FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
4? 
By O. W. Sadler, Jamestown, Pa. 
Mr. President } Ladies and Gentlemen: 
I want to call the attention of the 
society to the extreme importance of a 
most thorough study and discussion of 
means and methods for the sale of our 
products of Florida. The extremely low 
prices obtained for everything this year, 
should have touched every grozver in his 
tenderest point—his pocketbook—severely 
enough to make him think and act. 
Since the collapse of the panic 
before Christmas, except a few cases 
of especially fancy stock, oranges 
have not netted, on the trees, over 
25 to 50 cents when consigned; at 
least that has been my experience with 
several cars to various markets reported 
as the best; $1.25 to $2.00 being the av¬ 
erage limit for good oranges. The 
causes preached to us were the “panic,” 
and the “large crop.” By investigation 
on my trip north, and since I have been 
here, has given another cause,— green 
fruit early in the season. The green-fruit 
proposition is brought about by two main 
facts or conditions. The first is, on ac¬ 
count of the comparatively few Florida 
oranges since the big freeze, the great 
mass of orange eaters have not learned 
what a good ripe Florida orange is, and 
do not know a Florida from appearance, or 
where it comes from, so have not sufficient 
knowledge to judge by. When there are 
few, if any, other oranges, the green stuff 
is offered for sale. They make a first pur¬ 
chase of “fine sweet Florida oranges,” 
and Oh! the awakening; and straightway 
their opinion of Florida oranges is de¬ 
cidedly expressed in—“Well, if that is a 
s-weet Florida orange , I never want 
any more.” By the time they get 
over that disappointment, they venture 
to try some other kind, and they find 
a colored green California and try it. ft 
is not real sweet, but as a Florida green 
colored orange is always very much more 
sour and rank than a California of the 
same stage of development, without fur¬ 
ther trial, remembering how awfully sour 
the Florida was, he remains a California 
chooser. 
This experience was told me by sev¬ 
eral people from several states and mar¬ 
kets, and positively asserted that the sale 
of green fruit had injured Florida’s repu¬ 
tation for good oranges to an enormous 
extent. 
As speculators were the chief cause of 
the shipment of green fruit the past year, 
and as the majority got left to the tune 
of 50 cents to $1.00 per box, after the dis¬ 
tribution of the first car in a commun¬ 
ity, they cannot work the “early sweet 
Florida’’ game in the same places again, 
at least to the consumer , it is to be hoped 
the state may redeem its name in part the 
next crop. Until this season I have al¬ 
ways been able to sell my Florida oranges 
in competition with Californias at an av¬ 
erage advance of 50 cts. over Californias. 
This year the reverse is the case, except 
with people who know the difference. Our 
greatly increased foreign population who 
have not yet had the opportunity to learn 
the difference, make up a majority who 
buy through ignorance and looks— bright 
Californias. 
The dealers have proclaimed loud and 
long that “the poor, the laboring class 
eat the oranges, and they are out of work 
and can not buy.” 
Is it true they can not, and do not buy? 
We are all aware the crop has been sold , 
and consumed—somebody ate the or- 
