FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
153 
in brine. Larger pear trees planted in 
this soil in February continue to grow, 
putting on a large crop of fruit and again 
blooming and fruiting, as did the plums, 
and dying the second year after having 
fruited three crops; the third crop of the 
second year being immature. This land 
is well above the ordinary tide and has a 
fine growth of palmettoes, live oak, cedar, 
accacia and camphor but it is of a peculiar¬ 
ly dry character getting dry immediately 
after being soaked, seeming to lack nitro¬ 
gen also. I would be glad to know how 
I can make oranges and other fruits grow 
on this land. 
Mr. Painter.—There is no hope for 
your ever being able to neutralize the salt 
in the lower strata of your soil. It is evi¬ 
dently there from salt water from below. 
The only “neutralizer"’ salt has is water. 
This dissolves it and would eventually 
clear the soil if you had perfect drainage 
and no return of salt water from below. 
14. What is the best size of budded 
stock of the orange or grapefruit to trans¬ 
plant. 
Mr. Frink.—In reference to size of bud- 
• ded trees, I wish to say that there is con¬ 
siderable difference of opinion as to most 
desirable for planting. Some people pre¬ 
fer a two year bud and others one year 
bud. The demand is heavier for four to 
five feet one year buds than any other 
size, and two year buds probably come 
second. My own observation and exper¬ 
ience goes to show that a four to five foot 
one year bud is easier to transplant and 
everything considered the most desirable 
size. 
Mr. Connor.—We all know that the 
smaller the plant is or the closer it is to 
the seed, the better it transplants. When 
it is removed from the seed bed, and is 
tough enough to be transplanted I think 
this is very true with the orange tree, for 
this reason; you can get nearly all the 
fiberous root with the young tree but if 
you wait until the stock gets to be of 
large size the feeding roots are necessa¬ 
rily thrown out farther from the plants 
and it takes a tree in that condition longer 
to adopt itself to its surroundings and 
start new roots. My opinion is that stock 
from two to two and a half years old well 
supplied with fibre roots will adopt itself 
better and receive less shock by trans¬ 
planting than the large ones with no 
fibers.. • I do not care so much about the 
age of the bud it may be one or two years 
old. 
Mr. Hart.—My interests simply call 
for the best tree I can get and my ex¬ 
perience has been that the size of stock 
is of more importance in successful trans¬ 
planting than size of bud. I would pre¬ 
fer the stock to be two inches through. 
I have trees bought from nursery stock 
that were not larger than my finger after 
the freeze of 1899 much 
larger yet, but I have some trees of my 
own growing that I planted out three 
years ago, these buds were thrifty, the 
stocks of good size and the trees now are 
many times larger than the smaller ones 
set years before. I came to this State 
when the trees for our groves were all 
taken from wild hammock and we did not 
take any stock less than two inches in 
diameter and some were six inches 
through. We set them out and budded 
them as they were set out, you cannot do 
that with the small nursery trees. It takes 
them some time to start new growth but 
you take large trees at the ground, not 
too large say about three and one-half 
inches through and you will get your 
