FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
57 
Mr. Marks: That means he (gets 
about three to five boxes to the tree. Mr. 
L- has a grapefruit grove, trees set 
about 22 feet apart, where thirty-five 
trees produced between 1,200 and 
1,300 boxes; that makes about thirty-five 
boxes to his trees, as against five boxes. 
His trees are set about eight to ten feet 
apart. 
Mr. Hume: Same age? 
Mr. Marks: Fifteen years old. 
Mr.-: I recently picked grape¬ 
fruit from budded trees not over seven 
years old. I sprayed my trees with Bor¬ 
deaux Mixture, making them drop one, 
two or three boxes. There were about 
ninety-odd of these trees, but from the 
most of these trees we picked, week be¬ 
fore last, from eight to thirteen boxes. 
They are either six or seven-year-old 
trees, planted twenty-five feet apart. 
Mr. Prouty: Some time ago I decided 
that it was not the best plan to spread 
fertilizer over the surface, so I decided 
to make a soil for my grove. The old 
growers laughed at me, but I had decided 
I would not put my fertilizer on top of 
the ground to feed the weeds. I set my 
plow so as to regulate the depth I want¬ 
ed my roots to go, and attached a dis¬ 
tributor to follow the plow and broadcast 
the fertilizer in the bottom of the furrow. 
“Now,” I said, “the roots are going af¬ 
ter the feed; I want them down under the 
ground, and not coming to the surface 
to dry out.” f 
We plowed and fertilized in the same 
way for cantaloupes and for watermel¬ 
ons, and you ought to see the canta¬ 
loupes where I tried this plan, and where 
I didn’t put any fertilizer at all, and 
where I put it on the surface. It cer¬ 
tainly furnishes a striking comparison. 
In my grove I am trying it out this 
year, and next year I will tell you how 
it pans out. I put 400 pounds to the 
acre in my own grove, where other peo¬ 
ple said I should put 1,000 pounds. Some 
of the fertilizer men said “You will put 
us out of business.” I said, “No, not if 
you can show the people that they get 
the good out of every pound of fertilizer 
they use.” 
I have one grove that was run down, 
and I bought it for $60.00 an acre, and 
the man who sold it to me would like 
to get it back for $1,000.00 an acre. In 
that ten-acre grove I have put the great 
amount of two tons of fertilizer on this 
plan. i 
Now, I am giving you this for what 
it is worth. 'I am the best person to “fall 
down” you ever saw, and pick myself up 
again. I can run backward as well as 
forward. I just want to call your at¬ 
tention to my theory that it is best to 
make a good, solid, universal soil, instead 
of a special soil, so that all the ground 
is good, instead of a little layer of it. 
It is working well, so far. The demon¬ 
stration has worked out all right, to my 
own satisfaction. 
I made this machine for my own use 
—it is not on the market. 
