76 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
SUMMARY 
To summarize the conditions which are 
affecting supply and price of fertilizers, 
there is 
First: The impossibility of importing 
certain materials which were formerly 
imported, such as potashes, sulphate of 
ammonia, etc. 
Second: Difficulties in importing cer¬ 
tain other materials such as pyrites, ni¬ 
trate of soda, etc., due to shortage of ves¬ 
sels and high ocean freight rates and 
marine insurance. 
Third: Heavily increased demand 
from other industries for materials which 
have been going into fertilizers, such as 
the munitions makers’ demand for pot¬ 
ashes, nitrate of soda, ammonia salts, and 
sulphuric acid; also the demand from the 
feeding trade for such products as feed¬ 
ing tankages and cotton seed meal. 
Fourth: Difficulties in railroad trans¬ 
portation due to car shortages. 
Fifth: Increased price of coal due to 
transportation difficulties. Coal for mo¬ 
tive power purposes has increased practi¬ 
cally ioo per cent. 
Sixth: Increase in labor costs, these 
having advanced from 50 to 100 per cent. 
Dr. J. H. Ross. 
Dr. Ross: I will say a word or two, 
in order that there won’t be an entire 
blank for my part of the program. 
These two papers we have just heard, 
are really very suggestive. First of all, 
Mr. Skinner has pointed out the impor¬ 
tance of feeding your trees regularly, 
promptly, and intelligently, and Mr. Dris¬ 
coll has intimated to us that to do this 
is going to be somewhat expensive. 
(Laughter). 
If ever there was a time when the 
grower should refrain from expensive 
experiments, this is the time. I have a 
friend down the state who has an orange 
grove. He has been a good doctor, an 
excellent doctor, for a good many years. 
He came to see me some time ago, and 
said “I have discovered a new way to 
feed my trees.” I said, “How are you 
going to feed them? How well is your 
new theory confirmed?’’ He said, “Well, 
possibly it is something of an experiment, 
but I think it is reasonable.” I said, “My 
friend, I used to know you when I 
thought you were a pretty safe family 
physician, and I never knew you to try 
experiments on your patients’ children. 
I think it is an unwise thing to do.” 
I was traveling across a wheat field in 
western New York and a man who put in 
the wheat, drilled it in and with it drilled 
the fertilizer. Towards the end of the 
field he ran out of fertilizer, but he went 
on putting in the wheat. That whole 
end of the field was put in without fer¬ 
tilizer. You could tell almost to a line 
where the fertilizer had run out. The 
field where the fertilizer had been put in 
stood two or three feet high; where the 
unfertilized tract was, the wheat was 
about eight inches high. 
Now it will cost the orange grower a 
fixed sum to prune, and harrow, and 
spray. That is all an overhead expense 
you cannot get away from. But every 
penny of profit you make, is involved in 
the fertilizer you apply. You might just 
as well talk about working your mules 
