The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1878-05-29
Work for June.

this month. this however will not pre-
vent work on the farm Showers of
an hour or two duration fall almost
every day and then the weather gets
clear.
Rice can be planted the 18th of the
month, and good returns will be had
if you can keep off the birds, which
are very destructive when the grain
begins to ripen. Plant Guinea grass
after the showers, and plant out plen-
ty of it SO as to do away with paying
such vast sums of money for hay.
Para grass can be planted at any time
as moist lands are best suited to it.
Put out tomato plants for fall crops,
and shade from the sun until they
get rooted. Scuppenong grapes can
be pruned this month, but most peo-
pie prefer to do so in July. Some
advocate the planting of celery seed
in cold frames in this month, but we
prefer doing so in July; however take
care and procure your seed in time.
Hart, Benham & Co. of Jacksonville,
who are reliable scotsman, can tell
you what are the best varieties, and
furnish the seed. Put in large crop
of sweet potatoes, white and red
West Indies are the most prolific,
but nansemonds and yams are the
most marketable. However plant
plenty, and if you cannot sell, there is
no better feed for your horse, COW, pig
and poultry. For the horse ard COW
chop them up and sprinkle salt over
them, for pigs and poultry boil them.
Plant COW peas for fodder and fertil-
ling, they make more vine this month
than they do planted in July, but not
SO much seed. Orange trees can be
budded as they make their second
and strongest growth this month";
Train the young shoot to make
large top to your tree, this can be
done by inserting wedge between
the trunk and the shoot, to throw
out the top as soon as the latter gets
hard enough to handle. Cork makes
the best wedge as it does not Druises
the bark; the wedge can be removed
as soon as the branch takes the re-
quired position. Give your orange
trees as spreading a top as possible,
and have large lower limbs; keep the
trunk, for eighteen inches up, free OF
succors, by rubbing them off with
your hands, and wedge out with the
cork all those that have tendency
to hug the trunk. Those trees that
grow like bramble bushes, in the low
er part, are not good bearers one
well formed tree will produce more
than dozen of them. An orange
tree takes seven years, after it comes
into bearing, before it comes to ma
turity, and can be called a full bear
er. 1t is surface feeding plant
therefore in the old groves the roots
should not be disturbed. The best
Peruvian Guano should be sprinkled
around the tree, at the rate of two
pounds to tree, and touched in with
a Dutch hoe, in showery weather; both
tree and fruit by this treatment will,
be beautifully clean. This the prac-
tice Of the orange growers of Para
malta, and many of their trees pro-
duce $4,000 oranges in season.
Persian insect powder will destry the
scale insect, we have tried it with
success iu our small grove, since a
former article was written. There
was scale insect on two of the trees
when we took the grove, and we i'm
mediately used the powder, through
bellows; two days after we repeated
the application, and found the insect
had no sign of life, even the ants had
left the trees. We then syringed
,he tree with solution sal soda, four
ounces of soda to gallon Of water,
and the insect pest was past. 1t
would be well to fertilize the tree at
the same time. Will others let us