60 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
2300 plants, which was little more than 
one-quarter of an acre. The best returns 
for both fruit and suckers that I have met 
with was from a pinery 1 1-15 acres in 
extent, four-fifths of which was in 
Smooth Cayenne and the remainder in 
Abbakas. This pinery was planted 
three years ago last August, and 
up to this date $7,602 has been received 
from the sale of fruit and suckers, and 
these figures will easily reach $8,000 
during the next three months. This is 
an exceptionally profitable pinery, but I 
hear of another said to be more so. 
More money has been realized from 
the sale of plants than for fruit, and 
while it would be natural to expect the 
price of suckers to decline, they sell for 
more to-day than they did three years 
ago. 
Winter fruit sells higher than summer 
fruit, and early spring higher than win¬ 
ter, but the fruit grown during the dry 
spring months is best in quality. 
Taken as a whole, the pineapple busi¬ 
ness ranks with orange growing, the two 
being the most profitable industries of 
our locality. 
OTHER TROPICAL FRUITS OF THE SUB¬ 
PENINSULA. 
Prior to 1895, mangoes, avocado 
pears and guava trees shaded almost 
every door yard, while an occasional 
tamarind, sugar apple, soursop, sapodilla 
or papaya was thrown in for variety 
sake. The three first named were the 
most important, and of these the mango 
and avocado pear were highly profitable 
until our mango crop overstocked our 
local market, when we found that the 
only cities where this fruit could be sold 
were those containing people from the 
tropics. 
The palate of the North has not learn¬ 
ed to understand the language of Miss 
Mango and therefore were dumb to her 
sweet accents, but to most of our local 
residents either the mango, avocado 
pear or guava was considered of more 
value for local use, during their season, 
than the citrus fruits at any season. 
I would say that mangoes and avocado 
pears were greatly superior to the same 
species as brought from Cuba. The 
Cuban fruit being picked green may pos¬ 
sibly account for the difference in part. 
The freeze of 1894 destroyed not only 
our tropical trees, but also our courage 
to care for them, so that to-day we have 
only an occasional small mango tree and 
about enough avocado pear trees and 
guava bushes to furnish fruit for our 
local use. Not that we could not have 
had them in abundance by this time, had 
we planted during the spring of 1895, 
but we lacked faith, and without faith 
man eats but the fruit of neglect. 
DISCUSSION. 
Mr. Porcher—I have no report to 
make. I am not a pineapple grower nor 
a grower of tropical fruits. I don’t think 
I could add anything to Mr. Butler’s ex¬ 
cellent paper. One or two have sug¬ 
gested that I should be on the committee 
because I am the agent of the pineapple 
growers; but that is entirely a question 
of marketing, and one I don’t think 
should be considered here. The point 
is that this is the season when it may be 
a little inopportune for me to speak on 
the subject of marketing, as we have in 
our section quite a little opposition on 
