Water and Frost.
I have in mind two pieces of land well adapted to citrus culture. Both have the same elevation, soil, climate and water conditions, except that one piece is a mile of the Kaweah river, while the other is four or five miles distant. In case of a frost, all conditions being about the same, which piece would you consider to be liable to suffer the more? In the heavy frost of last December, while neither sustained any great damage, that portion of the ground nearer the river seemed to sustain the less. Is this correct in theory? The Kaweah river at this point is a good-sized stream of rapidly flowing water.
The land near the river, conditions of elevation being similar, would be less liable to frost. There are a good many instances where the presence of a considerable body of water prevents the lowering of the temperature of the air immediately adjacent. It is so at various points along the Sacramento river, and it is recognized as a general principle that bodies of water exert a warming influence upon their immediate environment even in regions with a hard winter. How much it may count for must be determined by taking other conditions into the account also.
Thinning Oranges.
Is it advisable to thin fruit on young citrus trees? Our trees have been bearing about three years, but they are still small trees. The oranges and grape fruit ripen well and are large and of excellent quality, but the trees seem overloaded.
The size of oranges on over-burdened trees can be increased by thinning, just as other fruits are enlarged, but it is not systematically undertaken as with peaches and apricots, because it is not so necessary and because it is easy to get oranges on young trees too large and to be discounted for over-sized coarse fruit. Removing part of the fruit from young trees is often done - for the good of the tree, not for the good of the fruit. It should be done after the natural drop takes place, during the summer.
Wind-blown Orange Trees.
What would you do for citrus trees five years old that have been badly blown out of shape?
Such trees must be trued up by pruning into the wind; that is, cutting to outside buds on the windward side and to inside buds on the lee side; also reducing the weight by pruning away branches which have been blown too far to the leeward. Sometimes trees can be straightened by moving part of the soil and pulling into the wind and bracing there by a good prop on the leeward side, but that, of course, is not practicable if the trees have attained too much size.
Handling Balled Citrus Trees.