FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
135 
able. The first prize grapefruit at Tampa 
Fair for three years was on grapefruit 
stock. 
The trifoliate orange is the hardiest 
stock for citrus fruits in common use. It 
is deciduous, shedding its leaves, and has 
a distinct dormant season in the winter. 
This dormancy has the effect of checking 
the winter wood growth of varieties bud¬ 
ded to it, causing them to be less suscepti¬ 
ble to low temperatures. For this reason 
trifoliate orange seedlings are much used 
as stocks in the colder sections of the Gulf 
states. They are rarely desirable as stocks 
in southern and central Florida and have 
given unsatisfactory results in the Rio 
Grande Valley section of Texas. 
The trifoliate orange stock is best 
adapted to rich moist soils and is unsuited 
to light dry soils. It is particularly well 
adapted to sandy loam soils with a clay 
sub-soil. On the proper soils it produces 
thin-skinned fruit of high dessert quality. 
It has a tendency to dwarf the growth of 
the tree budded on it. In the lower Mis¬ 
sissippi delta, Washington Navel oranges 
are frequently budded on trifoliate orange 
stock, and while the growth is less vigor¬ 
ous in that locality, they are more prolific 
than when budded on sour orange stock. 
Ever-bearing lemon and lime seedlings 
are occasionally used as citrus stock, but 
are too tender for general planting. Bit¬ 
ter-sweet and Cleopatra mandarin have 
also been used on a small scale; the latter 
has not been used long enough in various 
locations on the various types of soil to 
warrant it general use, although indica¬ 
tions are promising. 
SOUR ORANGE VS. ROUGH LEMON 
Figures published by the Plant Board 
show that ending April, 1921, 3,294,558 
rough lemon seedlings were planted and 
only 774,330 sour orange seedlings and 
77,004 other seedling stocks, mostly 
grapefruit. 
I believe that any one having Florida’s 
horticultural interest at heart cannot but 
feel alarmed at the tremendous planting 
on rough lemon. It is a fact though that 
the high pine ridge lands are as a rule de¬ 
ficient in humus and moisture and rough 
lemon stock seems capable of overcoming 
these soil difficulties to a large degree, 
while the sour orange and grapefruit 
stocks apparently do not, but I believe 
there are many groves on rough lemon 
that would have been more profitable in 
the end if they had been on sour or grape¬ 
fruit stock. 
There are sections in South Dade coun¬ 
ty, for instance, where you can see trees 
actually dying from the drought where 
propagated on grapefruit and sour orange 
stock and groves immediately across the 
road in excellent condition, showing no 
signs of distress, said to have received the 
same care, attention, fertilization, etc. 
The only difference being they are on 
rough lemon stock. 
You will see trees on rough lemon 
growing in a grove with a number of trees 
on sour stock and be informed that the 
trees on rough lemon stock were put in 
by mistake and the trees on rough lemon 
have twice the bearing capacity as trees 
on sour orange and are said to produce 
three or four times as much fruit, yet the 
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