FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
63 
the native persimmon seems to thrive 
well in almost any place, we have noticed 
that the Japanese varieties on sandy soil 
last much better. 
For home use there is no better va¬ 
riety than Zengi, the most of its fruit is 
good, while hard, and improves as it 
gets soft, it makes the best tree and is 
the most prolific, and regular bearer. 
The Hyakume, Hachia, Tane-Nashi, 
Yemon, and Okame, are the favorite 
market sorts; they must be thoroughly 
ripe and soft before they are good to 
eat. 
We must all agree that the Kaki is 
most delicious fruit, beautiful in coloring 
and shape, has fine keeping and curing 
qualities and is sure to become a favorite 
in this country when our people become 
educated up to its peculiar characteris¬ 
tics. 
The Kaki. 
By Mr* Wm* Macklm^ Dinsmore^ Fla* 
Mr. President^ Ladies and Gentlemen: 
Mark Twain tells of himself that he 
was once suddenly and unexpectedly, in¬ 
troduced to President Grant, and the only 
thing he could find to say was, ‘‘Mr. 
President, I am embarrassed, are you?’^ 
That describes my case exactly, as it is 
only a month since I sent your secretary 
my initial subscription to the Florida 
Horticultural Society, and, before I could 
get rny breath, he launched upon me the 
news that I must prepare a paper on the 
Japanese persimmon. I wilted im¬ 
mediately and wondered if there was any 
way by which I could get that dollar back, 
but decided it was gone beyond recall, and 
that I must do my best with regard to the 
paper, so I hope my immature effort will 
taste better than an immature persimmon. 
The Japanese Persimmon. 
From all the information I have been 
able to gather I believe that I have the 
largest orchard of Japanese persimmons in 
America. It consists of about 2,500 trees, 
planted in the years 1899, 1900? iQOIj 
1902 and the remarks that follow are con¬ 
fined to observations of my own trees. 
I have found the persimmon a very 
interesting study, as it has qualities not 
common to any other fruit tree with 
which I have had experience, and a 
knowledge of its habits is not widely dis¬ 
seminated, or very easy to obtain, as in 
the case of the more familiar fruits. 
To begin with the matter of culti¬ 
vation : I have long ago come to the con¬ 
clusion that the persimmon is better with¬ 
out what is generally understood by that 
term. For the first two years after I 
started planting I kept my trees clean cul¬ 
tivated, but as they grew I found that the 
entire surface of the ground was literally 
full of very fine hair-like roots, and that 
no matter how lightly the ground was 
scratched quantities of these were torn up 
