142 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
too much to say that we are approaching 
the same point in horticulture, where the 
profit will go to that man and only to that 
man who produces a high acre yield of 
high quality fruit without increasing his 
expense for production and overhead in a 
disproportionate amount ? 
Now the question becomes a pertinent 
one—What is being done at the present 
time to bring about modern efficiency in 
citrus propagation? The demonstrations 
carried on in California during the last 
decade were so convincing to the citrus 
growers of that state that in May, 1917, 
the Fruit Growers’ Exchange established 
a Bud Supply Company as a branch of 
their Growers’ Supply Company. This 
company furnishes at cost to all nursery¬ 
men and growers buds of all the standard 
commercial citrus varieties secured from 
superior parent trees. The use of such 
selected buds has become well night uni¬ 
versal so that the young citrus groves of 
the near future are going to be true prog¬ 
eny groves, capable of having their lineage 
traced back to certain superior parents. 
The deciduous nurserymen of Califor¬ 
nia have made a beginning along this line, 
starting a system of record keeping in se¬ 
lected groves under Mr. L. B. Scott’s di¬ 
rection during the year of 1920. 
In Alabama the Satsuma nurserymen, 
co-operating with the State Board of Hor¬ 
ticulture and the Bureau of Plant Indus¬ 
try, are already securing practically all 
their budwood from selected trees, the 
yield of which is being recorded from year 
to year, some of these trees already hav¬ 
ing a three-year performance record back 
of them. This system is destined to mean 
much to the Satsuma industry of the Gulf 
states, being inaugurated at a time when 
the industry is still in its infancy. It can¬ 
not fail to give this industry an almost 
unique position in the horticultural field, 
which will doubtless be reflected in the 
market returns for a long time to come. 
In Florida the opportunity was offered 
during the last year to undertake sys¬ 
tematic bud selection work by the acquir¬ 
ing of a Branch Experiment Station in 
the heart of the great citrus region sur¬ 
rounding Lake Alfred. The Florida Ex¬ 
periment Station in co-operation with the 
Bureau of Plant Industry has undertaken 
as one of the first and leading projects on 
this new station to establish a progeny 
grove such as we have previously dis¬ 
cussed. The first step in carrying out this 
project is naturally the selection of supe¬ 
rior parent trees from which to start prog¬ 
enies. Fortunately, several co-operators 
of the Bureau of Plant Industry in bud 
selection work located in the immediate 
vicinity of the Lake Alfred Branch Sta¬ 
tion have been keeping tree records, cov¬ 
ering six or more years. By an examina¬ 
tion of these carefully kept records and by 
close inspection of the trees themselves 
when fruit was hanging and mature, it 
has been possible to secure what promises 
to be a superior lot of budwood represent¬ 
ing the principal standard varieties. In 
the case of such varieties as the Pineapple 
and Parson Brown of Florida origin, it 
has been thought advisable to also secure 
budwood from the old groves where these 
varieties were first propagated, at Citra 
and Lake Weir respectively. In such 
cases where actual record of the tree yields 
