should be taught. If cattle-raising is the industry this should be taught in connection with language, arithmetic, and other lessons. Orange-culture has been chosen as the subject of my lesson as it is a lucrative industry here in Southern California. At Sherman Institute (our school) this is one of the subjects we teach in the classroom, as this will be of practical benefit to many of our pupils. Some have worked in packing-houses and orange groves. In one of the older settlements of this section, some of the Indians own orange trees; more of them may follow this occupation in the future. We are fortunate at Sherman in having so able an instructor as Mr. Cruickshank, our director in farming and gardening, whose information is of great assistance to teachers and pupils. We frequently take pupils to the garden with notebooks and pencils and as he gives instruction the class will take notes; these notes are used for language and composition work in class later. Fellow teachers, when you return to your schools you will not teach orange culture; perhaps you may teach the raising of wheat, or corn, or sheep. We should select the industries which our pupils will follow, individual talents and preferences of course being considered; but, whatever our subject, we are bringing out originality and preparing them for useful work, to guard against being cheated in store and other business transactions. Lesson Q. How does Riverside Valley, where our Sherman Institute is located, rank among other orange producing sections? A. Riverside Valley ranks first in the world, and it is the only place where navel oranges are produced. Q. How are oranges propagated? A. They are grown by seeds and by budding. (Pupil shows seed and also a few buds.) Q. How would you select your seeds? A. From a robust growing orange tree with good-sized fruit. Q. How is the seed sown? A. The seed is sown as soon as taken from the fruit, in beds of prepared soil, and covered with half an inch of fine sand and shaded with a lath house. Q. How is the fertility of the seed maintained when taken from the fruit? A. They are put in tins with juice from the orange and sealed up. Q. How long should seedling trees remain in the nursery? A. Until they are about two years old. (Pupil shows a small tree.) Q. What kind of oranges are of the best commercial value? A. First, the Washington navel; second, the Valencia late. (Pupil shows the different kinds of oranges named and explained the characteristics of each and how they may be recognized.) Q. Why is the navel orange budded? A. Because it has no seeds. Budding is the only way to keep the variety true. Q. How should the buds be selected to get the best variety? A. They should be selected from a healthy tree of good habit and smooth-skinned fruit. Q. How is the bud held in place until it unites with the stock? A. It is held in place by being wrapped with budding twine or with waxed cloth torn in strips three-fourths of an inch wide. (Pupil illustrates this by doing the work hastily.) Q. How old are the budded trees when ready to set out in the orchard? A. the top. Q. They are two years old, as it takes one year to grow the stem and one year to grow What kind of a situation and soil would you select for an orange grove? A. The best place is a foot-hill, with a south or southwest exposure; sandy loam, with decomposed granite soil. Q. What is the price of orange land in Riverside Valley? A. The price of land is from $400 to $600 per acre. Q. How would you prepare the ground for the orchard? A. First, plow the high places and grade them into the hollows; then plow all the ground and if necessary subsoil it; then harrow and level with a land leveler. Q. What is meant by a subsoiler? A. It is a plow that plows twenty inches to two feet in the ground. Q. What is the cost of grading and preparing the land for a grove? A. It cannot be determined rightly, but ranges from $2 to $30 an acre. A. Trees cost about thirty-five cents each when four years old, when you grow them yourself. Q. Would it pay to grow trees in a nursery for your own orchard? 4. No, time is money in orange-growing; buy your trees from a nursery and let your orchard be growing; then you can raise young trees to sell and thus pay for those you have bought. tree. Q. What do trees cost from a nursery? A. The value is from twenty-five cents to $1.25, according to demand and size of Q. How are citrus trees generally handled when planting? A. They are balled. Q. What do you mean by balled trees? A. The roots are cut with a sharp spade about six inches from the stem, all around the tree, and the soil taken up with it, wrapped in a sack and tied with balling-twine. (One pupil balled a tree to illustrate that he knew how to do what he was talking about.) Q. How many trees are needed to plant an acre? A. Generally one hundred and eight trees are needed to plant an acre, planted twenty feet apart each way. Q. How should they be planted? A. They are placed in the holes already dug. The balling-twine is cut, and threefourths of the hole filled with the soil. Finish filling with soil. The trees should be straightened while wet. Q. How would you lay off an orchard? A. Get a wire the length of the rows one way, and stretch it tight, get a pole the same length as the stated distance between the trees, or have a piece of tin soldered on the wire, the exact distance between the trees; then drive a peg in exactly where each tree should stand. Q. How could you dig the holes and have your trees in the right place? A. Before I start to dig, I get a stick with three notches, and place the middle notch in the peg already in the ground; then drive a peg in each notch at the end of the stick; then remove the middle peg and dig the hole. When ready to plant, put the stick with the notches on the pegs and place the tree in the middle notch and your trees will be in the right place. Q. Agnes, what will it cost to plant a ten-acre orange grove, if the land is worth $400 an acre, and it requires one hundred and eight trees at 75 cents each to plant an acre, and all the expenses for grading, digging holes, and planting costs $30 to the acre. Q. How should the orchard be cared for after planting? A. In the dry season it is irrigated every thirty days, and cultivated every fifteen days, three ways. Q. Why should the ground be cultivated? 