FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
149 
VEGETABLE PRODUCTION IN FLORIDA 
/ 
C. K. McQuarrie, Gainesville, Fla. 
Florida, in the mind of the prospec¬ 
tive settler from more northern climes, 
will always be associated with citrus 
fruits and winter vegetables. Investi¬ 
gation will show him, however, that it 
takes several years to establish a citrus 
grove, and that the cost is higher than 
the average settler can afford. There¬ 
fore, he naturally turns to vegetable 
growing as the most attractive busi¬ 
ness. On investigation, he finds that 
the dollar invested in seeds, fertilizer, 
and labor, comes back quicker from 
vegetables than from any other agricul¬ 
tural work in which he may engage. 
Florida can justly be called the “winter 
vegetable garden” of the more north¬ 
ern states, or in fact of the entire North 
American continent. 
A writer in a popular magazine late¬ 
ly made the assertion that three-fourths 
• 
of the wonder stories of the acquisition 
of wealth in Florida turn on winter veg¬ 
etables. Some of these stories, no 
doubt, are true, and have been picked 
out with great care by the parties that 
are especially interested in booming 
prices of lands, or in drawing attention 
to certain sections of the State. Some 
cases of large yields from vegetables 
and large incomes from a small area 
are to be met with, but what about the 
other side of it? What about the sup¬ 
pressed details of the constant grind 
and the constant fight of the man that 
knows very little about his business 
and has to fight the adverse seasons 
and other adverse conditions that he 
has to contend with, and who, in the 
long run, has to face the despair that 
comes from constant failures? 
We know, from close observation 
and a good many years of practical ex¬ 
perience, that vegetable growing in 
Florida is, to a very large extent, a type 
of gambling of the most intense kind. 
However, there is this to be said in 
connection with vegetable-growing in 
the state; that an analysis of the busi¬ 
ness, as a whole, gives favorable re¬ 
sults. 
The biennial report of the Commis¬ 
sioner of Agriculture for the years 1913 
and 1914, shows that the value of the 
vegetable crops for the State of Florida 
was $13,185,904, as compared with 
$11,408,223 for the citrus crop, while 
the total value of the field crops of the 
state was almost $19,000,000. An an¬ 
alysis of this report is interesting. It 
shows that the earning value of the 
land in vegetables was, for those two 
years, $141.15 for every acre, whereas, 
for the ordinary field crops the average 
earning value per acre was $17.45. In 
following this analysis a little farther, 
we find from this report that the in¬ 
crease in acreage in vegetables for 1913 
and 1914 was 30%, whereas the in¬ 
crease in value was 60%. This shows 
conclusively that the vegetable grow¬ 
ers are beginning to get better posted 
