126 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
Credit 61 barrels pota¬ 
toes .$206 10 
Expense. 85 56 
Net profit.$120 54 
It is too soon for complete statistics 
this year. It is needless to say they are 
not so good. 
The potato at Hastings is not a bo¬ 
nanza vegetable. It is with good man¬ 
agement capable of an average net profit 
per acre of between $50 and $75. This 
is a good farm profit. My experience is 
of seven years. 
Dwarf Orange Culture* 
BY S. POWERS, OF JACKSONVILLE. 
Doubtles the title of this paper will not 
especially commend it to most Ameri¬ 
cans. We are accustomed to associate 
the word dwarf with those fantastic cre¬ 
ations of Chinese and Japanese garden¬ 
ers, who prune and compress trees into 
shapes as unnatural as the feet of their 
women; or with the delicate dwarf pear 
tree, which is the only dwarf thing in 
pomology with which most people are 
familiar. 
The dwarf pear has been rendered un¬ 
justly objectionable to the American 
public by having been the subject of one 
of those crazes, such as the morus mul- 
ticaulis or sorghum, which occasionally 
afflict this country. A dwarf pear, 
carefully nurtured, is one of the most 
profitable as well as beautiful objects in 
the orchard. But when it is treated in 
the rough-and-ready manner to which 
most farmers and even orchardists sub¬ 
jected it more than twenty-five years 
ago, it dwindles away unfruitful and 
dies. 
The typical American farmer respects 
bulk and strength, such as the French 
pear trees near St. Louis, several hun¬ 
dred years old, healthy and prolific, or 
the famous Occletree pear near Vincen¬ 
nes, Ind., over 150 years old, which has 
produced 140 bushels of pears in a single 
season. In the presence of such orchard 
patriarchs our countrymen generally 
look upon a dwarf a few feet high, even 
though it bears the choicest fruit at two 
or three years of age, with ill-concealed 
contempt. A boy in an Iowa town was 
asked by a traveler what religious creed 
prevailed in that town, and he replied, 
“We mostly believes in the Durham 
breed.” But skilled and scientific 
orchardists know that dwarf pears, 
when properly cared for, are best and 
most profitable. Eugene Curtis, of 
Masachusetts, it is said, sold $1400 
worth of dwarf pears from an acre. 
They also know that the dwarf cherry, 
Prunus pumila, worked on the mahaleb 
stock, is most suitable for small vil¬ 
lage orchards; the fruit being most easily 
protected from birds with netting, and 
