FLORIDA STATE' HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
153 
the scope of this paper to point out any 
particular point in the state that is 
ahead of others, but if I wanted to buy, 
say strawberries, there are only one or 
two shipping points in the state that I 
would care to buy from. There is really 
only one point in the state where 
I know when I buy a basket of straw¬ 
berries that every berry in that basket 
is as near like its fellow as it is possible 
to have it. This condition has been 
brought about by one buyer at that 
point who insists that one quality be 
maintained, and he pays a top-notch 
price and knows that he gets a top- 
notch article. 
The Irish potato growers at Hastings 
furnish a good example along this line. 
When a barrel of Hastings potatoes 
is marked No. i, you can depend upon 
it being that grade, and No. 2, the same 
way. The result is that the Hastings 
potato growers command the top-notch 
figure in every market in the country. 
TAKING CARE OF CROP REMNANTS 
Another mistake the vegetable grow¬ 
ers make is in not taking due care 
of the unmarketable product or rem¬ 
nants of their crops. In going over the 
fields that have produced cucumbers, 
cantaloupes, watermelons, and such 
crops, after the shipping season is 
over, we generally find what looks like 
about fifty or sixty per cent of the crop 
left on the field to decay. In the de¬ 
caying process certain bacterial and 
fungus diseases occur. When the de¬ 
caying is completed, naturally the soil 
is infected with diseases belonging to 
that crop. Some of those diseases have 
what we know as “resting spores,” that 
will remain in that soil for quite a long 
period, particularly if the soil is not 
being plowed or cultivated and other 
crops grown thereon. This tends to 
contaminate future crops of the same 
type and will reduce the production at 
least fifty to sixty per cent. Contam¬ 
ination of clean soil is also likely to 
occur by carrying some of the soil on 
plows or cultivators, or even on one’s 
shoes from the contaminated field. We 
should Insist that all vegetable grow¬ 
ers collect the unmarketable product 
and destroy it by burying it in deep 
holes or by feeding it to live stock. 
Generally speaking, however, very few 
of our vegetable growers have any live¬ 
stock to feed anything to. They be¬ 
lieve in getting a large return for the 
crops produced and buying almost 
everything that is needed for home con¬ 
sumption. This is poor policy and 
shows lack of business methods. 
METHODS OF HANDLING COMMERCIAL 
FERTILIZERS 
Another mistake the vegetable grow¬ 
ers make is in the way they handle 
their commercial fertilizers, in the 
methods of application, and the stage 
of the crop’s growth at which com¬ 
mercial fertilizers are applied. This 
is an important matter and one that 
is often overlooked. A good many of 
our vegetable growers today are fer¬ 
tilizing their crops along the same 
lines that were .followed twenty-five 
or thirty years ago. One of the most 
flagrant abuses, I should say, is the 
