13 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
15,000; and Trinidad about the same; 
and that in the whole Dutch East Indies 
which stretches for 3,000 miles around 
the, globe at the equator there are only 
80,000 Europeans and half castes. The 
Straits Settlements have not much over 
8,000; and Natal with its 35,000 square 
miles has only 98,000 whites in it, where¬ 
as Queensland with over half a million 
square miles of territory has only 380,000 
whites and the largest city in it which is 
the largest white city in the tropics has 
only 168,000 inhabitants. 
When you remember how small a pro¬ 
portion of people are interested in horti¬ 
culture anyway and how scattered the 
populations of the tropics are I believe 
you will be prepared to accept my state¬ 
ment that there are more people in Flor¬ 
ida who are interested in tropical horti¬ 
culture than in any other place in the 
world. 
At a risk even of offending those trop¬ 
ical regions of both hemispheres, there¬ 
fore, I believe it is perfectly proper to 
address you, gentlemen horticulturists of 
the Florida Horticultural Society, as the 
horticultural pioneers of the tropics. 
But you are so by reason of your po¬ 
sition rather than by reason of your ac¬ 
complishments, great as those have been; 
and it is my pleasure to address you to¬ 
day with a view of helping you go ahead 
and prove what I believe you have al¬ 
ready proved, that you are the chosen 
people, the great pioneers of tropical hor¬ 
ticulture. 
We all know that Florida can scarcely 
claim to have even her nose inside the re¬ 
gion of tropical lowlands. She might be 
compared with some great Mesa rising 
from some tropical plain with her plateau 
visited by the, cold winds and frosts of the 
8,000 foot altitude.’ She is too cold for 
the plants, but ideal for the people; and 
settling there like blackbirds on a rice 
field, they come in swarms. The whites 
have found a climate just above the trop¬ 
ics where they can live and work out of 
doors. This is one reason why you will 
be great pioneers. Horticulture is pecu¬ 
liarly an art of the hands. Who ever 
heard of a horticulturist who could not 
bud and graft and perform all of the nec¬ 
essary operations connected with the 
propagation of plants. 
But there is another great reason why 
you will be the, pioneers. It will pay you. 
The product of your art will have a com¬ 
mercial value. It will pay its way. Com¬ 
pare the lure of $750 profit from a single 
avocado tree or $130 from a mango tree 
with the lukewarm interest which a better 
variety of either of these fruits produces 
when offered in a market swarming with 
inferior varieties. 
“What is the, use?” said Dr. Kraemers 
from Java as he was' eating some deli¬ 
cious Florida oranges and bewailing the 
fact that they never had any good or¬ 
anges in Java. “The people would not 
pay any more for them if I introduced 
them.” 
Mr. Popenoe wrote me from Ecuador 
that he had found a plantation there of 
the most delicious of all tropical fruits— 
the Mangosteen, but that the fruits were 
rotting on the ground. Imagine it, gen¬ 
tlemen, fruits of the mangosteen, which 
has been rightly called the Queen of 
Tropical Fruits, going to waste in the 
only respectable sized orchard of that 
