134 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
as you would from Connecticut grown 
seed. The same thing applies to Ber¬ 
muda onions. The only Bermuda seed 
that will do anything in Florida comes 
from the Canary Islands. Some of the 
seedsmen in different parts of the coun¬ 
try will sell California grown seed, but 
for planting in our State, this is worse 
than worthless, and will cause a failure 
every time. There are a number of good 
seed houses in Florida and Gerogia, who 
understand the conditions here, and if 
a grower will patronize them, he will not 
run the chance of getting seeds that are 
not suited to Florida. 
Every vegetable crop grown in our 
State should be sprayed from the time it 
is large enough until it matures. The 
majority of them should be sprayed with 
both fungicides and insecticides, to keep 
off fungus diseases and insects. Some 
crops, like potatoes, do not require any 
spraying except with the fungicide. A 
great many growers contend there is no 
need of spraying a crop unless diseases 
or insects attack it, but if you watch these 
men for five or six years, you will find that 
they lose crops every once in a while from 
diseases and insects that they could not 
check before the crop was gone. If they 
had sprayed as a matter of policy, they 
could have prevented these attacks. Don’t 
think that after the crop is made, you are 
through, and can put it up in any kind of 
manner. This is the biggest mistake that 
you can make. The most important thing 
is to put your produce up in the correct 
style crates and pack it in the neatest and 
best manner. 
While I have not gone into all the 
causes that are likely to make a grower 
lose his crop, I have given some of the 
most important ones, and if a truck 
grower will watch these he stands an ex¬ 
cellent chance of not only making a crop, 
but of making some money. There is no 
place in the world where, by giving the 
vegetable business the same careful at¬ 
tention you would give to any other busi¬ 
ness, that you can make money as easily 
and quickly as you can by growing vege¬ 
tables in Florida. If a man will come to 
our State, buy a tract of good land, suited 
to the crop that he wishes to plant, situ¬ 
ated in a section where they are making 
a specialty of raising the vegetables he 
wishes to grow, put up a good fence, 
clear his land, taking out every stump, 
root and stick, put in an up-to-date irri¬ 
gation and drainage system, plant seed 
suited to Florida, give his crop careful at¬ 
tention and cultivation, watch the plants 
and give them what they need, from the 
time they come out of the ground until 
they are matured, he will make a success 
of his work in most cases. 
As I have said above, the rules given do 
not apply to every case, but they will keep 
off many a failure, and help the inexperi¬ 
enced farmer to make money where he 
would otherwise make a failure. 
