Report of Committee on President's Address 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
Among the many valuable facts pre- 
sented by our President for which we 
extend the thanks of the Society this 
committee would call special attention 
to the remarks on improving old or in¬ 
troducing new varieties of peaches by 
propagating seedlings in hedges. The 
first systematic effort in this direction 
was probably made by the late A. J. 
Bidwell, who, from a limited number of 
seedlings of the Peento, supposed to re¬ 
produce itself always as a flat peach, in¬ 
troduced three new varieties of clings 
of round or oblong form, which he 
named Bidwell’s Early, Bidwell’s Late 
and the Seminole. Other experiment¬ 
ers worked along the same lines, and we 
have the Waldo and Jewell by T. K. 
Godby, the Imperial and others. 
The efforts of the experimenters 
should be directed to midseason and late 
peaches for home market and family use, 
as well as to early varieties for the 
Northern markets, and to varieties that 
will succeed in Southern as well as 
Northern Florida. A suggestion for a 
shipping variety would be a peach 
blooming and ripening like Waldo, but 
of double size, a free stone and slightly 
more acid in flavor. With the immense 
crops of Georgia Elberta peaches, it is 
improbable that Florida can produce 
peaches for the Southern markets that 
will compete successfully with Elberta, 
but the point is worth considering in 
testing new varieties. 
For home markets and home use 
there is room for improvement over the 
present varieties on general sale by 
nurserymen. 
For preserving especially, large clings 
of good quality covering the season are 
desirable, and when such varieties are 
discovered they should be disseminated 
as rapidly as possible to prove whether 
they are adapted for general culture. 
Gradual inbreeding or crossing of the 
Chinese or Oriental strains with the old 
varieties that were generally cultivated 
in Florida before the introduction of the 
former, will doubtless in time produce 
peaches that will give Florida a longer 
season of this delicious fruit than any 
other State in the Union. 
Lyman Phelps, 
S. H. Gaitskill, 
E. S. Hubbard. 
