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FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 141 
we are partners in this ideal business. The man who will give 
a fair price tor our goods has come this year in large numbers. 
Furthermore, experience has demonstrated to us that the 
average grower would rather part with his fruit to a man one 
thousand miles away than to a man with a certified check in 
his pocket. 
Now, as to the reasons assigned for this year’s disasters: 
One of them is the rushing to market of green fruit. Last 
September the state was flooded with circulars soliciting con¬ 
signments of green fruit and stating that they had facilities 
for coloring it. Having located sixteen years ago north of the 
fro'st line I have selected lor planting only those varieties of 
oranges that would mature early and permit of their being 
marketed by December 15, hence I was interested enough in 
the scheme advertised to go to New York and see for mvself 
the kind of fruit they received. I sent ahead four shipments 
of early fruit. Some of the oranges were from seedling trees 
around my house. On reaching New York I called on the 
firm and found that two of my shipments had already been 
sold and also found their salerooms stocked with fruit. They 
refused to impart their mode of coloring. My fruit three or 
four days after arrival was shown me well colored. The 
oranges were not being sold according to their ripeness. My 
sour seedling fruit netted as much as my early oblongs. The 
West India fruit is boxed and sold as Florida fruit. I saw 
with my own eyes barrels of West India fruit being trans¬ 
ferred from the barrels into boxes bearing the private marks 
of some of the gentlemen here to-night. The orange season 
is lengthened by early shipments; this is of great advantage 
if it can be done successfully. A peculiar circumstance con¬ 
nected with the shipment of green fruit was this: Compara¬ 
tively few of them were of our early varieties and very little 
of the fruit came from Duval, St. Johns and Clay counties; 
the bulk came from Manatee and Polk counties. 
Another reason for low prices is the shipping to irresponsi¬ 
ble commission men. Why at this date, after so much dis¬ 
cussion, there should be growers who persist in sending their 
goods to commission merchants who are irresponsible, is inex¬ 
plicable. As I was going along Bainbridge street one day, I 
saw a lot of fruit along the ferry and a heavy rain was pour¬ 
ing on the boxes and soaking them through. Whom the com¬ 
mission men blamed when they sent their account sales to the 
growers I do not know. There are fruit commission mer¬ 
chants who make a specialty of Florida fruits and keep good 
storage room, but so long as we persist in sending fruit to ir¬ 
responsible men, low prices wiil inevitably be the result. 
During the past season shipping oranges in bulk has grown in 
