FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
111 
of them are to-day following a practice 
which is extremely uneconomical and 
from which they should turn as soon as 
possible. The first of these practices, 
in degree of importance, is that which I 
find in several parts of the State, more 
particularly among pineapple growers, 
of insisting upon the use of wood ashes. 
There is no evidence to prove that pot¬ 
ash in the form of wood ashes possesses 
one particle of advantage over potash in 
certain other forms, and if it could be ab¬ 
solutely demonstrated that potash in the 
form in which it exists in wood ashes, 
and that therefore wood ashes as raw 
material, did possess a value greater than 
that which could be secured from potash 
in some other form, the very same ma¬ 
terial can be secured in more economi¬ 
cal ways than in the use of wood ashes. 
The time has gone past when actual 
commercial wood ashes exist to any 
extent worthy of consideration, but by 
far the greater part of the material for 
sale under the name of wood ashes never 
existed in trees. It is an entirely man¬ 
ufactured material which had for its base 
the ashes of the leacheries, the residue 
of which was gathered up and used for a 
basis of the Canada wood ashes, but even 
that material has to-day almost entirely 
disappeared, and the so-called wood ash¬ 
es of to-day are entirely artificial. I know 
they are manufactured, for I have seen 
them made, and they are entirely spu¬ 
rious. The manufacturer takes advan¬ 
tage of the user who thinks that because 
genuine potash bites, that when he takes 
a sample of this material and puts his 
tongue to it, and it bites, he believes 
that it is potash; he forgets that quick 
lime will bite just as well as potash. 
There is much of this material sold. It 
is being dumped upon unwary consum¬ 
ers in the State of Florida. I can give 
many instances of consumers during the 
past two years who have bought this 
material under the supposition that they 
were getting the best of material. 
Down on the East Coast recently, in the 
center of the pineapple business, I found 
a large pineapple grower who stated 
that he had secured a good bargain in 
three carloads of Canada hard wood 
ashes high in potash. They contained 
about 40 per cent, of potash, he claimed. 
As a matter of fact, no such thing as that 
could exist. The best wood ashes con¬ 
tain only from nine to eleven per cent, 
of potash, and I succeeded in inducing 
him to show me the original analysis. It 
contained actually 38-100 of one per 
cent, of potash. The consumer had 
paid about $14 per ton for material the 
actual value of which was less than 50 
cents a ton. I give warning against 
such practice, which is unquestionably 
taking thousands and thousands of dol¬ 
lars from the State. 
Coming back to the results of fertilizer 
experiments mentioned, I will give a few 
results of some rather extensive ferti¬ 
lizer trials on Irish potatoes, this having 
become a very important shipping crop. 
For three years we have been growing 
experimental crops of potatoes on a 
somewhat large scale, making a very 
large number of tests, and I have the av¬ 
erage of three years both with fall and 
spring crops. As a basis for this test I 
take what is called a normal fertilizer 
composition, and the object of the test 
was to find out the maximum amount 
of the three fertilizers constituents. 
Phosphoric acid, nitrogen and potash, 
which could be used with profitable re¬ 
sults, and to reduce, if possible, the 
amount of either of these constitutents, 
