114 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
Mr. Prevatt—Would you prefer your 
form of fertilizers or the high-grade fer¬ 
tilizers? 
Prof. Stockbridge—I would say, per¬ 
sonally, I don’t buy any so-called high- 
grade fertilizer at all. I believe I can 
mix them for my own soil and crops bet¬ 
ter than anyone else, but I would not 
mix this same formula for every farm. I 
believe that you or I can arrive at con¬ 
clusions that will enable us to have a 
fertilizer made that can meet our own 
conditions a great deal better than a 
man in New York who never heard of 
you can reach your requirements by 
mixing up a high-priced, high-grade fer¬ 
tilizer. 
Mr. Prevatt—Major Healy has been 
mixing his fertilizer for the last five 
years, and he has never made a crop. 
Last year with Wilson & Toomer’s po¬ 
tato fertilizer I gathered twenty-two 
barrels where Major Healy with his for¬ 
mula, made as Prof. Stockbridge said, 
grew but four. I want nothing to do 
with mixing. I have seen it tried side 
by side. 
Dr. Kerr—Brother Prevatt should re¬ 
member that our friend Major Healy is 
an agriculturist, and not a horticultur¬ 
ist. 
Prof. Stockbridge — The fact that he 
has not made a successful potato ferti¬ 
lizer is perhaps easily explained. The 
Major has conceived an antipathy to 
potash, and he will not have any potash. 
Most of us find it exceedingly import¬ 
ant. 
Mr. White—Do you put your fertili¬ 
zer on in the raw state? 
Prof. Stockbridge—I buy the raw ma¬ 
terials and mix them myself. 
Mr. Gaitskill—I will say that Mr. 
Painter mixes the fertilizer, but he mixes 
it to suit. 
Mr L Prevatt —1 have a brother that 
used his fertilizer this year and I used 
Wilson & Toomer’s. He got stuck on 
Mr. Painter and I got stuck on Wilson 
& Toomer. I never have tried Mr. 
Painter’s fertilizer. Neither of us would 
have anything to do with the other’s fer¬ 
tilizer. (Laughter.) 
Mr. Butler—In regard to ashes, I 
think he is laboring under a slight mis¬ 
apprehension as to that. Very few pine¬ 
apple growers of any intelligence but 
what would know better than to buy 
ashes to get potash. But I will say that 
of the pineapple growers, I know of very 
few who use wood ashes, but once in 
awhile I have seen a case when an ap¬ 
plication of wood ashes did good. 
Prof. Stockbridge—I said that if there 
was any reason why the material in wood 
ashes was actually desirable, it could be 
obtained in some other form, exactly the 
same material in some cheaper form. 
My statement that the pineapple grow¬ 
ers were very largely deceived in the 
purchase of wood ashes for this purpose 
referred perhaps to the open culture 
pineapple growers, and not those who 
grow them under sheds. 
