140 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
banker will loan his money when he can 
get it back when he wants it. Ninety-day 
paper; that is a different proposition and 
does not appeal to a grower. 
If your loan is secured, it does not make 
much difference who the man is if he 
takes care of the property, and if you have 
a loan board it is their business to see that 
the man does care for the property in the 
right way, and if he does not take care of 
it, you can go in and take possession. 
It is not the rich man who wants this 
loan bank; it is the man of moderate cir¬ 
cumstances, the working man, who gets 
$1.75 or $2.00 a day. Give him a chance 
to get ahead; don’t be overcautious. I 
have wanted to do that in my community. 
Sometimes one makes enemies of the ones 
you are trying to help; they distrust you 
the minute you intimate that you are go¬ 
ing to give them something for nothing, 
you might say. It is the greatest pleasure 
of my life to help these men to start, and 
I would give him thirty-six years if I 
stayed here that long, to pay it back, and 
be glad to do it. 
I let one of my workmen have some 
money to pay for his place and he wanted 
to know if it could go on for a while, and 
Oranges 
Five years FOB averages_$ 1.483 
Cost to produce_ .50 
Cost to market_ .625 
Total cost_ 1.125 
Net profit per box_ .358 
Average profit per acre on basis 
160 boxes_ 57.28 
Values per acre on basis 6 per 
cent on capital_954.66 
Loanable value at 25 per cent_238.66 
I told him yes. “Well,” he said, “I am 
going to get in this farm loan bank, if it 
isn’t another one of those fakes.” 
The people need the help; the value is 
there, and any community that will take 
five or six men, whatever the number is, 
who will say they will stand responsible 
for these different loans, I think it is 
a pretty safe proposition, and you men 
are in position to know who these five 
men are. You are going to know; you 
are going to look up every one of these 
men, write to the bank and to prominent 
citizens about them. To loan a man an 
inadequate amount is going to do him an 
injury instead of helping him. You should 
lend him enough so that he can go ahead 
and succeed. 
You can go over this state anywhere, 
and you will find the most prosperous men 
are those who have groves. The value 
is there. Any man who owns a grove 
can go into a bank and get money imme¬ 
diately. A grove has an established value, 
notwithstanding freezes or anything else. 
I have here the averages by one of the 
large selling agencies for a period of five 
years: 
Grapefruit 
Tangerines 
Total Citrus 
$ 1831 
$ 2.052 
$ 1-597 
•50 
•50 
•50 
.625 
.825 
•633 
1-125 
1-325 
I-I 33 
.706 
.727 
.464 
112.96 
116.32 
74.24 
1882.66 
1938.66 
1237.22 
470.66 
484.66 
309-33 
