FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
49 
Mr. Harvey —My boys have grown a few trees. I would 
like to say to those gentlemen who live in Middle Florida 
that it would be a paying investment to raise the Elberta 
peach.. It would be the best money crop that you could put 
in the ground. It will ship anywhere. It is a fine peach to 
ship and a fine peach to can, and a fine peach altogether. It 
is the superior of any peach. With me it ripens from the 5th 
to the 20th of July. 
0. P. Rooks —I live in South Florida and I have tried the 
Elberta and it has universally proved a failure. We must 
try the oriental varieties entirely. There is a variety from 
Australia that is wonderfully prolific; it is called the blood 
peach, but as to the Persian type, I have no faith in them. 
They have never made a success. There have been thous¬ 
ands of dollars spent in planting varieties not adapted to our 
soil and our country. It is a mistake for this Society to ap¬ 
point a committee from one part of this state to recommend a 
list of peaches to be planted in the whole state. We should 
follow the practice of the Georgia Horticultural Society and 
have a committee for each section. 
Mr. Taber —Mr. Harvey has a fine peach orchard. Mr. 
Mellish at DeFuniak has fine peaches. There are lots of 
peaches in the western country, but the conditions are en¬ 
tirely different from other sections of the state. I live thirty 
miles west of here and I cannot raise the same peaches that 
Mr. Harvey does. The Elberta I have in my orchards, but I 
do not get any crops from them. The Alexander is a fairly 
good peach. Its only value is on account of its earliness, 
which, of course, is a great item in a commercial way, where 
it succeeds, but we cannot raise it here with any profit. I 
cannot explain whv this is so. I am simply stating facts. 
Col. Harvey read about the Waldo being destroyed by frost 
with him ; with me it is one of the most reliable of the early 
kinds. At Waldo, a few miles south of here, they get crops 
of this variety almost every year. There is a great deal to be 
taken into consideration in peach growing in Florida. No 
man can make a list of peaches suitable to the entire state of 
Florida unless he runs through quite a large number of varie¬ 
ties, and those varieties will be differ°nt for the different 
sections. I think Col. Harvey should have explained that 
the Elberta is a seedling of the Chinese cling type. There is 
a distinction between this and the Persian type. Belonging 
to this Chinese type the Elberta is suitable to a section of 
the country where the Persian will not do. 1 have said be¬ 
fore that we cannot take Col. Harvey’s list of varieties and 
adopt them for this section. The people should understand 
that they must get the varieties suited to their section. 
