FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
35 
good oranges in South Florida. Indeed 
I have been there and seen them, but 
there is no doubt that we must make an 
effort to put our fruit in the market in 
the best possible manner which will at¬ 
tract the buyers and not bring disgrace 
upon our state. As far as I am concern¬ 
ed myself, I shipped some oranges this 
year, and the reports came back that 
they were all first-class in every respect. 
But I gave them all away. Now, in re¬ 
gard to the paper just read, there is much 
that I believe to be truth. Still, a little 
spraying seems to me is good medicine 
when the insects have the leaves, but 
there is a tendency in Florida about 
these insects to let them go: something 
is going to clear them off. When I 
first came here myself I found the fleas 
were intolerable, but I have gotten ac¬ 
customed to them and I use nothing 
against them to-day. 
WEST COAST VS. EAST COAST ORANGES. 
Mr. Hart—I don’t think any one ques¬ 
tions the ability of some South Florida 
or West Florida growers to grow good 
oranges, and grow them so they will 
stand shipping, but we have had fearful 
reports from the North on fruit this 
year, and the quality of the Florida or¬ 
ange has been reported so bad that I 
saw by the papers that Chicago refused 
for two or three weeks to receive any 
Florida oranges or to handle them. That 
is an awful black eye for our fruit. I 
inquired into the matter as much as I 
could, through sources from which the 
Northern markets got their supply, and 
so far as I could learn the East Coast 
stood up in transit and in market as well 
as ever, so the fruit that decayed must 
have come from other parts of the state. 
Before the freeze, and perhaps at pres¬ 
ent the freight rates are very high from 
way down on the West Coast, and the 
people there had not given very much 
attention, as a rule, to orange growing; 
few there had studied into the matter as 
thoroughly as they had on the East 
Coast, where many had got it down to a 
pretty fine point. Twenty-five years ago 
Indian river fruit had the reputation of 
keeping very poorly, but we have learn¬ 
ed how to grow it to stand shipping 
now. After the freeze the prices were 
such that orange culture developed very 
much on the West Coast, and I under¬ 
stand there are a good many down there 
who went right to cow-penning their 
groves and supplying them with nitro¬ 
gen through other organic sources in 
quantities that softened the fruit, made 
oranges of poor quality, and such as 
would not stand to> be shipped. We all 
know that such result will surely follow 
an excess of such food supply. 
Now those who are the most intelli¬ 
gently interested in orange culture from 
that section come here to our meetings, 
and I have no doubt in my mind at all 
but that they have shipped successfully 
and their fruit has arrived in good condi¬ 
tion. That is simply because they were in¬ 
terested enough to study into the matter 
and get down to the fine points, as have 
the older growers in the old Orange Belt 
—and one of the fine points is fertilizing 
properly, and another is handling prop¬ 
erly. Many down that way have 
handled their fruit carelessly. The 
East Coast don’t claim to have all the 
brains. They simply claim that some of 
them have had more experience than the 
general run of those down on the West 
Coast, but there are, I am told, many 
there who have never given fruit grow- 
