FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
53 
and put it six or eight inches thick in the 
bottom of a wagon and dump the or¬ 
anges in and haul them to Tampa, then 
dump them into the hull of a boat, and 
they went to market that way. Some of 
us got results from it, and some of us 
didn’t. We carried them to market that 
way, rain or shine. A few freight 
teams were pretty well fixed up; some 
had covers, and some didn’t. 
I am glad to see you people are lead¬ 
ing in the discussions we are having, 
and you are going to have success, but 
you have to consider natural circum¬ 
stances. You cannot do away with 
them ; you cannot avoid them,. Natural 
conditions are going to prevail. I am 
a Cracker, I know, but I have had fifty 
years of experience, and I am willing, 
climatic conditions being the same, to 
take a piece of land side by side with the 
scientific men, and go into any kind of 
a test with them. I can do just as well 
as they can when it comes to getting 
things out of the ground. Experience 
and science are good things, and it is a 
good thing to mix them. Each works 
better with the other than it does alone. 
There have been some big things to 
happen in the last few years in the or¬ 
ange industry. The last few years have 
seen the big commercial enterprises, and 
then people are beginning to see the re¬ 
lation between consumption and produc¬ 
tion. Then we are beginning to see the 
relation between producer and consumer. 
Gentlemen, we all know the fluctuation 
of a market when some man in New 
York or Washington, sitting behind mil¬ 
lions of dollars controls it, and we know 
there is something else at work besides 
consumption and production. 
!Mr. -: Did you pull those or¬ 
anges, or did you gather them? » 
Mr. Pierce: We pulled them. . If 
they came off easily when it was pulled, 
it came off. 
Mr. Hume: I will have to call time, I 
think, and ask if there is any further 
discussion before we go on to the next 
subject. 
/Mr. Pierce: Well, maybe I will get 
another chance before the meeting ends. 
Mr. Bartlett: I have shipped oranges 
out of this State since 1883 to the time 
of the freeze of ’94 and ’95. Like the 
gentleman on my right here, I, too, have 
had a little exoerience alonp- that line. 
We had the same trouble then with the 
rot that we have now. I myself went to 
Cleveland, Ohio, in 1885 and 1886 and 
bought oranges. I went to the ware¬ 
house and sorted them over. I sorted 
out four or five boxes before I got two 
boxes. 
On the other hand, I have seen or¬ 
anges shipped in bulk to Cleveland that 
went in sound condition. I endorse most 
emphatically all that has been said by 
Mr. Skinner and other gentlemen in re¬ 
gard to having your fruit dry. My ex¬ 
perience bears out theirs. ) 
I picked oranges this last year in the 
rain, but they got dry. Some of them 
reached the market all right, and some 
did not get there. They were put 
through a washing machine. 
I used to make orange boxes myself 
with a saw, and I think I have the honor 
of bringing the first veneer mill into this 
