the higher land. Grapefruit 
stock does best on land neither excessively 
high nor low. 
On three points all growers seem to be 
agreed—first-class land, first-class trees, 
and a liberal amount of fertilizer. Soil 
is dead without humus and unproductive. 
Florida lands are usually deficient in lime. 
With bearing trees, except in extreme 
cases, it is not advisable to omit chemical 
ammonia from the early spring applica¬ 
tion. 
Concerning diseases and insects: These 
problems will doubtless be covered in an¬ 
other paper, for which reason they will 
receive limited attention here. It might 
be well, however, to touch a few points, as 
we are after every possible angle. 
First, no grower should neglect to 
avail himself of the good offices of the 
Experiment Station at Gainesville. In 
time its staff will reduce much inaccurate 
knowledge to an exact science. In the 
case of a new disease, the grower, barring 
scientific attainments and comprehensive 
method, is for a short time on even terms 
with the plant pathologist and the ento¬ 
mologist. Under such circumstances the 
grower must either wait for the depart¬ 
ment to establish the cause of the disease 
