138 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
letins and reports that have been written 
for us. The government has done its 
part to help the faithful ones to teach us 
all, but, alas! I do not think they are read 
as they ought to be. Perhaps, a more 
serious difficulty is, that the tropical 
fruits ripen in summer time when such a 
large per cent, of our educated people are 
out of the State. 
It has been proven that a great many of 
the choice fruits may be shipped safely, 
long distances. I have several times had 
mangoes and avocadoes shipped to me 
when they had to make a three or four 
days’ journey and they reached me in 
good condition and kept more than two 
weeks in an ordinary refrigerator, a few 
ripening each day. 
A little of my experience in having a 
display of tropical fruits at the Michigan 
State Fair at Detroit, may be given here. 
There were more than thirty varieties in 
the collection. The weather was very hot 
in the Southern States through which 
they had to pass and yet the first shipment 
which was well packed arrived in fairly 
good condition and the fruits kept so well 
that I had a creditable display left at the 
end of ten days. 
The keen interest the people took in 
these fruits was a constant surprise to me. 
Hundreds had never seen a grapefruit 
and the citrons, pawpaws, avocados, cer- 
imans, green cocoanuts, sapodillas, mam- 
mee apples, guavas, limes and many oth¬ 
ers aroused the keenest interest and many 
amusing questions. 
Almost every minute some one would 
say: Do you eat them ? All these things ? 
This too? Others who had traveled in 
the tropics were full of intelligent ques¬ 
tions about the country where these won¬ 
derful fruits grew. The taste for most 
of these fruits is supposed to be acquired, 
but I do not remember a single person 
who did not relish a fruit that I prepared 
for tasting. One great trouble is that 
often they are either under ripe or over 
ripe when first tried and of course that 
causes prejudice. 
I can remember when few people in 
the western states knew the taste of pine¬ 
apple, and the little green things were so 
sour that it is a wonder they got a hold 
on the people as soon as they did. I have 
a great many tropical fruits growing in 
my orchard and I find that most people 
like them at first taste, when they are just 
ripe. 
Something is usually said about man¬ 
goes and avocados, and I would not take 
up your time with them, but I must say a 
little. The East Indian mangoes are cer¬ 
tainly delicious, and salable, but, so far, 
they are such small producers for me that 
I think we need to know more about them. 
I have a large budded mulgoba, a beau¬ 
tiful tree, that is eight years old and it 
had the first blossoms this year and there 
are two fruits hanging on. Other trees 
seven years old have also the first bloom 
this year and only a few fruits. The 
Bennetts have done some better, but not 
well. They bloomed splendidly, but do 
not set much fruit. The Gordon did about 
the same. 
Eight years ago, we secured four doz¬ 
en mulgoba mangoes from Mr. Gale of 
Mangonia—large luscious fruits they 
were. We planted all the seed as an ex¬ 
periment. The seedling trees are large, 
vigorous and beautiful. They are very 
