Fruit Growing in the Gulf States of America. 



By G. H. Hawtayne, C.M.G., CJf.Z.S., F.S.G.S, President. 



B^^JHE Society is indebted to Major Walthall for 

 ES rSK having obtained from the United States De- 

 kffi**m partment of Agriculture an interesting report 

 on tropical and semi-tropical fruits. 



In this colony the fruit industry has of late, to some 

 extent, occupied attention, and it may be interest- 

 ing and useful to extract from the above report informa- 

 tion as to the fruits grown in the Southern States, and 

 some examples of the energy and enterprise with which 

 fruit growing and the fruit trade are there prosecuted. 

 A perusal of the report is, however, calculated to raise 

 a feeling of self-reproach when the activity of our 

 northern friends in combating climatic difficulties and 

 developing-a trade in fruit, carried to other parts of the 

 United States, or as canned and manufactured products, 

 is compared with the apathy with which the produce of 

 our fruit trees is regarded by us, and the feebleness of 

 our attempts to cultivate, much less improve, or to con- 

 vert into a valuable export, the fruit that grows or can 

 be grown in this colony. 



The States bordering the Gulf of Mexico, and thence 

 called the Gulf States, comprise Florida, Alabama, 

 Mississipi, Louisiana, and Texas, and are the regions 

 in which tropical fruits are cultivated. They lie 

 between 25 and 35 degrees north latitude, but only 

 the peninsular part of Florida and a corner of Texas are 



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