FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
1 14 
that ventilation could readily be effect¬ 
ed, and with a cloth roof easily spread 
or removed at will, as by the Berry 
system. We find that our permanent 
wooden walls cast far too much shade 
for best results with most fruits. 
For a heating system under cloth 
one must provide a means of carrying 
out all smoke and gases, so we devised 
cheap sheet iron stoves for burning 
wood, that cost at a local tin shop but 
$1.25 each. For these we use about 
25 feet of five inch stove pipe stuck 
into permanently fixed wooden flues. 
The long lines of pipe radiate about 
all the heat, and also eliminate any 
possibility of burning the wooden flues. 
We use eighteen stoves per acre, each 
stove being 24 inches long, 16 inches 
wide on the ground, and 16 inches 
high, burning coarse stove wood. With 
these in use we have maintained an 
average temperature of 40 degrees in¬ 
side when the outside temperature was 
under 24 degrees. We do not light the 
fires until the temperature inside falls 
to 32 degrees, as the foliage being 
without dew under the cloth does not 
readily freeze. 
A short list of fruit trees and plants 
suitable for sheds in the upper part of 
South Florida would include the Gua¬ 
va, Pineapple, Pawpaw, Roseapple, Man¬ 
go, Surinam Cherry, Barbados Cherry, 
Cavendish Banana, Avocado and Sapo- 
dilla. This brief list may be added to 
quite extensively if one cares to grow 
rare and interesting fruits not com¬ 
monly seen. Extending this list we 
have at Oneco almost fifty sorts of the 
finest Indian mangoes—(which being 
without fibre, are of superlative value) — 
and various other subjects under test; 
in fact, our acre shed has been used 
now for ten years as an experimental 
orchard with excellent results. Seed¬ 
ling mangos and avocados are so large 
that we do not consider their cultiva¬ 
tion under a shed likely to prove profit¬ 
able, but grafted kinds so grown, 
whose fruit brings a much higher price, 
should pay handsomely. Their season 
of fruiting is also more under control 
than that of seedlings, hence one can 
raise kinds for ripening at certain 
times of the year. 
In this connection I wish to warn 
mango growers against the importa¬ 
tion of mango seeds from any part of 
the world in which the terrible mango 
weevil is known, or liable to occur. 
This insect has proved more harmful 
to the mango industry of Hawaii and 
the Philippines than the whitefly to the 
citrus industry of Florida. It annually 
destroys 45 to 75 per cent, of the man¬ 
go crops in those sections of the tropics 
where it has been introduced. The 
mature insect is readily imported in 
seeds from infested countries, and a re¬ 
quest has been made President Hume 
tc have an article on the life history 
of this dangerous pest inserted in the 
Society’s year-book. 
We find, too, that irrigation pays for 
intensive culture of fruit trees under 
sheds. 
For our most protected areas near 
the coast of South Florida, from Clear¬ 
water on the West Coast to Merritt’s 
Island on the East Coast, may be 
grown an immense variety of tropical 
