58 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
but in a few years you will see the ad¬ 
vantage of being able to get through your 
grove with wagon and other farm imple¬ 
ments, without damage to the outhang- 
ing limbs. 
You will not make much of a mistake 
if you confine your choice of varieties to 
the Pineapple and Valencia late oranges, 
and Silver Cluster, Walters or some oth¬ 
er good sized and shaped grapefruit. 
While an orange tree can be transplant¬ 
ed any month of the year, I prefer plant¬ 
ing about the first to- the fifteenth of 
January, always using a liberal quantity 
of water when planting; and unless you 
can water these young trees at intervals 
-during the dry weeks that follow, until 
the rainy season opens, you had better not 
take the trouble to plant them, for you 
run the risk of losing some and stunt¬ 
ing the balance. 
When planting, incorporate a little fer¬ 
tilizer in the soil and use only a limited 
^quantity the first year increasing the 
- quantity each year, using a good quality 
< of orange tree fertilizer. For about three 
-years keep the tree rows clean by fre- 
vquent cultivation during the growing sea¬ 
son, but avoid cultivating late in the fall 
and winter. Space between rows can be 
planted to any good cover crops to shade 
the ground and build up the soil. 
For bearing groves I advise keeping 
the top soil, from caking by frequent har¬ 
rowing with Acme harrow. This, in the 
spring of the year while dry, should be 
constant, and after rains, harrow to con¬ 
serve the moisture. By July or beginning 
of rainy season stop harrowing and let 
grass grow. Do not let the grass or 
weeds grow too rank under and near the 
trees, but keep it mowed down. If grove 
is in good condition and soil rich, you 
can cut and remove grass for hay; but if 
soil needs the vegetation, or is lacking in 
humus, better build the soil by leaving 
hay on the ground, and buy your hay or 
raise it from outside lands. 
While one can raise trees for a few 
years and keep them in a fairly thrifty 
condition without fertilizer, by cultivation 
and raising leguminous crops to build up 
the soil, it is utterly impossible to make 
the trees fruit without a liberal applica¬ 
tion of a good fertilizer. 
For young trees I prefer a fertilizer 
made up of from four to five per cent, 
ammonia, five to six per cent, phosphoric 
acid and six to eight per cent, potash, ap¬ 
plied two or three times from spring up 
to September. 
For bearing groves I prefer to- give a 
fair application in February, before the 
swelling of the buds, of fertilizer made 
up of about 5 per cent, ammonia (half of 
which from nitrate of soda, the quicker 
acting, and half from sulphate of am¬ 
monia, the slower acting form), 6 per 
cent, phosphoric acid and 6 per cent, sul¬ 
phate of potash. 
In the latter part of May or first of 
June a liberal quantity of fertilizer with 
2 per cent, sulphate of ammonia, 6 to 7 
per cent, phosphoric acid and 10 to 12 
per cent, sulphate of potash. 
In the middle to last of November, my 
third and last application, a liberal quan¬ 
tity 2 to 4 per cent, sulphate of ammonia, 
6 to 7 per cent, phosphoric acid and 10 to 
12 per cent, sulphate of potash: the year¬ 
ly quantity being about forty pounds to 
every 10 boxes of fruit. 
