Deciduous Fruits of Florida 
F. P. Henderson. 
Mr . President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
Deciduous fruits do not receive the at¬ 
tention in Florida that they should re¬ 
ceive. 
I do not know that I can add anything 
new on this subject, but I want to speak 
of a few of our most common fruits. 
Permit me to say first of all, that I be¬ 
lieve if we gave the same study, care, 
and fertilizer to our deciduous fruits that 
we do to citrus fruits, they would be just 
as profitable. 
I do not think this would be true of 
the orange belt alone, but taking the State 
as a whole. I realize the fact that where 
the deciduous fruits do best, citrus fruits 
cannot be grown profitably, and where 
citrus fruits do best, most deciduous 
fruits could not be grown profitably. 
There are a few sections in central Flor¬ 
ida where both do equally well. 
First, I shall speak of peaches. The 
peach is one of the four or five deciduous 
fruits that can be grown in Florida in a 
commercial way with a good margin of 
profit to the grower. 
The peach is without doubt, the most 
popular fruit in America today. 
There is a greater acreage planted in 
peaches than any other fruit. 
The peach is grown over a greater area 
and is adapted to a greater range of cli¬ 
mate than any other fruit. 
The peach brings quicker returns on 
the investment than any other fruit. 
And I believe, when we learn how to 
properly grow and market the peach it 
will pay larger dividends than any other 
fruit. I realize the fact that the peach 
business, in Florida, has almost been 
wiped out during the last eight or ten 
years by the San Jose Scale, but with the 
present improved and scientific way of 
destroying this scale with fungi we need 
hesitate no longer to plant peach trees. 
With my last two years’ experience I 
do not believe it a very difficult or costly 
task to almost entirely obviate loss from 
this pest by the latest method of distrib¬ 
uting this fungi by spraying the spores 
on the trees as soon as they become in¬ 
fested with the scale. 
But my business here is not to deal 
with insects and diseases, but with fruits. 
There are a few varieties of Florida 
peaches, such as Jewell, Waldo, Florida 
Gem, Imperial, Marguerite and a few 
others that are unsurpassed in flavor by 
any peach in the world, if properly 
grown. These varieties are becoming 
very well known in a few of the eastern 
markets and are preferred to any other 
peach. 
But aside from the market value of 
the peach, almost every land owner, not 
only in Florida, but in most of the states 
