FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
Mr. Hume: I am now going to call 
on Dr. Ross, president of the Florida 
Citrus Exchange, to continue the discus¬ 
sion. 
Dr. Ross: The first thing I will say 
is, I am not going to talk to you long. Not 
that these things have not all been true, 
but I understand there must be a limit, 
and I am going to set the limit. 
You observe the gentlemen who have 
spoken to you make very frequent and 
free allusions to freezes which have oc¬ 
curred in this state. That would seem 
to intimate to you that we are living 
under the shadow of a freeze all the 
time. Now, that is really the only element 
of a chance this part of the country has. 
It is really the only element of chance 
there is in the citrus industry of Florida. 
I know that a good deal of consider¬ 
ation must be given to the moral element 
in a loan which is to run for thirty-six 
years. And yet I apprehend that the men 
who are going to succeed the present 
people who are engaged in this industry, 
will be of much the same caliber and 
mental timber as those who are engaged in 
it now and this element of uncertainty and 
danger is to be counted upon in every like 
undertaking. 
Certainly this business has attracted to 
it, the bold, venturesome, daring people 
who mean progress; people who are wil¬ 
ling and like to take a chance. These are 
the kind of people who do not often fall 
down, and when they do, they don’t stay 
down. 
Mr. Skinner read us some figures show¬ 
ing returns in fruit. We have tried to 
collect statistics recently by the acre in 
most of the citrus counties in the state and 
141 
base that upon the net returns to the 
grower. I do not know where Mr. Skin¬ 
ner got his figures, I am sure we did not 
get them from the same source, but the 
very best figures we have been able to 
get have indicated, and I am pretty sure 
I am representing no other marketing 
agency, but the best figures we have been 
able to get are that the net returns to the 
growers from twenty counties or more 
of the citrus parts of the state, and I 
would have you understand that we in¬ 
cluded a great many groves both well 
cared for and indifferent groves, many of 
them miles and miles from a packing 
house, where the overhead expense of 
carrying the fruit to a packing house is 
very heavy; after getting these returns 
together and making a most conservative 
tabulation over that entire area, the an¬ 
nual net return to the grower has been 
about $95.00 per acre. 
Now, I submit that is not a poor return, 
and that it will compare very favorably 
with agricultural returns in the most 
fertile parts of the north. 
I have had experience farming in the 
north, and I know a corn crop is consid¬ 
ered a very good crop if it brings a net 
return to the farmer of from $15.00 to 
$20.00 per acre. My son recently boasted 
of a crop of oats he had, and it was a very 
beautiful crop and oats are worth 35c a 
bushel, and I asked him what net profit 
he was making. We made an exhaustive 
calculation and found that oat crop netted 
him $9.00 per acre. 
We have tried to eliminate all the ele¬ 
ments that should be subtracted from the 
Florida producer of citrus fruits. Mr. 
Skinner has given you a profit of about 
