Ornamentals 
H. S. Pennock 
About a week ago our President wrote 
to me and said, “Last fall you were ap¬ 
pointed on the Ornamental Committee 
with Miss Elizabeth Skinner as chair¬ 
man. Please get in touch with her.” 
I have been trying to make out why he 
withheld the good news so long; whether 
he thought by springing it on me at the 
last moment I would not have time to 
back out or whether he kept waiting to 
see if he could not do better. I am rather 
inclined to think it was the latter as he 
has already tried me twice previously, 
but perhaps he thought somewhat this 
way; “I have tried that fellow a couple 
of times and now I am going to do it 
just once more to see if he can’t do 
something.” I think he is going to be 
disappointed, though, as I hardly know 
the first thing about ornamentals. Now, 
if he had asked me to tell you something 
about a good looking cow I could have 
told you something—I could have told 
you she ought to have a nicely dished 
face with large placid eyes and a nice 
little pair of crooked horns and a good 
level back and so forth; or if he had asked 
me to say something about good looking 
roads I think I could have told how to 
make a good looking road and a lasting 
one too, but ornamentals, as I said before, 
I hardly know the first thing about. 
Take for instance the cabbage palmet¬ 
to, they are used a good deal for avenue 
planting, but I do not see anything very 
ornamental in them with their dead 
leaves hanging down below and dead ber¬ 
ry branches sticking out above. They 
can’t compare with the cocoanut or the 
phoenix canariensis. The cocoanuts are 
grand with their long swinging leaves, 
but of course they won’t grow much fur¬ 
ther north of here without being cut back 
with the cold pretty often. The canari¬ 
ensis is different in that respect as it will 
stand lots of cold. Lots of them are 
used about New Orleans and there are 
some fine ones there, too. It certainly 
doesn’t get any colder in Florida than it 
does in Louisiana and yet you see very 
few of them in Florida. One big advan¬ 
tage the cabbage palmetto has, it is cheap; 
the sprouted cocoanuts, though, for the 
southern part of Florida, are on a par 
with them as they can be bought for 
twelve dollars and a half a hundred. 
Then again, to show how little I know 
about ornamentals, is this, I think the 
yellow pine would make a fine avenue 
tree. I suppose they are too common to 
think about, but will they be common 
seventy-five or a hundred years hence? 
Can’t you imagine what a grand view an 
avenue of these fine big trees would make 
and have you ever noticed how interest¬ 
ing and handsome the trunks of the older 
124 
