FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
99 
tain percent, of ammonia and a certain 
percent, of nitrate. I know there are 
growers here who have been making 
nitrate with beggar weeds. The reason 
I do not use the cow pen is because I 
have not the cows. 
Now we are here to get at the manner 
of producing a crop from the ground. 
We are the ones who produce it and the 
other fellow is the man who lives on the 
producer (applause). He sells us the 
stuff, we give him our check, it is placed 
in the bank and we have to pay it. You 
can make your soil just as rich with one 
tenth of the money if you choose to do it. 
I have land on which I have raised three 
crops of corn. When I first began to 
use it, it would not produce more than 
five bushels of corn to the acre, but now 
I am getting at least twenty bushels to 
the acre without one pound of fertilizer. 
If you can do this in a corn field, it can 
be done in any other field. I know, no 
man can gainsay the fact that this is a 
true statement. 
Professor Blair.—I would like to see 
Maj. Healey raise velvet beans on pine¬ 
apple land. 
Maj. Healey.—If I were raising pine¬ 
apples, I would raise them the same way 
I do velvet beans. I have no wish to say 
what a gentleman should do with his 
soil, but I wish to say that if you will 
raise three crops of velvet beans on it, 
you will have better success with your 
pineapples. 
Now as stated before, we were not so 
poor in the old days, we found how much 
of the chemical fertilizer to put on the 
soil without knowing its use. I say to 
this audience that I have land that I wish 
I did not own, for just as long as it is 
there I am fool enough to do something 
with it. It was one time what was called 
when I was young, an orange grove. It 
is a sad sight now and I presume it will 
always be a sad sight to my pocket book. 
I own it under the “homestead act” and 
you understand how that is. I said that 
it was really a good looking grove and 
since 1895 ^ have never put one pound 
of fertilizer on it, it has been made on vel¬ 
vet beans and beggar weeds. There is 
potash enough in that to make a grove. 
Much to my surprise one of my men 
said to me last year that there were some 
oranges on my grove, I went over and 
looked through the grove and sure 
enough there was a good crop of fruit 
and I concluded to ship them and am 
sorry, for they brought me some money 
and that was an inducement for me to go 
to work and make another orange grove. 
This proves to you that while you can 
put the enormous sum of eighty pounds 
of fertilizer to the tree, yet you can get 
good results from the velvet bean and 
beggar weed. 
Now Mr. Chairman, I hope this fertili¬ 
zer question will be taken up by this 
audience and let us see if we can get 
down to absolute facts, and see if the old 
time fool orange grower cannot thrash 
this down to $50 per year for oranges. 
Mr. Wood.—Mr. President, I note that 
on the first paper on this subject the 
writer recommended the plowing under 
of green crops. My opinion is that it is 
much better to let the crop die on the 
ground. 
Prof. Stockbridge.—I am quite sure 
that the author of that paper through an 
oversight inadvertantly used the word 
“green” when he should not have done 
so. In the country from whence he came 
they term green crop what we call cover 
crop, and that is what he meant to say. 
Professor Blair.—Just, one word, I 
