178 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
bly not exceeded a few hundred acres, 
but from that date up to 1904 a strip 
of land lying immediately along the west 
shore of Indian River and the north and 
south shores of the St. Lucie River, and 
the Lake Worth section, that is to say, 
from Fort Pierce south to and including 
Lake Worth, was rapidly developed; and 
from 1904 to 1909* after the Florida 
East Coast Railway had extended to Mi¬ 
ami and beyond, that territory also grew 
and still grows this luscious fruit. 
The greatest acreage and the largest 
yield in the history of the business in the 
sections mentioned was in 1909, when the 
output was 1,110,547 standard crates 
from 6,000 acres, of which perhaps 4,000 
acres had reached the bearing age. 
Prior to this season of I 9 ° 9 > btisi - 
ness had been quite profitable, but as we 
had acquired the Hawaiian Islands by 
“benevolent assimilation,” and they hav¬ 
ing gone into the pineapple business quite 
extensively and were canning practically 
their entire output, that fact reduced the 
demand and requirements of the Ameri¬ 
can canners in our American cities to 
such an extent that they were compelled 
to refuse the fruit of the importations 
from Cuba, and the result was that it was 
thrown on our markets in direct compe¬ 
tition with our American Florida-grown 
product, which resulted in a loss' to both 
Florida and Cuban growers. 
Porto Rico, also one of our “benevo¬ 
lently assimilated” possessions, has in the 
past few .years engaged in pineapple cul¬ 
ture, and is increasing her output each 
season, having sent into the American 
cities for the year 1912, 353,287 crates. 
In the early years of pineapple growing 
in Florida, a section around Orlando 
planted a limited acreage in a fancy vari¬ 
ety, namely Smooth Cayenne, so called 
for the reason that there were no saw-like 
barbs along the edges of the leaves and 
top of plants, as with other varieties. The 
Smooth Cayenne is a delicious fruit, grow¬ 
ing to a weight of ten pounds and larger, 
but the demand for fruit of this size was 
so limited that they were never planted 
to any extent outside of the Orlando ter¬ 
ritory, where we understand they are 
practically abandoned as a commercial en¬ 
terprise at this time. 
Many varieties have been tried, but all 
have given way to the Red Spanish, which 
combines qualities of hardiness, flavor, 
carrying qualities and productiveness that 
place it at the head of all other varieties 
for Florida growers. The original plants 
with which the business was started in 
Florida came from 1 the Bahama Islands. 
Porto Rico also confines its production to 
the Red Spanish almost exclusively, while 
the Hawaiian Islands grow the Smooth 
Cayenne for their main crop, which is still 
used for canning purposes where they 
are grown, and shipped into this country 
as a manufactured article. 
It might be well to mention the fact 
that the Smooth Cayenne does not bear 
transportation well, and also that fields 
have to be reset more frequently than the 
other varieties, and as the plants are ex¬ 
pensive, the general results did not justi¬ 
fy their continuation as a commercial 
proposition. 
We give below a comparison for eight 
