The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1911-11-15
ENDORSE CITRUS
EXCHANGE MOVE
CONTINUED from First Page)


I nder the food and drugs act Of
June 80, 1896, an article of food is
adulterated. If it be mixed, colored,
powdered. coated or stained in a mat
ter whereby damage or inferiority is
concealed It is the opinion of the
board that oranges treated as men.
toned above are colored in manner
whereby inferiority is concealed and
are. therefore, adulterated
The board recognizes the fact that
certain varieties of oranges attain
maturity as to size, sweetness and
acidity before the color changes from
green TO yellow, and this decision is
not intended to interfere with he
marketing of such oranges.
H w. WILEY,
"F. L. DUNLAP,
GEORGE P. McCABE,
Board Of Food and Drug Inspection
Such a method of coloring fruit
seems plainly enough to be a man.
ner whereby damage or inferiority is
concealed And the effects Of such
acidulent fruit on the susceptible di-
gestive organs of children and inva-
lids should be enough to condemn the
system.
These structures do not apply, in
the same measure, to bananas, which
even in the growing belt are picked
green to ripen in the sun, lest all
their flavor should go back into the
tree Southern tomatoes must be
shipped green in order to be salable
in Northern markets. Our own win
ter apples are picked in the autumn
and allowed to ripen in the normal
temperature of a cellar. The danger
is in selling an ignorant consumer a
citrus gold brick.
Most of US have set white
and careless teeth into such oranges
and taken them out again. We
have understood vaguely that Flor
ida oranges were beginning to be
obliged to beg for market, and this
was why. Several months ago the
Florida growers, alive to this situa
ton, put a bill through the legisla
ture of their state making it mis-
demeanor to market unripe oranges
| They had realized, at last, that these
premature shipments to catch high
| prices were defeating their own end
! The man who had taken an orange
! as sour as lemon was not repeating
! the act, and when the ripe fruit die
| arrive it found no buyers. The Flor
| ida dealers found themselves being
| Disseminated against by the cOnsum
| ing public as a natural result of thei1
own haste and greed, and what the
| years of protest by Northern dealers
had been powerless to accomplish
was done quite promptly by the re
fusal of the public to buy. This bill
| has not wholly prevented individual
shipments of unripe fruit, and it i:
the effort of the Florida Citrus Elk
| change to detect and punish such rem
! egades that agitate the courts of tina
state at present.
1T is an amazingly unanimous row
The public demands an investigation
| the government proposes to Interfere
| The Northern dealers welcome the in
! reference, and the Southern grower
| wish the whole thing to be aired. Thu
fact is that an organization of Florid:
! growers voluntarily forced the ISSUE
in the hope of making an end t.
| shipments of unripe fruit which wer'
| injuring the whole market out of al
proportion to the higher price
| brought by sweated fruit. Incident
ally, the Florida Citrus Exchange i
being exploited in the national pres
in the most fiattering guise of defend
er of the faith and protector of tn
consumer, sounding public warnin
throughout the North against the sir
| full traffickers in unripe fruit. TIL
| exchange in obtaining more free &C
vertising than it could pay for in
decade: the public welfare is served
| we are made solid with the govern
ment. and the land is instructed i
| the strategy of getting something TO
| nothing from the newspapers, an ar
known to few save the press agen
the professional philanthropist an
artists or authors craving divorce o
grounds of temperament.
With such a concert of dissent, tn
sweating of fruit, except the humbl
efforts of the Italians aforesaid, is
practice with only a short term lei
to it. And if the banana as bet
fellow is a myth, and the ripening {
lunches by hanging in West End liz
ing-rooms is the only foundation fc
the tale, we, the people, may quie
ourselves with the thought that W
never buy of Giuseppe or Giovanni
If any mishap befalls him who doe:
why. what can you expect of chea