84 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
lator to support the green fruit bill. He 
said: “This is a mighty good thing, 
and ought to pass, but some of us have 
to ship a little green fruit sometimes.” 
He made the statement some time ago 
that he had to ship his green fruit; 
that was the only fruit that made any 
money for him. I have him spotted. 
Now, it is the duty of every Associa¬ 
tion manager in this State to watch 
every man who moves any green fruit 
out of this State from his district. It 
is the duty of every, man, as it involves 
the law of self-preservation. When¬ 
ever he knows that a car of fruit is 
green, he should report it to the Flor¬ 
ida Citrus Exchange, and you may be 
sure that car will be reported to the 
Pure Food Department at Washing¬ 
ton. It will get right behind that car, 
and let me tell you right now, when it 
once gets started after a thing, it is 
mighty hard to get it to let go. If you 
are getting out of the Exchange be¬ 
cause you want to ship green fruit—go 
ahead. You know when we camp on 
your trail, we will stay on it. 
I have been credibly informed that 
certain growers last year drew out of 
the Exchange and signed up their fruit 
with an agency on the proposition that 
the agency would move their fruit 
when it was green. The agency did 
ship it when it was green, and killed 
the demand for Florida oranges in 
every market where a car of it was 
distributed. 
Who was the criminal? The grower 
or the man who shipped it? So far as 
I can see, one is just as guilty as the 
other. 
When you go into an organization, 
your work is cut out for you. You not 
only have to manage your own busi¬ 
ness, but you have to see that the other 
fellow manages his. You are growing 
your fruit on the same basis; you have 
to pay the same labor, the same fertil¬ 
izer bills, the same taxes, and take all 
the chances of the weather. We have 
to pull together to see that when our 
product is made, we get our money out 
of it. 
While we are on the subject of what 
the Exchange has done, I notice sev¬ 
eral nurserymen present. I do not know 
how much credit they give the Ex¬ 
change for it, but the fact is that the 
Exchange has stimulated the citrus in¬ 
dustry of Florida and given a general 
feeling of stability, not only to the peo¬ 
ple here, but to the people who are 
coming in. Our nurserymen have been 
so encouraged that they have raised 
the price of nursery trees from 6oc to 
$1.50 and $2.00. I submit to these 
gentlemen: Has the Exchange, from 
your standpoint, been a success or a 
failure ? I Want to buy some trees next 
fall, and if you are going to raise the 
price still higher, I want to know it. 
Another thing the Exchange has 
done. You can travel this country 
over from Maine to Texas, and until 
the Exchange came into existence you 
heard the same story everywhere: 
there was not a dealer who had any 
confidence in Florida oranges. They 
had experience with fruit that was 
shipped green and was not fit to eat, 
or with fruit that was ripe, and it de¬ 
cayed so fast they could not get back 
