34 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
as a matter of fact, I think, from Mr. 
Butler’s remarks as to bad packing and 
early shipping, that that was the cause; 
and that it was not the fault of the fruit. 
Mr. S. B. Mann—During a late visit 
to Manatee county I learned for the first 
time something of the white fly, some¬ 
thing that has never occurred to me in 
Volusia county; and I feel quite interest¬ 
ed to' know more about it, and I rise to 
ask any one from that part of the State 
to give us their best remedy and the 
probabilities of its spread; whether it is 
likely to come this way. If so, what is 
best to do for it? 
F. D. Waite—In regard to the carry¬ 
ing and keeping qualities of the Florida 
oranges in South Florida, I would say 
that last winter in the Manatee section, 
with rains coming every two or three 
days, we had a chance to test the keep¬ 
ing and carrying qualities of our fruit 
with a system of under-ground drainage, 
and we found that the fruit picked early 
in the season (October and November) 
from the grove under-drained during the 
summer carried well. As the fruit in an¬ 
other grove seemed to be more advanced 
in ripening, we left that in the under¬ 
drained grove and commenced shipping 
the fruit from grove number two, leav¬ 
ing about three hundred boxes of or¬ 
anges on the trees of the under-drained 
portion. On the 15th of January we 
commenced shipping from this grove 
again, and Mr. Preston, of Providence, 
R. I., wrote us that not 1 per cent, had 
decayed. The fruit in grove number two 
commenced creasing badly by the 25th 
of November, and fully 15 per cent, de¬ 
cayed in transit, showing that excess of 
moisture and lack of proper drainage has 
a great deal to do with the carrying qual¬ 
ities of the Florida fruit. 
Mr. Adams—My grove is on high pine 
land. I began shipping oranges for my¬ 
self in small lots about the middle of No¬ 
vember. I finished last Thursday, hav¬ 
ing shipped every week. I sold to a Cin¬ 
cinnati house about 2500 boxes. That 
house wrote back after they were all 
shipped that there was not one rotten 
one in a carload that came from my 
grove. Now, there was another grove, 
one mile south of mine, with everything 
equal to mine, but the same house wrote 
me that 50 per cent, of that car was rot¬ 
ten. Their own man picked them and 
packed them in each grove; but they 
never had packed a box of oranges be¬ 
fore they came to my grove in their lives 
and they learned something before they 
went to the other fellow’s. I kicked from 
morning to night and when they asked 
me if I wanted my name on the boxes 1 
said no, I would not allow a box of or¬ 
anges the way you pack them to have 
my name on them. I have yet to hear 
of one single orange that went from my 
place rotting. A house in Providence, 
the next to the last shipment, stated that 
they were the finest they had seen 
through the winter. Now, I believe 
there is not an orange in the world that 
will carry or ship better than the South 
Florida orange, but you can’t handle 
them like rocks. 
Dr. Kerr—I had a letter from a com¬ 
mission house in Philadelphia some time 
since stating that they had handled very 
few oranges from Florida this winter; 
those that they had received gave Flor¬ 
ida rather a black eye in regard to qual¬ 
ity. I did not like to hear that, so I 
wrote back and stated that probably they 
were Jamaica oranges brought on a boat 
to Jacksonville and shipped from there as 
Florida oranges. I believe they have 
