FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
/i 
out.” But it don’t buy potatoes for the 
starving millions. On the other hand 
they, the experimenters, have shown the 
proper main road to follow. They have 
made it plain it is a straight and narrow 
road, and there are some that find it. 
Let the experimenters try the short 
cuts, the excursions, let them try the new 
patent medicine fertilizer and try it on the 
dog—but let’s you and I stay in the mid¬ 
dle of the road—experimenters have 
marked it for us—until the new roads are 
pronounced safe. We owe much to train¬ 
ed experimenters—we owe all to them 
and we owe it to them to keep in the 
middle of the road until they advise going 
out. Go the limit, but play safe. Many 
an operation has been pronounced suc¬ 
cessful by the surgeon, but the patient 
failed to survive. Many a fertilizer ex¬ 
periment has been successful, but the tree 
died. If your tree needs nitrogen don’t 
give it Phoisphoric Acid and expect the 
tree to come back—or if it needs Phos¬ 
phoric acid don’t expect it to mature its 
crop with nitrogen. And where it has all 
the nitrogen it can stand and all the phos¬ 
phoric acid it can assimilate don’t believe 
any one who tells you that you can apply 
more of these, even together, and expect 
to fool the tree into thinking it is potash. 
Trees are never fooled, as man sometimes 
seems to assume, but they have got to take 
what is given them even if it kills them, 
and it often does. 
Fertilize when needed. It don’t do 
much good to fertilize for bloom after the 
bloom period is over. You want to have 
your lamps trimmed and burning when 
the time comes. You want to feed the 
tree what it wants, when it wants it. A 
great many growers are too late. Too 
late never caught a train, too late never 
made a crop, too late always was too late,, 
and always will be. Be on time to apply 
plenty of the right fertilizer when needed. 
I call to mind a grove in my County that 
could be made a wonderful producer, but 
the owner is always too late, and rarely 
ever does he get a heavy crop. 
A BRIEF REVIEW OF WAR’S EFFECT ON FERTILIZERS 
W. J. Driscoll 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
I was invited to become a member of 
this Committee, and as I am so repeatedly 
asked “Why the high cost of fertilizer,” it 
seemed a good opportunity to prepare a 
paper along those lines. Whenever we 
approach a consumer these days in an ef¬ 
fort to sell him fertilizer, everything is all 
right until we get down to prices; then he 
goes away up in the air. So I have pre¬ 
pared a paper which may enlighten you 
somewhat as to the cause of this increase. 
We must recognize at the outset that 
supply and price of any commodity can¬ 
not be rightly considered without consid¬ 
ering demand also, since supply is exces¬ 
sive or deficient only as it applies to de¬ 
mand existing for the commodity under 
consideration. Briefly reviewing the ef¬ 
fect of the war upon demand for fertiliz- 
