x INTRODUCTION 



this day actually explored, and that often very inadequately, by 

 Humboldt, Martius, myself and others, there should still remain 

 some 50,000 or even 80,000 species undiscovered." 



That was in 1864, and only a few of these new things have 

 since been introduced. Think, then, of the enormous number 

 yet to come from the warmer regions of the earth, that will 

 flourish here and help to beautify the gardens and homes of our 

 state. Hundreds of new things are coming in every year and in 

 many cases we receive almost no information with them. We 

 learn nothing of their habitats, whether they are trees, shrubs 

 or vines, nor anything of the treatment they need. Is it any 

 wonder that much of our gardening is merely an experiment, 

 that we lose a large number of our finest plants because we do 

 not know how to give them proper treatment? 



Indeed, for that matter, we scarcely know more of a great 

 number of plants which-are described in standard works on gar- 

 dening and are offered for sale by nurserymen. The grower here 

 must very often find these things out by his own, often bitter, 

 experience. He constantly finds himself planting things in the 

 wrong places, in improper soil, with wrong conditions of light 

 and shade and moisture; what he gives them for fertilizer may 

 be poison, and what he intends for the kindest treatment may 

 ruin them. It will sometimes happen that he will have plants 

 for years which do no good under various kinds of treatment 

 that with something still different begin to flourish. Again and 

 again I have tried plants under different conditions, losing one 

 after another until I concluded they were not adapted and could 

 not be grown here. Then, perhaps, I would see the same thing 

 growing for others like the proverbial green bay tree, and after 

 a trial under the right conditions it would succeed with me. 



It seems to be reasonable, then, that if any one here has had 

 any considerable experience in growing ornamentals in Florida 

 his knowledge, his successes and failures must be of some value 

 if given to others who have had little or no opportunities along 

 such lines, but who want to grow plants. This little work is in 

 no sense whatever a manual of gardening or an encyclopedia of 

 plants. Any one who has an extensive collection, or who culti- 

 vates on a large scale, should by all means have one or more 



