The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1879-04-02
ing reply. He irrigated every ten
days, and quit cultivation. His OLD
est tree was eleven years old and had
about 1000 oranges this year.

days, and quit cultivation. His old
est tree was eleven years old and had
about 1000 oranges this year.
ROOT GROWTH IN ORANGE TREES.
Gen. J. ii. Shields, OF Los Angeles
thought that orange roots, DESERVING
totally unirrigated surface, and in
search of moisture penetrating deep
into the cold earth, might not per-
fectly serve the tree. Roots extra
prosper in extra warm earth. AT
great elevations on the sunny side OF
the mountain, where the temperature
Of the air is so degrees, and where
the sun rays, at nearly right-angle OF
incidence, increase the temperature Of
the earth to 100 degrees, there the
roots become larger than in the plain,
where the air is warmer but the
earth cooler under the sparsely scat
tered sun rays At more acute angles
of incidence. The root at the great
elevation enlarges in greater ratio
than the root In the plain, but the
tree itself on the plain enlarges in
greater ratio than the tree-top at the
great elevation, which, dwarfed, in
stinctively shuns the cold air and
| spreads near the warm earth.
DR.. Cougar replied that All abun-
dance of lateral orange roots spread
within one foot of the surface in his
unirrigated land, at which depth there
were sufficient heat and moisture for
the best results; the lower roots, be-
ing in a temperature of 60 degrees,
kept up growth, but did not produce
foliage.
Gen. Shields, in no controversial
mood and without questioning DIR.
Cougars experiences, thought that,
with natures well-known provision
of greatest heat and fertility near the
surface, should concur abundant mois-
ture; that the roots of all plants, es-
pecially tropical and semi-tropical
plants, are injured by a. cold soil ;
that the Summer air of Canada is
warm enough for the orangei.tree,
but the ground is too cold for the
root; that the more delicate tropical
fruits attain perfection only in tropi-
cal air and soil, where the air is from
80 to 100 degrees and the ground
from 1875 to $50 degrees.
Gen. Shields agreed with DR.. Con-
gar that the measure of irrigation
ought to be the normal necessities
of tfe-piSut-;; adding thss iHriGosias,-
eral-freighted moisture. entailing the
train of evils that befall the minerally
starved and the water-bloate6 tree.
To q question from the audience,
Gen. Shields replied that the feebly-
growing Delaware and Rebecca grape
cutting became vigorous grower as
a graft on vigorous stranger stock,
and that the shyly-bearing Marie
Louise pear, almost incorrgible by
grating or budding, yet did, in one
case in three hundred, on promiscu-
Gus nursery stock, taken as they
came, bear fruit very literally; and
did, moreover, in this same isolated
case, sport into the rameal habit OF
the weeping ash. That an orange
branch girdled in May by incision
bark deep, and poulticed with moist
dirt six months, sprouted toward the
extremity around the incision, and
being severed from the tree and
planted, became tree OF more vigol
and of more and better fruit thar
bud, graft or seeding. That gratis
of excessively twiggy, branchy apple
trees, and of trees OF few branches
: had been known to increase and t.
diminish the number OF fibrous roots
respectively and correspondingly
That grating into piece of a roo
; is compromise of all the methods
: of propagation.
Gen. Shields thought thatFthe ex
hibits at the fair were surprisingly
against grating the orange on linz
or lemon stock.
!, On the subject of late irrigation h
felt that we should be instructed b,
nature, which provided the dry au
tumn in which new wood coulC
ripen and harden, and also induce
the tree to subside into the prelimi
naries of the profounder sleep 0
Winter.--D. W. Mcleod IN P0cif
Rur0L Press
. Carbolic Acid i'm the Garden.