22 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
the largest peach orchards in the world. 
Investigation will show us that some of 
the varieties comprising those immense 
Middle Georgia orchards are also adapt¬ 
ed to our initial point of Northwestern 
Florida, but that coming east and south 
from there the adaptability of these va¬ 
rieties gradually diminishes until before 
we reach an imaginary line drawn across 
the State from Cedar Key to Jackson¬ 
ville their fruitfulness has become so im¬ 
paired as to make them utterly valueless 
for commercial planting. Now, this does 
not mean that south of this line we can¬ 
not grow peaches—for, on the contrary, 
we can and do. It means simply that 
peaches for semi-tropical planting must 
be of tropical or semi-tropical origin. 
Investigation will show us that the kinds 
most largely planted in peninsular Flor¬ 
ida, and which are now being shipped by 
the carload from sections that a few 
years ago did not know they could grow 
peaches, are to a very large extent va¬ 
rieties that have originated in Florida 
and belong to types introduced from the 
tropics. 
FRUIT OF ALL KINDS. 
In the northern portion of our State 
apples can be grown, although, it must 
be admitted, not with such degree of suc¬ 
cess as will warrant extensive planting. 
In the southern half of the State we have 
an apple that is ten times as large and 
ten times as luscious, the cultivation of 
which has assumed large proportions 
and has proven immensely profitable; it 
is the pineapple. 
In Northern Florida pears have been 
profitably grown, although in recent 
years badly affected by blight. In South¬ 
ern Florida a so-called pear is grown 
which, while no relation to the Le Conte 
or other pears, holds out promising in¬ 
ducements and is probably no more sub¬ 
ject to attacks of blight than is the 
saurian whose name it has borrowed. 
In Northern Florida the cultivation of 
the pecan nut is assuming large propor¬ 
tions, and very justly so. In extreme 
South Florida we find that mammoth of 
all nuts, which produces both food and 
drink, the cocoanut, growing under as 
radically different conditions from those 
suited to the pecan as can well be con¬ 
ceived. 
In sections of Northern Florida some 
varieties of the true Japan plum, 
Prunus triflora, have fruited well, and 
crosses that have been and will be pro¬ 
duced between these and our native 
types promise much for a large portion 
of the State. In Southern Florida the 
Eriobotrya, Japonica, or Loquat, also er¬ 
roneously called Japan plum, is of great 
value and worthy of being planted more 
extensively than at present. Several 
improved named varieties of these are 
already in existence that are very much 
larger and in every way superior to the 
common seedlings. 
In Northern Florida we have the figs, 
Japan persimmon and grapes to consider, 
and many varieties of these are equally 
adapted well down the State; and again 
in South Florida, the pomelo, lemon, 
lime, guava and mango, together with 
minor fruits of even more tropical char¬ 
acter, come in for our attention. 
And now, last to mention, but per¬ 
haps first in importance, comes the 
orange, the fruit that, more than any 
other, has made us famous; the one with 
which the name of Florida is inseparably 
linked. Where shall we draw the line 
of demarkation between adaptability and 
