166 
AMERICAN P0M0L0C410AL SOCIETY. 
FLORIDA. 
BY W. S. HART, HAWKS PARK, CHAIRMAN. 
All sections of Florida except tlie overflowed portions of tlie Everglades 
are adapted to successful fruit culture. Where the Everglades have been 
freed from water they have proven so valuable for fruit and truck growing 
that a movement is now on foot to drain a much larger area and prepare 
it for groves and truck farms. While all sections above Overflow and some 
even lower are fruit growing sections, our range of fruits is a very wide 
one and no one section is well adapted or can possibly be made to profitably 
grow all of the leading market fruits of the State. The above facts being 
made clear your committee deem it advisable to adopt the plan of dividing 
the State into districts, as used in, the official catalogue of the Florida 
State Horticultural Society, as the only means of briefly giving replies to 
the questions in your circular letter that will convey a correct idea of the 
conditions here. The plan is as follows: Northwest Florida, that portion 
of the State west of the Aucilla river. Northeast Florida, that portion be- 
tween the Aucilla river and a straight line drawn across the State from the 
mouth of the St. Johns river to Cedar Keys. Central Florida, that portion 
between the line above referred to and the counties constituting South 
Florida. South Florida, the counties of Brevard, Dade, Monroe, Lee, De Soto 
and Manatee. 
In the first of these divisions pears (of the Oriental race), peaches (of Per- 
sian and Spanish races), plums (of the Japanese race), grapes, strawberries 
and pecans are profitably grown. 
Northeast Florida. Here the Peento and Honey peaches and their seedlings 
take the place of the Persian race and figs replace the pecans; otherwise 
the list is much like the first. 
In Central Florida is found the home of the orange, while pomelos or 
grape fruit ( Citrus decumana), peaches (of Peento and Honey types), grapes 
kaki, figs, loquats, the hardy varieties of guavas, and strawberries are also 
adapted to its conditions and are receiving more and more attention. 
In South Florida, the pineapple is the king of fruits, 'while a long list of 
tropical and semi-tropical fruits, including the banana, guava, lime, lemon, 
mango, cocoanut, cherimoya, avocado pear, custard apple, granadilla, papaw, 
sapodilla, soursop, rose apple, star apple, mammee sapota and tamarind take 
the place of most of the fruits in the other divisions, except that the orange 
grows in great perfection in the more northern portions. Efforts are now 
being made to grow oranges on a commercial scale well down in South 
Florida, below the reach of injurious cold, but this is yet largely experimental. 
Kaki, mulberries, and the scuppernong (rotundifolia) family of grapes are 
growing and are fruiting heavily in nearly all portions of the State. 
Soils for oranges should always be above the level of frequent overflow, 
but may be of varying elevations and any one of several grades ranging from 
heavy, rich, black hammock land, over a marl foundation, to high and hilly 
pine land composed of white sand and humus underlaid with yellow sandy 
sub-soil. The ideal land is high gray hammock, over yellow sub-soil. Dark 
chocolate hardpan and oystershell lands should always be avoided. Pine- 
apples seem to thrive on almost any poor grade of soil, or even on almost 
pure white sand, or almost pure coquina ’rock, but judicious fertilizing and 
partial shade greatly improve the quality and increase the size of the fruit. 