4. It is cultivated so that the soil will hold moisture, to keep the weeds down, and to allow the air to get to the roots. Q. How do you prepare to irrigate? A. Before irrigating four of five furrows should be made between the trees. Q. Why do you irrigate? A. We irrigate so that the tree roots can gather the plant food from the soil. A. It costs $1 per acre for water and 60 cents an acre for labor each irrigation. A. Three years after planting a tree will produce one box of fruit; when eight years old there are about six boxes to a tree, and when fifteen years old ten boxes to a tree. A seedling orange tree at thirty years of age will yield thirty boxes to a tree if well cared for. Q. When do you begin to prune the orange trees? A. Begin pruning about five years after planting, removing the dead wood and suckers or water shoots. Q. In one year what will it cost to care for a ten acre orange grove, cultivation $25 per acre for a year, $1 per acre for each irrigation and 60 cents an acre for labor, irrigating eight times a year? (Teacher had previously written this problem on the blackboard and pupil had solved it, and at this point he was called upon to explain his solution.) $25.00 per acre for cultivation A. (1) $128.00 expense during one year for irrigating ten acres (3) $250.00 for cultivation $378.00 cost of care for land in one year Q. How are oranges picked off the trees? A. They are clipped with one-fourth of an inch of the stem left on the fruit; if not they are culls. (Pupil showed oranges as picked [in crude shape] with stem.) Q. Why are the stems left on the oranges? A. To preserve the fruit from rotting. Q. How much would be the profit for oranges from a ten-acre grove, fifteen years old, ten boxes to each tree, 108 trees to the acre, if it costs 30 cents per box to grow them besides the following expenses for each box; 7 cents to pick and haul to packing house, 43 cents free on board the cars; 17 cents for icing; 90 cents for freight; 20 cents to commission merchant; and 3 cents for cartage, if we sold the box in New York for $3.40? (The problem had been previously written on the blackboard and solved by the pupil, and at this point in the lessons pupil explained it.) Q. When fruit is gathered how is it cared for before shipping? A. It is placed in boxes and hauled in orange wagons to the packing-house, where it is cleaned, sorted, and packed, then placed in cars ready for shipment. Q. Where is the fruit shipped in order to get the highest prices? A. That depends on the market, and prices vary according to demand. The most of the fruit from California is shipped to Chicago, New York, and Boston. Q. What are the prices per box in eastern markets. A. That cannot be determined definitely. Prices for navels range from $1.75 to $6 per box. Valencias sometimes from $3 to $11 per box. Q. What is the shipping season from here? A. The shipping season for navels is from October to May; for Valencias from June to September, and seedlings from April to July. Q. How many cases of oranges were shipped from Riverside Valley during the past season and what were the returns? A. In 1906, 28,000 car-loads of oranges were shipped from Southern California, bringing $30,000,000. Growers got $12,000,000. Riverside growers $3,500,000. Railway company and other expenses absorbed the remainder. The following business letter was written by one of the pupils during the recitation. SHERMAN INSTITUTE, RIVERSIDE, CAL., April 4, 1907 Mr. W. W. Watson, Chicago, Ill. DEAR SIR: I am shipping you today by A. T. & S. F. Ry. car No. 3029, 384 boxes of navel oranges, which are of first-class quality and were grown in San Jacinto section. Will you please endeavor to secure the highest market price, and when sold, remit to me the proceeds less your commission, which, I believe, is 7 per cent. of the gross receipts. Upon receipt of your bill of sale, if the markets are satisfactory, I will be glad to ship you more oranges. Very respectfully, Q. What is the value of full-grown orange trees? will pay a large interest on $100. The profits in one year Q. What is the value of some orange groves in Riverside Valley? A. They are valued at from $1,000 to $1,800 per acre according to localities as well as kinds and condition of trees. Valencias are as high as $2,000 an acre. Q. What are the diseases of orange trees and how are they treated? A. For the insects which infect orange trees, fumigate at night or on dull days for red, white, and purple scales, as fumigating in the bright sunlight would burn the leaves. For black scale the trees should be sprayed. Diseases rarely occur in orange groves that are well cared for. In gum disease the parts should be well scraped with a knife, then apply coal tar and ashes. For die back, cut the tree back and give a good dressing of barnyard fertilizer to stimulate the growth. (This answer was written on the blackboard by a pupil.) ROUND-TABLE CONFERENCE CHAIRMAN-HON. FRANCIS E. LEUPP, COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS WASHINGTON, D. C. Nearly everybody else has had a demonstration here, and now I want one of my own. These two boys (calling two pupils to the front) are from Oraibi, where the old hostile chief, Yukeoma, told me last year that his followers were not going to let us have any children from their Pueblo. I ventured to disagree with him: I thought we should continue to have Oraibi pupils in our schools. These two boys are here, as you see, and have been showing you what they have learned during the last year. (Quod erat demonstrandum.) These boys, like the others at Sherman Institute, are learning not simply the lessons taught in books, but more valuable things-how to carry responsibility, how to take care of themselves, how to hold their own against the whites. I am glad to see that monogram on the Sherman Institute banner (pointing to the Sherman flag containing a monogram composed of the letters S. I.). It |