HORTICULTURE IN FLORIDA. 143 



Ware saw twenty-five on a stem not larger than his little finger ; 

 the buds which he saw are now in full bloom. At Mr. Phelps's 

 place he went up to the top of the house, from which he saw two 

 hundred acres or more of oranges, and beautiful lakes. He also 

 saw here a plant of the Cherokee rose, sixty feet in diameter and 

 twelve feet high. The plant was a mass of foliage ; the flowers, 

 which are large, pure white, and single, were not yet open, but it 

 was covered with buds. 



Benjamin G. Smith spoke warmly of the hospitalit}^ which the 

 pomologists received everj'^where. They went under the most 

 favorable auspices, and had the freedom of all the railroads in 

 Florida. Their trains were run into orange groves, and waited 

 for them to inspect the estates and test the productions. They 

 were invited to numerous receptions. As a memento of this visit 

 to Florida, he brought home an orange shoot eight feet and three 

 inches in length, and which had been three feet longer, but that 

 amount was cut off. Although it was but one season's growth, it 

 was an inch and a quarter in diameter at the butt, and three- 

 quarters of an inch at eight feet from the butt. 



Mr. Strong said that the development of Florida was all owing 

 to the railroads, which had been built beyond the demands of the 

 country. On such level ground, with the aid of the land grants 

 which have been given them, they could be built at a nominal 

 cost and the}' have spread over an immense territory. But the 

 whole had not been told — the sugar industry is going to exceed 

 all others. He saw one plant which promised wonderful results, 

 surpassing Louisiana, for the cane escapes frost and the manufac- 

 ture of sugar is not confined to a few weeks, as in Louisiana. 



Robert Manning spoke of a visit to Florida with the late Hon. 

 Marshall P. Wilder and other horticulturists twenty years ago, 

 and of the soil, apparently consisting only of sand, which had 

 been mentioned by previous speakers. As Colonel Wilder and he 

 were walking in the street in Jacksonville they met a man who 

 had come from Hudson, Mass., to prospect for some of his towns- 

 men who were thinking of settling in Florida. He began at the 

 western part of the State and came east to Jacksonville, and 

 remarked in a dr^' wa}', " I haven't seen any land in Florida yet 

 but what looked as if it would want to be manured about once in 

 twenty-four hours." And truly it did look so to a Northern eye ; 

 but the late Solon Robinson, well known as an agricultural writer, 

 who then lived at Jacksonville, informed the party that he had 



