FLORIDA ,STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
145 
You know how dry it has been. Dur¬ 
ing the dry period I went up there one 
day. The man ran the engine until 12 :oo 
o’clock, and I told him to run only a half 
hour on each section. At midnight, one 
side of the pump failed to work. I went 
there the next afternoon and there was 
not a place on that ten acres where I could 
kick up the dirt with my foot and find 
a particle of dry earth. Everything was 
absolutely soaked. 
Now, you understand this work was all 
done with one man. While the initial ex¬ 
pense is heavy, the running expense is 
mighty light. All there is to do is to 
start the pump going, go up and open 
and close a few valves, and that is all 
there is to it. One man goes to work 
at 5 :oo o’clock in the evening and works 
until 6 :oo o’clock in the morning, and 
the whole grove is completely watered. 
Then there is another advantage of 
having the pipe over the trees. The wa¬ 
ter comes down just like a rain, and wash¬ 
es off the leaves and drips down to the 
ground. As soon as the tree grows high 
enough so that the pipe does not reach to 
the top, I will extend the pipe so that it 
does. The water coming that way is just 
as near like a rain as anything can be. If 
we ever do have whitefly, which we prob¬ 
ably shall have some time, I believe that 
we can colonize the fungi in those trees 
and keep the pest very much in check. I 
believe it was at the last meeting where 
Prof. Rolfs said he did not think it would 
be possible to have whitefly in a grove 
where you could have moisture enough to 
propagate fungi successfully. 
As I have said, the first cost is pretty 
heavy, but I have never found anything 
in this light, porous, sandy soil that we 
can grow without sprinkling. I tried 
running the water down furrows, and 
have never found it to my satisfaction. 
I believe my method is one that will 
absolutely control the amount of moisture 
in an orange grove. Now, if we can have 
the fire pots in the winter months (not 
that we ever have any cold at Winter 
Haven) and have the water overhead in 
the summer, it seems to me we have 
a cinch on growing oranges and will be 
millionaires in less than no time. 
The spring is a critical time in the life 
of a crop. We may get the bloom all 
right, but if we don’t have moisture 
enough to keep it on the tree, we won’t 
get many oranges in the fall. Most of 
them go to the ground. Now, when you 
have an irrigation system such as the one 
I have installed, where you can have it 
when you see it is necessary, and don’t 
need to be afraid of the expense or 
trouble, you can keep enough bloom on 
your trees to insure you a crop. 
I would say that the cost of watering 
a grove, when you once get the plant in¬ 
stalled, will be about $5.00 or $6.00. That 
includes the man necessary to do the 
work, the gasoline, the wear and tear on 
the engine; in other words, that is the to¬ 
tal cost to you. 
Mr. Stevens : What was the cost of in¬ 
stalling per acre? 
Mr. Gillette: It cost me $5,500.00 for 
the ten acres. Of course, this buys the 
engine, pump, 600 or 700 feet of six inch 
main, and then I had to go from my pump 
house to the lake, which took 500 feet 
more of the six inch main. It is estimated 
that the next ten acres will cost about 
