26 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
and I think it not only added to the qual¬ 
ity of our fruit but increased our produc¬ 
tion. We think our crop of last season, 
with an average of 700 boxes to the acre 
for our entire planting of 170 acres, 
would be rated as very high. 
STOCK 
The stock on which your trees are bud¬ 
ded also has a great influence on the qual¬ 
ity. It goes without saying that on our 
low hammocks, we would not think of 
planting anything but that which was bud¬ 
ded on the sour stock. Our friends in this 
vicinity, Lakeland, and all through Polk 
county, I believe, figure that the rough 
lemon is the proper thing. Undoubtedly, 
a larger tree can be produced in the short¬ 
est possible time by the use of the rough 
lemon for a budding stock. However, 
when it comes to thinness of peel and the 
character of the pulp, we think the sour 
stock is in the lead. 
variety 
Variety has an important bearing on 
quality. 
Our own grove is budded largely to the 
Walters variety and we consider it one of 
the very best quality grapefruit grown. 
We have, however, some 40 acres of 
the Marsh Seedless, and while it has fea¬ 
tures that are desirable, i. e., late ripening 
and holding on the tree until the latest 
and the tree is very prolific, yet in quality 
it is not to be compared with the Walters 
or Pernambuco. It simply lacks the char¬ 
acter found in the above mentioned varie¬ 
ties, which goes to make a fruit that is 
pleasing to the taste. 
cultivation 
Another feature that has much to do 
with quality is cultivation or, we might 
say, lack of cultivation. We find that the 
very few inaccessible portions of our 
grove, that have grown up in Bermuda 
sod, really gives us some of the finest 
texture fruit that we raise. However, 
these neglected corners always suffer dur¬ 
ing a drought and never develop trees with 
the bearing capacity that the other trees 
have. If we could give them all the fer¬ 
tilizer and water that they needed, they 
might have the combination of both qual¬ 
ity and quantity. 
The writer well remembers, and I pre¬ 
sume many of the older members of this 
society remember, that the late Dudley 
Adams, for many years president of this 
society, was an advocate of non-cultiva¬ 
tion and in his day there was no finer 
brand of fruit on the market than his 
“Mocking-bird Brand.” You never heard 
him bewailing the fact that his grove was 
infested with Bermuda grass. 
A subject so important to the future of 
the citrus industry as quality should be 
given more time than will be consumed in 
the reading of these short papers, and 
your committee figures that these papers 
are but the introduction of the subject. 
More in the future than in the past, will 
this feature have a most important bear¬ 
ing on the biggest industry of this State. 
Buyers and consumers are going to be 
more critical and they will demand more 
in the way of quality than they have in the 
past. They will demand a fruit with less 
rag and more quality juice. 
Only recently I saw in one of our State 
