The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-01-31


the
RIVERSIDE, OF FLORIDA.
"By that / mean that Nolusa county is to
Florida what Riverside is to California. You
know Riverside is where new varieties are all
the time being discovered and developed. The
same is true OF our region. / suppose we grow
every known variety of the orange, in addition
to the other members of the citrus family. We
even claim TO produce the famous Riverside
navel orange III Il higher degree of perfection
than Riverside herself does. Then we have
all the Chinese and Japanese oranges-the
Mandarin, the Tonquin, the Kumquat" And
he continued to name a large number of varie-
ties whose names have escaped me.
Orange growing is a profitable business In
this, as in everything else, very great deal
depends upon the man end some men fail.
The success which attends push and energy
cannot be better illustrated than i'll the case of
three young yankees, Beed, Knox Il Becd,
who WenS into the orange business some ten
years ago i'll Halifax county. They started in
with little or no capital. A few days ago one
of the partners of the firm OF Lyon Bros, New
York to whom Reed, Knox & Boed ship
their stock said that after February first of
last winter the New York finn sent the Flori-
da firm SIT 800 net on their fruit. Beed, Knox
& Deed have been offered 600 for quarter
interest in their grove and refused it.
The terrible freeze of January, 1886, will be
remembered by every resident of a southern
state. The effect Of that freeze upon the
orange groves of Florida is known to every
newspaper reader, The immediate effect was
the cutting short Of the crop of that year.
The trees were, in many cases, badly damaged,
and the effect is felt to some extent in this
years crop 1t is estimated by the Florida
Fruit Exchange that this years crop will
reach about 100000 boxes The outlook for,
the next crop is most tatiering. and it is freely
estimated at 5000, GOO boxes. But frosts and
freezes arc plentiful in some parts OF the state,
and it's always well to defer counting chickens
until the shells begin to crack.
While Florida is proud Of a certain diversity
of products, there can be no doubt but the
orange crop is by far the most important and
most valuable. The business prosperity of
Florida depends, year by year, Just as much
upon the success and failure of the orange crop
as the business interests of Dakota depends
upon wheat, or as those of Pittsburg depend
upon the state of the iron market The princi-
pal revenue of the business men of the state
comes, directly or indirectly, from the orange
business. And from this has come the wealth
of the state. 1t was not many years ago that
Florida land was considered practically worth
less; now the state is dotted over with valu-
able orange groves and the land has greatly
increased in value. The natural result is the
increase Of values of all kinds and the Geyel-
opment of the resources OF the state.
II wish some of you Georgians would in
vent some machine to pick our cotton.
The speaker was hard at work getting into
shape the display OF Alachua county.
Then he pointed at some cotton stalks eight
"a lady from or county came in yesterday
and asked me why it was that VIC exhibited
such small stalks. They are small as COM
pared to some, and we viii have III a few days
some that viii astOnish you"
If he finds them much taller his prophecy
will come true.
y number of counties exhibit cotton, Her.
nando, Pasco, Citrus ard Clay i'll particular
Nearly all of it is long staple, Florida pro-
ducng nearly four-iifths of the cotton from
which spool thread is made. In the western
part some short staple cotton is raised, but not
much.
IN 1885," said gentleman in charge
of one of the exhibits, Georgia raised ten
thousand of the nineteen thousand bales of
long staple cotton raised in this country. South
Carolina being second and Florida third, with
about twenty-five hundred bales. Since then
there has in most years, been steady in
crease in Florida, until last year size produced
twenty-six thousand of the thirty-scven thous-
and bales raised, South Carolina coming in
with seven thousand and Georgia with four
thousand. In those twenty years Georgia has
shown II steady decrease in this respect, while
South Carolina has remained about the same"
"How much is that worth a bale?'
at brings from S75 TO 800. Florida's prod
net has probably averaged, during the past ten
years, between 100000 and S2,000.OGO.
That's quite an industry"
We'll, rather