FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
47 
seed bed, and how often is it cultivated? 
Mr. Phelps—There are no two people 
that cultivate lettuce alike. The major¬ 
ity of people make a seed bed and raise 
it about two inches high; put on the seed 
and brush over very lightly, and in about 
three weeks time from the time it is 
sowed it is ready to prick out. Some 
work it daily, others work it but once; 
and my experience is that those who 
have well fertilized with chemical ferti¬ 
lizer make as good lettuce from working 
it once as from working it many times. 
And my experience is, to work it with a 
wheel hoe, run it through once and then 
stop. I think it is the best method. 
However, where the land has been under 
cultivation a couple of years, I would 
sow it in the check, and not have the 
trouble of transplanting. Last year we 
realized about $1,000 to an acre. The 
early lettuce did not bring as large a 
price. The midseason lettuce brought 
from four to five dollars a basket. In the 
first shipment, perhaps of twenty crates, 
I got $3 per crate. I think $1,000 gross 
per crate was what was generally real¬ 
ized, but it was an extraordinary season 
as to prices. 
Pineapples and Other Tropical Fruits. 
BY CYRUS W. BUTLER, OF ST. PETERSBURG. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
As our gathering here naturally con¬ 
stitutes an experience meeting, and my 
experience with pineapples is confined 
to the Pinellas peninsula, I will try to 
give a short synopsis of the industry as 
it exists there, without making any pre¬ 
tentions of adding to the knowledge of 
informed growers, and with apologies to 
them for repeating that which they al¬ 
ready know, which, however, is not the 
case with the majority of those who read 
the Report of our Proceedings. 
Until 1890 no pineapples were grown 
upon the Pinellas peninsula, excepting a 
few small patches of Red Spanish, which 
were grown in open fields. 
About that time a few small sheds 
were erected over Abbakas, Porto Ricos, 
and the various Queens, but without fi¬ 
nancial success. 
In 1895, S. N. Perkins & Company 
erected a two-acre shed and planted it 
out to Smooth Cayenne and a few Ab¬ 
bakas. At that time it cost $2500 per 
acre to put out Cayennes under shed, 
but the first crop of fruit and suckers 
paid for the pinery and left a good profit 
besides. The financial success, aided 
by an appeal to the eye of great beds of 
“living green/’ each plant topped with its 
beautiful fruit, was an example that 
needed only to be set, and during the 
last four years about fifty acres of sheds 
have been erected within two miles of St. 
Petersburg, and the industry is rapidly 
increasing. 
The sheds are those known to most 
