150 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
on the best methods of producing veg¬ 
etables, as well as to market them to 
better advantage. 
There are certain qualifications nec¬ 
essary for a successful vegetable grow¬ 
er. Quite a number of newcomers into 
the state have an idea that it is an easy 
matter to take up a piece of land and 
begin vegetable growing, for the reas¬ 
on, as already stated, that the dollar 
comes back quicker from vegetables 
than from any other crop. They over¬ 
look the fact that whatever line of busi¬ 
ness a man enters, there is a certain ed¬ 
ucational period through which he must 
pass before he can become an expert. 
This holds true of vegetable produc¬ 
tion, just as much as it holds true of 
ship-building, steel-making, or any of 
the other industries in which any man 
may engage. 
There are certain mistakes that the 
Florida vegetable growers have been 
making in the past, and which they are 
still making. When the time comes 
that they can eliminate these mistakes 
the industry will assume much larger 
and more important proportions than 
it does at the present. 
I would like to enumerate a few of 
these mistakes that have been made in 
the past, with a few suggestions as to 
the best methods of combating them. 
TOO SMALL HOLDINGS 
One of these is having too small 
holdings in the vegetable farm, thus 
preventing the use of crop rotation. 
We know, from practical experience 
along all lines of agricultural produc¬ 
tion, that diversification and rotation of 
crops is one of the essential points that 
all producers must bear in mind. The 
same kind of crops grown in succes¬ 
sion on the same piece of land for a 
number of years will tend to limit the 
ability of that soil to produce large 
crops, for the reason that soil diseases 
will creep in, both of bacterial and fun¬ 
gus origin. We know, for instance, 
that if you grow cabbage on the same 
piece of land for two or three seasons 
in succession the soil will become “cab¬ 
bage sick.” But if we had rotated cab¬ 
bage with some other crops that are 
immune to the diseases that infect cab¬ 
bage, we would have been able to main¬ 
tain the fertility of soil, and also to main¬ 
tain its sanitary condition. It is just 
as necessary that crops should grow 
on soil under the best sanitary condi¬ 
tions, as it is for human beings or ani¬ 
mals to live under sanitary conditions. 
The continual cropping of a piece of 
soil to a single crop will of course tend 
to prevent the soil from getting toned 
up to produce crops in the largest pos¬ 
sible quantity. 
DIVERSIFICATION 
It is not within the scope of this 
article to go into details as to how this 
condition could be maintained, except 
as far as we should study how to grow, 
where practicable, the crops that we 
know, in general agricultural practice, 
are scavenger crops. For instance, if a 
spring or winter crop of cabbage has 
been grown on the land, as soon as the 
cabbage crop is harvested, the land 
