FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
133 
of fruit grown this year having never 
been equalled during forty years of ac¬ 
tive fruit growing. 
The industry for whose growth and en¬ 
couragement we appeal to this honorable 
body is not in anv wav exceptional, as 
some may suppose. It is now seriously 
proposed by large numbers, including 
many members of Congress, to protect the 
cotton grower from boll weevil, and the 
fruit and vegetable grower of the lower 
Mississippi Valley by the expenditure of 
hundreds of millions of dollars against 
what is a climatic change. Many commu¬ 
nities in Florida depend almost entirely 
on the growing and marketing of the cit¬ 
rus crop, and the amount paid labor per 
day is reasonable, and any reduction what¬ 
ever would work great hardship. 
The honorable committee will be fa¬ 
vored with a report showing labor con¬ 
ditions in foreign citrus countries to which 
we invite careful comiparison with the 
figures here presented. We are informed 
that this subject has been treated fully 
and reliably by California representatives, 
and for that reason this phase of the sub¬ 
ject is not here considered. 
WHO MAKES THE PRICE? 
Complaints have been made of the high 
prices of fruit paid by the consumer at 
various points, and it has been charged 
that the orange grower is grasping in his 
demand. Nothing could he further from 
the truth. It has been shown by exhibits 
already made by others and also by ex¬ 
hibits accompanying this brief that the av¬ 
erage selling price by the grower and his 
agents in all the principal markets is low. 
average sales for three years. 
Averages received by Chase & Compa¬ 
ny. (F. O. B. packing houses.) Seasons 
1909-10, 1910-11, 1911-12. 
Oranges— 
863,262 boxes; average-$1,455 
Grapefruit— 
251,832 boxes ; average-2.639 
Tangerines— 
47,808 boxes; average- 2.362 
1,162,902 $1,749 
I hereby certify that the above figures 
are correct, and were taken from the rec¬ 
ords of Chase & Company. 
From the above figures must be deduct¬ 
ed the cost of selling, picking, packing, 
hauling and production, in order to show 
what the grower receives on the trees. 
(Signed) T. M. Jones, 
Accountant. 
These selling prices are the actual sales. 
To reach the consumer this fruit placed in 
market at prices that hardly compensate 
the grower for his outlay passes through 
the hands of the jobber and of the retail¬ 
er and in the last stage, the hands of those 
who serve the fruit. Each one of these 
several classes demands an elaborate prof¬ 
it for his services, which involves compar¬ 
atively small outlay on his part. This is 
not a matter of opinion, but of established 
fact, as the following exhibit shows. 
(See Exhibit E.) 
COST OF PRODUCTION. 
There is no natural mine from which 
citrus fruits can be drawn when wanted 
and in quantity to serve the purpose, as is 
true of minerals and timber. To produce 
a box of oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, 
